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Surface Hill Uniting Church is a heritage-listed former church at Channon Street, Surface Hill, Gympie, Gympie Region, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by architect Hugo William Du Rietz and built from 1869 to 1937. It is also known as City Church, Surface Hill Methodist Church and Wesleyan/Wesley Church. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 30 May 2003. == History == Surface Hill Uniting Church, constructed in 1890 and designed by architect Hugo William Du Rietz, is the third church building to be built on the prominent site on Channon Street at the crest of Surface Hill in Gympie. In August 1868, Wesleyan Methodists erected a bark hut of pole construction on Surface Hill to use as a basic chapel. The Methodists were early in their efforts in establishing a place of worship on the goldfields, the Primitive Methodists had opened the "Digger's Bethel" only months after James Nash had made his momentous discovery of gold in 1867. Concurrent with building the bark hut, the Wesleyan Methodists were planning the construction of a new and more substantial church, under the auspice of the Maryborough circuit.〔 An early committee resolved to build a new church on the same site and local architect Charles G. Smith was commissioned to prepare drawings for a timber church. The tender was let to John Nesbit and it appears that there was some sort of disagreement between this builder and the architect and the architect's name was removed from the drawings. Despite this, on Sunday, 4 July, the new church was opened. The building faced on to Reef Street. By October a small three-roomed parsonage was built on the site.〔 The Wesleyans were consolidating their presence in the town, however, uncertainty persisted about the land tenure as the church had been built on land that was held without a proper title. Although the land had been purchased by members of the church committee at a land sale in 1869 and set aside as a church reserve in the first town survey in 1874, it was not officially secured until 1876. It appears that these difficulties were due to the land being under Miner's Right. Indeed, mining was still taking place all over Surface Hill at this time, a whim is visible in a photo of the opening ceremony of the brick church in 1890 and at several points in time the church had to pay for shafts to be filled in for safety reasons.〔 In 1870, a full-time minister was appointed and two rooms and a verandah were added to the parsonage. By 1879, the parsonage was in a dilapidated condition and fund-raising began for the construction of a new one, which was completed in 1880. In 1889, Mathew Mellor, a prominent member of the congregation and church trustee moved that a new brick church to accommodate 250 people, be erected. Minutes of church meetings indicate that the construction of a more solid church had been in the minds of many members of the congregation for a number of years and suggests "that Gympie was a stable prosperous town, with a stable, committed population, who had enough faith and vision to build for the future." Both the Catholic and Anglican churches also built masonry churches in the town around this time.〔 Local Gympie architect Hugo Du Rietz was commissioned to design the new church and plans were presented to the church trust in July 1889. Du Rietz was born in Sweden and came to Australia in 1852, taking up residence in Gympie around 1867 and staying there until his death in 1908. He was a prolific designer of buildings for the town and "was probably responsible for a number of distinctive local building features, such as ogee-profiled verandah roofs, close-spaced studs with cut-in angle braces and a distinctive colour scheme of cream walls and red roofs."〔 The church was substantial but simple in design. It was to be constructed of brick and rendered in concrete with Gothic detailing. Tenders were called and the lowest tender of a Mr J. McMorrine of £1905 was accepted.〔 A whole series of elaborate celebrations were held to mark the construction of the new church. A stone-laying ceremony was held on 30 January 1890. Eight large foundation stones were laid by prominent members of the congregation, a representative of the local preachers and one of the Sunday school scholars. An earthernware jar was placed under the first stone that was laid and it contained a copy of that day's Gympie Times, the previous day's Gympie Miner, The Weekly Advocate, The Christian Witness, the circuit plan, a programme of the proposed proceedings of the ceremony, the society ticket for the last quarter (a Methodist membership ticket), a list of the Trustees and officers of the church, a list of the names of the teachers and officers of the Sunday school, the names of the architect, the contractor and an estimate of the cost and fittings of the building. Each stone-layer was presented with a "polished cedar mallet bearing a chaste silver plate beautifully inscribed." One of these is held in the Gympie Historical Museum.〔 On 7 August, the church was officially opened and a dedication service was held. A fine organ was purchased by the church from James Lord, the organist from the Albert Street Methodist Church. The organ, along with the one in the Albert Street church, had been made by George Benson of Manchester, UK, in 1888 and assembled by Benson in Brisbane. The final cost of the building, including seating, architect's commission, fittings, gas lights, pipe organ, retaining wall, lightning conductors and opening ceremonies was £3137/16/5.〔 The timber church was renovated and used as the Sunday School. The Methodist Church continued to have a solid presence in the town and church news was regularly reported in the ''Gympie Times'' and frequently the full text of a sermon would be published. In 1904, the Reverend Harry Youngman addressed the Chinese members of the congregation in their own language, an event which attracted hundreds of people, non-Chinese and non-Methodists alike. Small repairs were carried out on the church, hall and parsonage and it was not until the 1930s that any more substantial work was carried out on the site.〔 In 1937 a representation was made to the state government for the use of relief labour to construct a stone retaining wall along the frontage to Reef and Channon Streets. The church provided materials - a member of the congregation donated the stone and the government paid wages. The job took over eighteen months to complete and was opened by Frank Cooper, the Queensland Treasurer to coincide with the church's seventieth anniversary. He said at the time that "I believe this wall will speak to you every time you come past it as of honest work earnestly done, it will also look at you (for walls have eyes) and will judge you whether you are doing your part in upholding the ideal for which it stands...it stands in perpetual reminder that work and worship go hand in hand." The relief labour went on to also construct a tennis court, lay paths and grade the church grounds. In the same year, the hall (the old church) was moved across the property and re-located to face Barter Street.〔 A new two storey hall was erected at the eastern end of the site in 1962. The timber parsonage was demolished in 1975 and replaced with a low-set brick building. Restoration work was undertaken on the church from 1977–84 and included work on the stained glass windows, organ and exterior render and ramps were added to the church and hall.〔 In April 2013, the church was sold to a local funeral director with the last service held in the church on 7 April 2013. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Surface Hill Uniting Church」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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