St Andrew's Church, Brighton

In 1842, the first St Andrew's Church building was opened on 30 November. As the day of the opening of the first church building was dedicated to Saint Andrew in the church calendar, the parish was named St Andrew's.[1] Although St Andrew's Brighton was the second Anglican church established in the Port Phillip District, following the elevation of St James’ Church, Melbourne to Cathedral status in 1848 and the subsequent closure of the St James’ Old Cathedral building in 1912 and the consequent removal of the building to new land in West Melbourne in 1913-1914, St Andrew's Brighton has the longest continuous history of any Anglican church in Victoria.[1] The Revd Adam Compton Thomson, the only Anglican priest in the Port Phillip District at the time, opened the first building and was the first to minister to the Brighton congregation.[5]

On 24 October 1843, the two-acre St Andrew's Graveyard, established to the north-east of the first building, was consecrated by Bishop William Grant Broughton, the first and only Bishop of Australia. The graveyard was the first portion of the existing church land to be used for religious purposes and is a rare surviving example in Victoria of a pre-gold rush graveyard.[4] The first burial took place the following year, well before the opening of the Brighton General Cemetery in 1855, and St Andrew's Cemetery was the major burial ground for the district. More than 300 burials took place, mostly before 1860, and the graves of many district pioneers are located in the graveyard. After over 100 years of interments, the last burial took place in 1948. However, the adjoining garden of remembrance, established in 1953, remains in use.[4] Melbourne's oldest churchyard cemetery, the St Andrew's Graveyard is one of only four remaining churchyard cemeteries in Melbourne.[6]

Opened on St Andrew's Day, 30 November 1842, this small stone building, erected to the south of the present site in 1842 as No. 1 St Andrews Street, was used as a church and school. However, the north-western extension of Church Street, from St Andrews Street to the junction with New Street, isolated the southern portion of the "Church Reserve" from the main site soon after construction. This southern portion was not conveyed to the church in 1843 and other development took place on that land.[3] The building seated 100 people, about 20% of the local population of 500, and was one of the first church buildings in the south-eastern mainland of the Diocese of Australia.[2] In 1843, it was recorded that 75 pupils were enrolled at the newly established St Andrew's School, which was officially opened as School No. 44 in 1849 by Church of England authorities.[7]

A surviving ironstone church in East Brighton, built in 1850, similar to the second St Andrew's Church

On 29 August 1850, The Right Reverend Charles Perry, Bishop of Melbourne, laid the foundation stone for a rectangular ironstone church, designed by architect, Melbourne city surveyor and St Andrew's parishioner, Charles Laing.[8] This building was erected to the north-west of the St Andrew's Graveyard, featured plastered brick reveals and trims, was Gothic Revival in style and included a tower that was never built in the scheme. Seating 250 people, it was opened on 12 October 1851 by The Revd William Brickwood, Vicar from 1849 to 1853. In the late 1920s, the present Vicarage was built on the site of this second church building.[3]

St Andrew's Church, Brighton, designed by Charles Webb and built in 1857

By 1857, the congregation had outgrown the second church building.[4] The parishioner, Brighton resident and prolific Melbourne architect Charles Webb, and his partner Thomas Taylor, were commissioned to design a new bluestone church, school house and vicarage.[9] "King Webb" designed the new bluestone church in the Early English Gothic style, with a prominent bellcote surmounting the gable, a small gabled western entrance porch, a seven-bay nave and small chancel. Webb's building was considered "one of the more perfect examples of a church of the period in the Colony"[10] and the majority of the building, including the distinctive western facade, remains a Brighton landmark.

St Andrew's School House, Brighton

The ironstone church building was demolished and some of the stone used in the construction of a T-shaped school house building.[4] St Andrew's School, originally established in the first small wooden church building 15 years earlier, continued to operate in this ironstone school building until 1875 when students were relocated to a new school in Brighton, established after the state school system was introduced in 1872.[7] The school house was then used for Sunday School and other church activities.

