Elizabeth Town is a populated rural area in

Meander Valley Meander Valley Council is a Local government in Australia, local government body in northern Tasmania. It covers the western outskirts of Launceston, Tasmania, Launceston, and further westward along the Meander River, Tasmania, Meander River. ...

Tasmania Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...

bisected by the Bass Highway, midway between Devonport and Launceston. The area is largely a farming district. Significant agricultural enterprises include organic dairy producer Elgaar Farm, berry producer Christmas Hills Raspberry Farm and the Ashgrove Cheese Farm. Land grants began in the area from the 1820s, and later a town was laid out based on allotments. Until the 1970s, when some land was further subdivided on the east side of what is now the Bass Highway, the town area had only three houses and had not become a population centre. Consequent to the subdivision more dwellings were built and there were more than forty by 2002. At the 2006 census, the Elizabeth Town area had a population of 502. John Spicer built and opened a hotel on the road from Deloraine north to Devonport in the 1850s. Just prior to 1900 the then owner, Charles Slater, demolished the building replaced it with the current structure. Slater had used money from a lottery win to build the new hotel. The hotel, which sits by the Bass Highway, is now run as ETC—the Elizabeth Town café. Elizabeth once had a school, tennis courts, a Catholic church, an Anglican church, post office and a hall. Of these only two church buildings remain converted to houses.Greenhill, p.66 A post office opened on in September 1860, with a resident post master, and closed in 1969. The Tasmanian Archdiocese extended Roman

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

services to cover Elizabeth Town in 1924. A new church was built and first held services 22 January 1939. It was a contemporary style brick building with a tiled roof, concrete slab foundation, Tasmanian

hardwood Hardwood is wood from Flowering plant, angiosperm trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostl ...

ceiling and coloured leadlight windows. The church's land had been donated by Mr T Clearly, then owner of the hotel. The Church of Our Lady Help of Christians was designed to hold 100 parishioners.

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

services were first held in the Elizabeth Town state school. The foundation stone for the Anglican Holy Cross church was laid in January 1892 and it opened for services in January 1893. This church was replaced in the 1950s and a five sided apsidal sanctuary was built in 1955 and dedicated in August of the same year. The building was remodelled and had a vestry added in 1966. The church celebrated its 60th anniversary in December 1952, but by was only used for Christmas services. The church closed and a decision to sell it made in 2011 by the Parish of Deloraine to sell this in 2011.

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* * * {{authority control Localities of Meander Valley Council Towns in Tasmania