The All Saints Church in
Henley Brook
Henley may refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Henley, Dorset, a List of United Kingdom locations: Hen-Hh#Hen, location
* Henley, Gloucestershire, a List of United Kingdom locations: Hen-Hh#Hen, location
* Henley-on-Thames, a town in South Oxfords ...
is the oldest
church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* Chris ...
in
Western Australia
Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...
. It was built by Richard Edwards between 1838 and 1840, with the first service taking place on 10 January 1841. The site is on a small hill overlooking the
Swan River and near the conjunction of the Swan and
Ellen Brook
Ellen Brook is an ephemeral stream which runs from south of Gingin to the Swan River in Western Australia.
Overview
The headwaters of Ellen Brook start south of Gingin, in the Wheatbelt region. From there, Ellen Brook travels south, gener ...
. This site was where
Captain James Stirling
Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...
camped during his 1827 exploration of the area.
1827 expedition
On 13 March 1827, Stirling's expedition of the Swan River finished in the area, unable to venture further upstream due to lack of navigable water. The party made camp on the high bank overlooking the river. He wrote in his diary:
"...the richness of the soil, the bright foliage of the shrubs, the majesty of the surrounding trees, the abrupt and red colour banks of the river occasionally seen, and the view of the blue mountains, from which we were not far distant, made the scenery of this spot as bieutiful as anything of the kind I have ever witnessed..."
Religious services
The distance to Perth for church attendees was unreasonable, so St Mary’s — Middle Swan, was opened in 1840. However, in the absence of a bridge, the Swan River made it too difficult for those on the west side of the river. It was decided that an additional church would be built on the west side of the river at Upper Swan.
[Register of Heritage Places - Assessment Documentation]
/ref>
Frederick Irwin
Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick Chidley Irwin, KH (22 March 1794 – 31 March 1860)
was acting Governor of Western Australia from 1847 to 1848.
Born in 1794 in Drogheda, Ireland, Frederick Chidley Irwin was the son of Reverend James Irwin. Some ...
, a devout Anglican, had been holding regular services on his property since 1830. The acre of land where Captain Stirling had camped was donated by Irwin and William Mackie, and in 1838 Reverend William Mitchell William Mitchell may refer to:
People
Media and the arts
* William Mitchell (sculptor) (1925–2020), English sculptor and muralist
* William Frederick Mitchell (1845–1914), British naval artist
* William M. Mitchell, American writer, ministe ...
was appointed rector. Richard Edwards, Irwin's manager at Henley Park
Henley Park is a country house and landscape garden in Bix and Assendon civil parish in the Chiltern Hills of South Oxfordshire, England. The house is about north of Henley-on-Thames. The park adjoins the county boundary with Buckinghamshire. ...
and a master bricklayer
A bricklayer, which is related to but different from a mason, is a craftsman and tradesman who lays bricks to construct brickwork. The terms also refer to personnel who use blocks to construct blockwork walls and other forms of masonry. ...
, undertook the building of the church.[Heritage Council of WA Assessment]
/ref>
With the assistance of local residents who donated both labour and materials, the church was completed in 1841. The flagstones of the church came from the ballast of ships that had sailed from England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. The first service was held on 10 January 1841. Bishop Augustus Short
Augustus Short (11 June 1802 – 5 October 1883) was the first Anglican bishop of Adelaide, South Australia.
Early life and career
Born at Bickham House, near Exeter, Devon, England, the third son of Charles Short, a London barrister, offsp ...
of Adelaide
Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...
consecrated All Saints Church in November 1848.
Services have been regularly held in the church since it was built. The Anglican Church
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the ...
holds services every Sunday, with additional services on significant occasions. All Saints Church is in the Anglican Parish of Swan. Prior to the establishment of the Perth diocese in 1857 churches in the Swan River Colony were part of the Adelaide diocese.
Cemetery
The cemetery that surrounds the church includes the graves of a number of individuals who were significant to the development of the colony: William Mackie, John Connelly and Richard Edwards are all buried in the graveyard. There is a memorial to George Fletcher Moore
George Fletcher Moore (10 December 1798 – 30 December 1886) was a prominent early settler in colonial Western Australia, and "one fthe key figures in early Western Australia's ruling elite" (Cameron, 2000). He conducted a number of exploring ...
inside the church.
In 1929, to mark the centenary of settlement, a lychgate
A lychgate, also spelled lichgate, lycugate, lyke-gate or as two separate words lych gate, (from Old English ''lic'', corpse), also ''wych gate'', is a gateway covered with a roof found at the entrance to a traditional English or English-style ch ...
was erected to mark the farthest point inland that Captain James Stirling's 1827 expedition reached. During 1974 a memorial wall was built in the south west corner of the cemetery. As part of the WAY 1979
WAY 79, also referred to as WAY '79 and WAY 1979, was the official 1979 sesquicentennial (150th anniversary) celebration of the European colonisation of Western Australia.
Planning
Preliminary planning for WAY 79 began shortly after the March 1 ...
celebrations the Western Australian chapter of the Australian Institute of Builders restored the lychgate. Wrought iron gates completed the boundary fence in 1991; the gates are decorated with the words ''All Saints'' and ''Ellen's Brook''.
References
Notes
Bibliography
*
*
External links
Heritage Council of WA listing (PDF)
City of Swan Heritage listing
{{Authority control
Henley Brook
Henley may refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Henley, Dorset, a List of United Kingdom locations: Hen-Hh#Hen, location
* Henley, Gloucestershire, a List of United Kingdom locations: Hen-Hh#Hen, location
* Henley-on-Thames, a town in South Oxfords ...
Henley Brook
Henley may refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Henley, Dorset, a List of United Kingdom locations: Hen-Hh#Hen, location
* Henley, Gloucestershire, a List of United Kingdom locations: Hen-Hh#Hen, location
* Henley-on-Thames, a town in South Oxfords ...
State Register of Heritage Places in the City of Swan
Victorian architecture in Western Australia
19th-century Anglican church buildings
Churches completed in 1841
1841 establishments in Australia