No. 1597 - Lileah - Methodist and Anglican Church Communities

-
This article is one in a series about public buildings in country areas that were used as places of worship. In these communities churches may have been planned but were never built due to lack of finance or changing circumstances. In many settlements, before a church was built, worship was typically held in homes, schoolrooms, barns, halls and other buildings. Conversely, in some communities, churches were sometimes the first public building erected and were used as schools and community halls. The focus of this series will primarily be on the public halls and schools that were used as churches. These buildings, and the religious communities which used them, are often overlooked in published histories of churches.

Lileah is a rural settlement south east of Irishtown in the Circular Head region. Most of Lileah was selected for settlement between the years 1895 and 1910 and was developed by farmers from the Stanley, Forest, Irishtown and Scotchtown districts.

While a church was never built at Lileah, the settlement nevertheless had active Anglican and Methodist communities which used Lileah State school as a place of worship over a period of 20 years. The school was built in 1926 and closed in the early 1950s. In 1954 school was converted and extended for use as a community centre. The building still exists and has been converted into a house. It is located near the intersection of Youngs; South and Lovetts Roads.

The first religious service at the school was held in November 1926 following an application by Mr E. H. Ling to use the building “for religious services on Sunday evenings fortnightly”. These services appear to have been connected to the Gospel Hall at Smithton. By the early 1930s, the Methodists, under the Smithton Circuit, were regularly holding services at the school and these continued until the late 1940s. The Anglican community at Lileah fell under the Stanley Parish. Services at Lileah commenced in the mid 1940s and continued until the late 1950s by which time the school had been converted into a public hall.


The former Lileah school which was extended and developed as a public hall in the 1950s.


An early photograph of the Lileah school when the building was used by Methodist and Anglican communities as a place of worship. Source: Circular Head Connections, Facebook Group.


Sources:

Advocate, Wednesday 13 January 1926, page 4
Circular Head Chronicle, Wednesday 17 November 1926, page 6
Circular Head Chronicle, Wednesday 17 November 1926, page 5
Circular Head Chronicle, Wednesday 22 March 1933, page 2
Circular Head Chronicle, Wednesday 20 July 1938, page 3
Advocate, Wednesday 20 March 1946, page 4
Circular Head Chronicle, Wednesday 11 May 1949, page 2
Circular Head Chronicle, Wednesday 17 November 1954, page 9
Advocate, Saturday 11 September 1954, page 15
Circular Head Chronicle, Wednesday 3 November 1954, page 2

Tasmanian State Archives, Anglican Parish of Stanley, Register of Services (NG884) 01 December 1842 - 01 July 1983

Stansall, M. E. J. and Methodist Church of Australasia.  Tasmanian Methodism, 1820-1975 / [by M.E.J. Stansall ... et al]  Methodist Church of Australasia Launceston, Tas  1975




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome to Churches of Tasmania

-
Image
I love history and photography and also have an interest in architecture. When I started this blog in 2017 I had the goal of photographing every historical church in Tasmania. This was initially driven by the proposed mass sell-off of Anglican churches. I was concerned that these buildings would be modified and no longer be accessible once in private hands. As the years have passed this goal has changed to writing short histories of each and every church built in Tasmania, of which there are about 1600.   My earliest posts are rather amateurish but my research and writing has improved somewhat over the years.  In time my hope is to revise and update every article to a publishable standard. I have received an overwhelming amount of material from followers of the blog and I will incorporate this into the articles in the revision phase. Eventually I hope to publish the best of the articles. At present the blog attracts about 1000 views per day and I hope that this will continue ...
Read more

No. 592 - Gretna - St Mary the Virgin - "Worthy of Imitation"

-
Image
Gretna is a small township in the Derwent Valley approximately 60 kilometres from Hobart. The area was originally known as Stony Plains Hut and Macquarie Plains. The name Gretna was adopted in the early 20th century. The origin of this name comes from a local farm called ‘Gretna Green’ and also an Inn established in the 1860’s which bore the same name. Another Inn, the Woolpack Inn, was the scene of a gunfight between the bushranger Martin Cash and members of the local constabulary. Gretna’s only church stood a few hundred metres from the inn and Cash and his gang hid in the bush near the church until nightfall prior to raiding the Inn. For many years St Mary’s was known as “The Woolpack Church”. St Mary’s the Virgin was built in 1847 and was opened and consecrated by Bishop Nixon on 1 June 1848. At the service, Edward Terry, the owner of Askrigg estate presented the deed of land on which the church was built to Bishop Nixon. Before the church was erected it is believed that Anglican s...
Read more

No. 624 - Dunalley - St Martin's Anglican Church - "In grateful memory of the men who fought in the Great War"

-
Image
Dunalley is village on the Arthur Highway approximately 60 kilometres east of Hobart. It stands on the narrow isthmus connected to the Forestier Peninsula. The Denison Canal runs through the village and connects Blackman Bay and Fredrick Henry Bay. Dunalley was badly affected by bushfires in January 2013 with the town losing over 60 buildings including the Police Station and school. St Martin’s is the only public building left standing after the fires. St Martin’s Anglican has recently featured in the news following its sale. It is one of over 50 churches to be sold to meet the Anglican Church’s commitment to the National Redress Scheme. St Martin’s is an unusual church into two respects. Firstly, it is constructed from stone from the former Government stores at the old Coal Mines penal station at Saltwater River, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Secondly, the church was built as a memorial to the men of the district who fought and died in the Great War. As such, the buildin...
Read more