UNITING CHURCH COMPLEX

The Uniting Church Complex at 506-508 Napier Street White Hills comprising two halls and a church on the site developed between 1860 and 1903, is significant. The rear of the site facing Dundas Street is not significant and has been excluded from the mapped extent. 

The Uniting Church complex is of local historic, aesthetic and social significance to the City of Greater Bendigo.

The Uniting Church complex at 506-508 Napier Street White Hills is significant as a site of the early Methodist churches that established in 1853 in the White Hills area. The site represents the evolution of the Methodist (Wesleyan) Church in White Hills from the 1860s to the present time, represented in several buildings including the 1860s vestry, c.1870 church, 1903 hall and 1953 kindergarten. The 1903 hall is significant as it commemorates the Jubilee (50 years) of the Methodist Church in White Hills. (Criterion A)

The church built c.1870 is a representative example of a Gothic Revival church with plain red brick masonry and cement render dressings. It is significant for its architectural characteristics comprising the steeply pointed gable roof, unpainted masonry walls, lancet windows wall buttresses, parapet walls, triple lancet windows and simple brickwork detail at the apex of the gable. The rear vestry is significant as part of and earlier church with its chimney, masonry walls and pointed arch headed windows. The modern porch and ramp at the front of the church are not significant. (Criterion D)

The 1903 timber hall is an excellent example of the Gothic revival style expressed in the Edwardian period, blending aesthetic characteristics of timber friezes, decorative weatherboard claddings, barge boards and finials. The roof ventilators are distinctive in their metalwork and of high quality. The other church hall is a representative example of a timber hall of a relatively common type. (Criteria D & E)

The Uniting Church complex including the church and two halls provides social connections within the White Hills community, having been used and in continuing to be used by a range of social, religious and recreational groups. (Criterion G)