St Marks Anglican Church is a heritage-listed

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

at 7 Eacham Road,

Yungaburra Yungaburra is a rural town and locality in the Tablelands Region, Queensland, Australia. In the , the locality of Yungaburra had a population of 1,272 people. Geography Yungaburra is on the Atherton Tableland in Far North Queensland. The ...

Tablelands Region The Tablelands Region is a Local government in Australia, local government area in Far North Queensland, Australia inland from the city of Cairns, Queensland, Cairns. Established in 2008, it was preceded by four previous local government areas ...

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

, Australia. It was built in 1912. It is also known as St Marks Church of England. It was added to the

Queensland Heritage Register The Queensland Heritage Register is a heritage register, a statutory list of places in Queensland, Australia that are protected by Queensland legislation, the Queensland Heritage Act 1992. It is maintained by the Queensland Heritage Council. As ...

on 21 October 1992.

History

St Mark's Church was built in 1912 to serve

Anglicans 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 ...

in the newly developing township of Yungaburra and the surrounding district. The first Europeans on the

Atherton Tablelands The Atherton Tableland is a fertile plateau, which is part of the Great Dividing Range in Queensland, Australia. It has very deep, rich basaltic soils and the main industry is agriculture. The principal river flowing across the plateau is the ...

were engaged in timbergetting and mining, but the rich volcanic soil and cool climate was thought particularly suitable for agriculture. In 1888 the government surveyor marked out a village settlement at Allumbah Pocket, later to be named Yungaburra. The Village Settlement scheme, introduced in 1885, offered 40 acre farm blocks plus home sites clustered as a village. Around the same time as the Tablelands railway from the port of

Cairns Cairns (; ) is a city in the Cairns Region, Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. In the , Cairns had a population of 153,181 people. The city was founded in 1876 and named after William Cairns, Sir W ...

to the Tableland was begun, although it took far longer to reach its objective than originally envisaged. The first farms at Allumbah were taken up in 1891 and the settlers grew vegetables, maize and kept dairy cows. However, without proximity to markets and reliable transport, the scheme was not successful. The Closer Settlement Act of 1906 provided for groups of authorised people to take up land prior to it being thrown open for general settlement and many miners came from

Charters Towers Charters Towers is a rural town in the Charters Towers Region, Queensland, Australia. It is by road south-west from Townsville on the Flinders Highway. During the last quarter of the 19th century, the town boomed as the rich gold deposits und ...

which was by then in decline. Some people settled as part of groups and some individually. A small town developed to service the area and in 1910, the railway line linking Cairns with the Tablelands reached Allumbah, which was then renamed Yungaburra to avoid confusion with another similarly named town. The Post Office Directory for this year lists almost all residents as "selectors." A period of rapid development began with the construction of a saw mill, a hotel and a number of shops and houses near the Yungaburra railway station. In 1911, Eacham Shire was formed. The first Anglican services in Yungaburra were held in William's hotel hall by members of the Brotherhood of St Barnabas (also known as the Bush Brothers). The Brotherhood was established in 1902 by the Reverend Aneurin Vaughan-Williams, Rector of Herberton. Originally consisting only of Vaughan-Williams and one other priest, it was modelled on the Brotherhood of St Andrew founded in central Queensland a few years earlier. It was intended to address the problem of providing pastoral care to a large and sparsely settled area and the Brotherhood initially visited mainly mining camps. The Brothers travelled where they were needed and remained unmarried during the two years of their term of service. They gained considerable respect for their work and in 1908, George Frodsham, Bishop of North Queensland, gave the movement impetus by recruiting in England. The first service at St Mark's church was conducted on 5 December 1912 and the first baptism on 16 March 1913, but the church was not dedicated until 7 November 1913. In 1918 a vestry was added at the front of the church. In 1926, the

Gillies Highway The Gillies Highway is a road that runs from Gordonvale in the Cairns Region through the Gillies Range (part of the Great Dividing Range) to Atherton in the Tablelands Region, both in Queensland, Australia. Its official name is Gillies Range ...

