Churches of Tasmania

Riverside is a northern suburb of Launceston that falls under the authority of the West Tamar Municipality. As the name suggests, the church is located next to a tailrace discharging water from the Trevallyn Hydroelectric Power Station. The Riverside Community Church belongs to an evangelical group of churches known as the Acts 2 Alliance. This is a relatively new group consisting of about 30 churches across Australia.  The Tailrace Community Church is associated with The Tailrace Centre.  The church was established by Tim O' Neill in 1994 as the New Directions Community Church. In 2012 the New Directions Church developed the Tailrace Centre, a unique 3500 sq. m. conference, convention and function complex 3 kilometres from the centre of Launceston, which includes Kids Paradise and a café restaurant. The Tailrace Centre has attracted much positive attention from local, Australian and overseas interests and is designed to help the ministries of the church connect daily with p...

Wynyard is a town on the northwest coast approximately 20 kilometres west of the city of Burnie. The area around Wynyard was originally named Table Cape by the explorers Bass and Flinders. The name was changed to Wynyard in the 1850s, in honour of Edward Buckley Wynyard, Lieutenant-General of the New South Wales Corps. C3 Church Global, formerly known as Christian City Church International, is a charismatic church founded by Phil Pringle and Christine Pringle. The first church was started in Dee Why on the Northern Beaches of Sydney in 1980. C3 Church Global now has over 500 churches worldwide. The C3 church was located in the former Kamarah Hostel of Wynyard High School. The hostel provided accommodation for students attending Wynyard High and Hellyer College in Burnie. The church acquired the building in 2001 and the building was extended and developed in 2006. The church closed in 2024 and the building was put up for sale.  The Wynyard church was one of four C3 Churches in Tasm...

The town of Beaconsfield, previously known as Brandy Creek, dates back to the late 1840s when small quantities of gold was discovered in the area. Commercial gold mining only got underway in the 1870s which led to a substantial growth in the town’s population. Brandy Creek was renamed Beaconsfield in 1879 in honour of Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield and British Prime Minister. By this time the reef was the richest gold discovery anywhere in Australia and virtually overnight Beaconsfield became Tasmania's third largest town. As a mining boom town, Beaconsfield attracted a number of religious denominations with seven churches operating in the township at one stage. Amongst these was a gospel hall which was active from 1882 through to the late 1880s. Very little is known about this building and there are no reports in local newspapers about its construction or opening. The only record of the building’s location is a report in 1883 in Launceston’s Daily Telegraph which n...

Kings Meadows is a southern suburb of the city of Launceston. Kings Meadows grew rapidly after World War Two but few places of worship have been established in the area since it was first settled in the mid 19th century. The Branch Christian Church is one of only two denominations now active in the suburb. The Branch Christian Church was founded in 1999. The church went on to established a place of worship in Kings Meadows in 2006. The church is a member of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches which currently has 39 churches in Australia including two in Tasmania. Additional information and sources about the church and building are most welcome as all articles are updated. I can be contacted through this page or my Facebook page "Churches of Tasmania" which is linked here: < Churches of Tasmania > Links of interest: https://www.thebranch.org.au https://www.fiec.org.au

Montello an inner southern suburb of Burnie situated on the Montello Hills between the city and Upper Burnie. The name comes from the hills named by the Van Diemen's Land Company. The Montello Community Church situated in Mace Street was opened in 1952 as the Montello Gospel Hall. I have not established which denomination the original church was affiliated with but from its beginnings in the late 1940’s it was a community focused church in the Evangelical tradition. In October 1952 the Burnie Advocate reported on the opening of the new Gospel Hall: “The opening services of the recently-completed Gospel Hall in Mace st., Montello, yesterday were attended by large congregations, representative of several denominations and the Montella Progress Association. The hall was built largely by voluntary labor. Services were conducted at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Prayers were read yesterday afternoon by Mr. O. A. Simpson and Mr. F. H. Atkinson, who conducted the meeting….In a welcoming speech, Mr. A...

Port Sorell is a small coastal town on Tasmania’s central north coast. Originally known as Burgess, it was settled early in the 1840’s with the intention of it becoming an administrative centre. With the development of Devonport to the west, it declined as a populated centre. In 1904 the “Travelling Correspondent” for the Hobart Mercury was dismissive of what he saw at the settlement: “A lonely, desolate place is about the most accurate way to describe Port Sorell. There are about four dwellings in the locality, and one cannot wonder what tempted the inhabitants to settle there the first day as the surrounding country is of very poor quality…” Today Port Sorell and neighbouring Shearwater have become a pleasant holiday and commuter town. Due to its slow growth, the first churches at Port Sorell were only established around the mid-twentieth century. The Port Sorell Gospel Chapel has the distinction of being the first church established at the town. It began as a Sunday school whi...

This simple yet quaint, Gothic inspired building in the Launceston suburb of North Riverside was built soon after World War Two as a gospel hall. As early as the 1930s, the site was designated to the Roman Catholic Church before any suburbs were present and was developed when the area was opened up as the suburb of North Riverside. Though a few churches operate within the Riverside area, this building is the oldest out of only 3 purpose-built churches in the area; the others being St David's Church near the Ecclestone Road intersection and St Francis Church in the former hydro village of Marrawaylee (now West Riverside).