In 1886, a north wing was added to the school house building, creating the symmetrical H-shaped building which survives today. Designed in a Gothic Revival style, the symmetrical H-shaped school house is constructed of random coursed, locally quarried ironstone and is roofed in slate. It has projecting gabled end wings, a central projecting entry porch and render detailing that includes parapets, finials, angle buttresses, window and door surrounds and gable vents. When additions were made to the church building in 1886, the altar and furnishings from the demolition of the chancel were installed in the central space of the school house.[7] The building is currently used as a café and coffee shop.

St Andrew's School House is of architectural and historical significance to the State of Victoria as one of the few surviving examples of Charles Webb's distinctive institutional buildings, as a rare example of a building constructed of local ironstone and as a rare surviving example of a substantial early denominational school building.[7]

The 1886 Lloyd Tayler additions to St Andrew's Church, viewed from the south transept

In the 1860s and 1870s, Brighton further expanded as a desirable beach-side suburb and by 1886 necessary additions were made to the church.

Large sandstone transepts and an apsidal chancel were added to the existing bluestone church by 'probably the best known figure in the architectural profession in Melbourne',[11] architect Lloyd Tayler. Built in the High Victorian Gothic style, and constructed of Oamaru limestone from New Zealand, Charles Webb's bluestone church served as the nave in the enlarged building.[4]

The 1857 Charles Webb nave looking east, through the rood screen, to the 1886 Lloyd Tayler chancel

As the simpler Early English Gothic and decorated High Victorian Gothic architectural styles were not considered visually compatible,[4] there was provision for either replacing the bluestone nave, or cladding it in Oamaru limestone to complement the transepts and chancel.

The 1886 Lloyd Tayler interior featured elaborate woodwork in the sanctuary fittings including a large rood screen and divided choir stalls, and magnificent stained glass windows in the transepts and chancel. The designs for Tayler's additions, opened in August 1886 and costing £7,000 – a substantial sum for the time, were clearly influenced by the most prolific 19th century Gothic Revivalists, including A.W.N. Pugin and Sir George Gilbert Scott.[4]

St Andrew's Parish Hall showing the oversized timber hammer beam trusses

In 1928, St Andrew's Parish Hall, designed by architect Louis Williams, was built to the east of the 19th century school house building. This large Arts and Crafts-influenced building facing St Andrews Street is constructed of clinker brick and the symmetrical front facade contains a broad central jerkinhead gable roof.

The exposed brick interior of the building contains oversized timber hammer beam trusses and large folding timber doors that line both sides of the central hall. All timberwork remains unpainted.[3] The Parish Hall is used daily by numerous organizations for a large variety of events.

In 1954, over 70 years after the construction of the transepts and chancel, the nave of Lloyd Tayler's grand design for the church building had not been completed, and proposals were made by the noted Melbourne architect John F. D. Scarborough to demolish the 1857 bluestone building, still functioning as the nave, and rebuild a wider nave using the bluestone facings and arches.[4]

Scarborough's proposals did not proceed, and the 1857 nave and 1886 transepts and chancel were largely destroyed by a devastating fire on Sunday evening 19 February 1961. Given the nave timber ceiling over 100 years old, the fire quickly engulfed the building and the damage was such that a restoration was impractical, even had that been considered appropriate.[4]

On 20 February 1961, the day following the fire, the renowned Australian church architect and parishioner, Louis Williams, was appointed to be the architect for a new church building.[4]

The main entrance to St Andrew's Church

As it was decided to retain the west end and four bays from the nave of Charles Webb's bluestone church built in 1857, the main section of the new church building, incorporating a new nave, transepts and sanctuary, was reorientated and set at a right angle to the bluestone building, so the new nave was built on a north-south axis rather than the traditional liturgical east-west.[4]

