Churches of Tasmania

This is a story about a church that no longer exists. All that remains is a garden and a hall which also had a life as a Sunday school and a theatre. The Independent Church (built 1836) was demolished in 1920 and is now the site of the Dutch Garden in Launceston City Park which lies next to the Price Memorial Hall (built 1896 as a Sunday School). The hall is now the Tasmanian Design Centre but it also had a previous life as a theatre.   The founder of the Independent church, the Reverend Charles Price was a remarkable man, and he is associated with the founding of two other churches in the city, which will be investigated in later blog histories. I have used an article from the Examiner in 1920, the year in which the church was demolished, as it sums up its history fairly comprehensively. The photos which accompany this blog entry show the beautiful Price Memorial Hall, the Dutch Gardens occupying the site of the former church and a photograph of Price's original Independe...