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UNITING CHURCH

Other Names WESLYAN CHURCH ,  DUNKELD METHODIST CHURCH Location 79-81 Wills Street, DUNKELD VIC 3294 - Property No 003 File Number 373 Level Stage 2 study complete

[1/2] 23215 Uniting Church Dunkeld [2/2] 23215 Uniting Church Dunkeld

Statement of Significance

What is significant?
Dunkeld Uniting Church, formerly Dunkeld Wesleyan and later, Dunkeld Methodist Church, is located on the south side of Wills Street in the centre of the township of Dunkeld. The brick church, built in 1914, is the second to be built on the land, replacing an earlier timber church, built in 1867. The current brick church is constructed of locally made bricks on a freestone base, in an early English Gothic revival style. The architects were Clegg, Miller and Cain, and the builder was E. H Patterson of Hamilton. The church was associated with many local merchants of the township, Mrs. George Taylor laying the foundation stone in 1913. The first minister Rev. James W. Tuckfield, whose father was a well known Aboriginal missionary near Birregurra, and whose family was influential in the Victorian Methodist church in the later half of the nineteenth century.. The Church began as a Wesleyan Church under the Hamilton circuit, later breaking away to be under the Penshurst Circuit, and finally as the church increased in popularity, to become the centre of the Dunkeld Circuit. In 1902, it became the Methodist church, when the four branches of Methodism combined, becoming the United Church by the late 1970s. The church is in excellent condition and retains a high degree of integrity.

How is it significant?
Dunkeld Uniting Church is of historical and architectural significance to the township of Penshurst and to the Southern Grampians Shire.

Why is it significant?
The Dunkeld Uniting Church is of historical significance as the expression of the role and position of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, and subsequently the Uniting Church, and its congregation in the community for over one hundred and thirty years. It is of architectural significance for its use of the Gothic revival style to express religious values, for the range of its memorial objects and windows and as a comparison with the churches of other denominations in Dunkeld.