Sir Edward Maufe’s design for Guildford Cathedral in England, consecrated in 1961, was held up as “an example of good taste”[4] for the design of the new St Andrew's Church and many of Louis Williams' personal ecclesiastical design ideas are also apparent at St Andrew's. Williams retained “the traditional layout of an Anglican church favoured by ecclesiologists in the 19th century and following the pre-Reformation pattern”,[4] and used a modern Gothic style for overall design with modern materials and construction methods. Williams had used this conservative approach frequently and successfully in other smaller buildings in suburban Melbourne and country Victoria.[4]

Nave looking "west" to the large pipe organ, branching out from the "Tree of Life" window

Williams’ desire for extremely generous planning is manifest throughout the main church with well-spaced pews, a clear view of the altar, wide aisles, a vast sanctuary and a large choir and organ gallery at the rear with a spacious narthex below. The narthex's low ceiling emphasises the height of the nave and sanctuary, "which is obvious as one enters the body of the church and the walls seem to rise in an impressive upsurge - 'an offering of height'."[10]

The windowless recessed sanctuary wall, lit by concealed clear side windows, was originally intended to be enriched with a reredos of Venetian vitreous mosaic, "rising towards its summit in a stirring outburst of joyous, expressive colour".[12] The commissioning of this large and colourful mosaic, however, was deferred and finished instead with a large cross. The sanctuary recess now features a bronze sculpture of the prodigal son by Guy Boyd below this "temporary" cross. The sculpture was installed in 1987, the new church building's 25th anniversary.[4]

An external wall of the nave, showing some of the individual lancet windows filled with German-made "antique" glass

The main church building, of cruciform shape with shallow transepts, has a steel frame; red autumn-tinted "ripple-tex" brick was used for the exterior and hard-faced "oatmeal"-coloured cream brick for the interior. The dimensions are spacious: the building is almost 200 feet long and the nave is nearly 50 feet high with a distinctive ceiling of golden anodised aluminium tiles. Externally, the copper flèche over the crossing is nearly 120 feet high.

The nave of the present building, the “Cathedral of Light”, is a vast light-filled space. Large stained glass windows and travertine piers dominate the cream brick walls; clear glass doors, placed the entire length of one side of the nave, open to the cloister garden.

The middle of the external "west" front carries a large lancet arch alcove flanked by brickwork walls nearly 50 feet high incorporating the foundation stone for the 1962 building. Shown within the lancet alcove are the "Tree of Life" window and three-panelled mosaic, the central panel of which features the saltire or St Andrew's Cross

Many artistic features in the main building are the result of the close collaboration between Louis Williams and the Dutch-Australian artist Rein Slagmolen of Vetrart Studios, including the brass representations of the Four Evangelists on the 'Polylite' pulpit and lectern panels, the copper font cover featuring a dove and vine leaves, and the "Tree of Life" west window.

Using the German-made "antique" stained glass favoured by Williams,[4] the windows in the nave are toned from quiet and cooler colours to richer and warmer colours as they progress to the sanctuary and the intended artistic highlight of the main building, the vibrant and multi-coloured sanctuary mosaic. The stained glass in the main building is non-figurative, relying instead on the colour gradation of the leadlight to imply symbolic references.

The sanctuary and baptistery windows are predominantly deep blues, greens and reds, while the large Tree of Life west window, by Rein Slagmolen, at the opposite end of the building, uses cool blues at the base rising to warm golds at the top of the window.

The "west" front of St Andrew's Church, showing the large Tree of Life great west window

The west window tracery was designed to suggest the branching of a tree; the impression is enhanced by the inclusion of leaf-shaped russet-coloured glass at the apex of the window and the large double-winged organ cases branching out from the "tree".[4]

The rose window in the "south" transept

The south transept features a large and richly traceried rose window above the exposed pipework of the transept division of the pipe organ; the rose window tracery, with its "leaf-like pattern" also provides a subtle link to the Tree of Life west window.[10]

The interior of the main church building stands as a testament to Williams’ intention to make the present St Andrew's nave “a symphony of light and colour”[4] as distant as possible from the “dim religious light of the Victorian era”.[4]

All the furniture and furnishings within the church building were made to Williams' designs, and represent one of the largest collections of mid 20th century ecclesiastical furniture in Australia.[4]

The Pioneer Chapel and, to the left, part of the chancel opened in 1962.

