FORMER EAGLEHAWK EAST METHODIST CHURCH

The Former Eaglehawk East Primitive Methodist Church was constructed in 1865 to a design by George Reilly Cox. The building is constructed of brick on a bluestone plinth and is designed as a hall with a simple Classical Temple rendered portico and gabled corrugated iron roof concealed behind parapets. 

The Former Eaglehawk East Methodist Church is of architectural significance to the State of Victoria. It satisfies the following criterion for inclusion in the Victorian Heritage Register:

Criterion D
Importance in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a class of cultural places and objects

 

The Former Eaglehawk East Methodist Church is architecturally significant as one of the few surviving designs of architect George Reilly Cox. The application of a stripped back classical temple façade as opposed to the dominant ecclesiastical Gothic mode of the time was appropriate to the non-conformist views of the Primitive Methodist Church. The façade evokes the traditional portico or temple front with the use of four engaged columns of the Roman Doric order, in hexastyle form. The columns are unevenly spaced in antis between two outer pilasters that articulate the corners of the building. As a substantial Primitive Methodist Church of 1865, the association with the Classical tradition reflects the strength of the non-conformist religious view in the central goldfields region of Victoria in the nineteenth century.