Union Church, Nuwara Eliya

Union Church, is an interdenominational church, located on Old Uddpussalawa Road in Nuwara Eliya.[1]

The church was founded Rev. Arthur Stephen Paynter in 1906 and was the first church in Nuwara Eliya that was open to all races.

Paynter, was born 8 July 1862 in Bicester, Oxfordshire, England, where his father was a church warden.[2] In 1881 he joined the Salvation Army and traveled to India as a missionary.[2] He traveled throughout India and Ceylon, becoming a Colonel and was in-charge of the Salvation Army in Ceylon.[2] In 1893 Paynter married Anagi (Agnes) Louisa Weerasooriyaa (1863-1962), the daughter of David Weerasooriyaa, from Dodanduwa.[3][4] She had previously joined the Salvation Army on 1 August 1884. They both worked in India and after a few years they resigned from the Salvation Army, over the Army’s refusal to admit non-Europeans to its ranks, founding the India Christian Mission (Raj-i-Masih) on 1 November 1897 in Almora District of then Uttar Pradesh State.[2] They moved to Ceylon in 1904, and decided to start a mission in Nuwara Eliya. They had four children, Evangeline, Arnold (b. 1897), Ava Averil and David (b.1900).[4][5] Arnold continued his father's missionary work and in 1924 established the Nuwara Eliya Children's Home (later renamed "The Paynter Home"), for orphaned children,[4][6] and David was an internationally renowned painter, who received an OBE.[3][7] The Paynters constructed the church as a place of worship for Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, members of the Dutch Reformed Church, Scots Kirk, Church of South India and the Salvation Army.[8] Paynter died on 27 July 1933.[2]

The church continues to function as an interdenominational church, with ministers supplied by the Methodist Church in Sri Lanka.[9]

On 17 May 2013 the building was formally recognised by the Government as an Archaeological Protected Monument.[10]