between Yungaburra and Gordonvale was opened, providing the first trafficable road from the coast to the Tablelands. Yungaburra became a gateway to the natural attractions of the area and a blossoming tourist trade to the nearby lakes created a second period of development. Tourism has remained a major industry in the area. St Mark's does not have a resident priest, but is served as part of a parish which is centred on Atherton, where a married rector replaced the Brothers in 1951, and also covers Herberton and Malanda. A self- help program was commenced by the congregation in July 1998 that raised funds to replace the roof and carry out conservation work in 2000–2001.

Description

St Mark's is a small single-storeyed timber building set on low, square section metal posts. It has a steeply pitched

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

d roof clad in corrugated iron. To the rear of the church is a 3 sided apse and placed centrally at the front is a lower and narrower gabled roof covering a small vestry which is linked to the church by an entrance

porch A porch (; , ) is a room or gallery located in front of an entrance to a building. A porch is placed in front of the façade of a building it commands, and forms a low front. Alternatively, it may be a vestibule (architecture), vestibule (a s ...

. This is entered by timber

stairs Stairs are a structure designed to bridge a large vertical direction, vertical distance between lower and higher levels by dividing it into smaller vertical distances. This is achieved as a diagonal series of horizontal platforms called steps wh ...

on the left hand side. A probable matching entrance on the opposite side is now closed. Above this, under the

eaves The eaves are the edges of the roof which overhang the face of a wall and, normally, project beyond the side of a building. The eaves form an overhang to throw water clear of the walls and may be highly decorated as part of an architectural sty ...

of the church, is a louvred

belfry The belfry /ˈbɛlfri/ is a structure enclosing bells for ringing as part of a building, usually as part of a bell tower or steeple. It can also refer to the entire tower or building, particularly in continental Europe for such a tower attached ...

. Timber double doors lead from the porch into the church, which is lit by plain

lancet window A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a sharp pointed arch at its top. This arch may or may not be a steep lancet arch (in which the compass centres for drawing the arch fall outside the opening). It acquired the "lancet" name from its rese ...

s, as is the

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government of a parish in England, Wales and some English colony, English colonies. At their height, the vestries were the only form of local government in many places and spen ...

. The interior is simple and austere and has a

coved ceiling A coved ceiling is a ceiling that has had the visual appearance of the point where the ceiling meets the walls improved by the addition of coving. It can also refer to a ceiling, like in a Mosque A mosque ( ), also called a masjid ( ), is a ...

of stained timber boards which follow the shape of the

apse In architecture, an apse (: apses; from Latin , 'arch, vault'; from Ancient Greek , , 'arch'; sometimes written apsis; : apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical Vault (architecture), vault or semi-dome, also known as an ' ...

. The walls are painted and there is a timber floor. The original pews with flame-shaped ends have been recently refinished.

Heritage listing

St Marks Anglican Church was listed on the

on 21 October 1992 having satisfied the following criteria. The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history. St Mark's Church, as a modestly scaled and finished church built in a new farming settlement, illustrates the development of Yungaburra and of the Anglican Church in Queensland. Constructed by community endeavour and served by the Brotherhood of St Barnabas for some years, it illustrates the way in which the Church endeavoured to reach small and isolated communities which could not support an incumbent. The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places. St Mark's church is a good and intact example of the type of simple timber chapel which served many new settlements as their first church. The place is important because of its aesthetic significance. In its form, scale and detail it makes a substantial contribution to the built character of Yungaburra. The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons. The church has a strong connection with the Anglican community in Yungaburra, having served the village and surrounding farms since the early years of the 20th century. It also provides a testimony to the work of the Brotherhood of St Barnabas in providing pastoral care to the developing Tablelands.

References

Attribution

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Marks Anglican Church Yungaburra Queensland Heritage Register Buildings and structures in Yungaburra Churches in Far North Queensland Articles incorporating text from the Queensland Heritage Register