The old bluestone nave built in 1857, in Early English Gothic style and typical of the work of Charles Webb, remains as the Pioneer Memorial Chapel. In 1961, in order to reconcile the proportions of the old bluestone nave and convert it to its present use as a chapel and baptistery, three bays of the original seven-bay bluestone nave were demolished.[4]

External view of part of the cloister

Cloister garden

Externally, the Pioneer Chapel is linked to the narthex of the new building by a large arcaded cloister with an internal cloister garden, extremely rare in any cathedral or church in Australasia.

Significantly, the original west end of the 1857 bluestone church building, a distinctive Brighton landmark with its prominent bellcote, bracketed string course, triple lancet window tracery, pinnacled corner buttresses and original main entrance porch remains as the symmetrical western façade of the Pioneer Chapel.[3]

As the original triple lancet west window was destroyed in the 1961 fire, the opportunity was taken to commission a mural from the leading one-armed Australian muralist Napier Waller to complete the internal western wall of the Chapel; externally, the stone tracery remains with blacked-in stone. The Pioneer Memorial Mural depicts the “pioneers of Brighton landing from Port Phillip Bay and setting about the task of building a new church.”[4]

This intimate space, to the north-west of the crossing in the main church, was designed as the Chapel of the Incarnation. The stained glass windows by David Taylor Kellock, a Scottish-trained Ballarat artist favoured by Louis Williams, represent “the work of Christ and His Church in the redemption of the world in all its aspects”.[4]

The Lady Chapel windows are among the most successful examples of Kellock's work;[13] the repetition of the "Tree of Life" west window "tree-form" tracery within the stained glass unifies these figurative windows with the non-figurative windows of the main building and gave Kellock the basic composition for each scene.[13]

In addition to the six Kellock stained glass windows, the Lady Chapel also houses a notable dossal (“The Crowning of the Virgin”) and altar frontal (“There is a Green Hill far away”) by Beryl Dean, the leading ecclesiastical textile artist.[4]

1962-64: Davis & Laurie, Melbourne

Following the devastating fire in February 1961 which destroyed the third church building and previous Memorial Organ, the new four-manual War Memorial Grand Organ, designed by the Organist of St Andrew's: Ian L. Thomas, was dedicated on Easter Day 1964 in the newly rebuilt ‘Cathedral of Light’. It has been played almost daily ever since for services, concerts, weddings, funerals, lessons and recordings.[4]

Australian-made between 1962 and 1964 by the Melbourne firm of Davis & Laurie, the instrument is a memorial to Australians killed in the 20th century's two World Wars. There are nearly 3,000 pipes and 64 speaking stops speaking into ‘one of the most beautiful acoustics’ in Australia. One of Australasia's landmark musical instruments, at the time of its opening the War Memorial Grand Organ aroused much attention as one of the most exciting new instruments in Australasia. It was the subject of many enthusiastic reviews both around Australasia and internationally.[4]

The organ is one of very few in the world with twin four-manual consoles.[4] It also has a full-length 32’ wooden reed: the ‘Contra Bombarde’. Contemporaneous with the large locally-built instrument in St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne opened three months after the War Memorial Grand Organ, the instrument was the first in Australasia to have a horizontal reed stop ‘en chamade’ – the ‘Festal Trumpet’.[4] The Gallery and Transept divisions are over 100 feet apart, giving inspirational ‘stereo’ antiphonal effects.[4]

Specification of the War Memorial Grand Organ (Davis & Laurie: 1962-64)

Electro-pneumatic and electro-mechanical key, coupler and stop action. Compass: 61/32. 64 levels of adjustable General and Divisional memory.