Churches of Tasmania

Longley is a rural settlement approximately 20 kilometres south of Hobart. The area was originally named Leslie, a name that has been preserved in Leslie Hill which lies on the eastern side of Longley. The focus of this article is on the first Catholic church built at Longley. St Columba’s opened in 1885 and was destroyed in bushfires which swept through Southern Tasmania in 1898. It was replaced by a new church in 1899. While the church existed for a little over 10 years, and no photograph of the building exists, the building’s history is vividly captured in three newspaper reports, covering the churches beginnings through to its destruction. The reports from the Hobart Mercury have been mostly reproduced here in full as they beautifully capture the texture of life of the faithful Catholic community living along the Huon Track. The first report tells the story of the ceremonial laying of the church’s foundation stone on Sunday 9 March 1884: “Yesterday, in the presence of a large co...