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ST. MARY'S CHURCH OF ENGLAND (FORMER)

Other Name ST MARY'S ANGLICAN CHURCH (FORMER) Location 5924 PORTLAND-CASTERTON ROAD, SANDFORD, GLENELG SHIRE Level Recommended for Heritage Overlay

[1/1] 52983 St Mary s Anglican Ch

Statement of Significance

What is Significant?
St. Mary's Anglican Church, Portland-Casterton Road, Sandford is a good example of a small church in the conventional Gothic Revival style. It dates from 1887 and was extended in 1914 to accommodate an expanding population in the Parish of Sandford. The original church had a nave of three bays with a rectangular apse at the east end. The 1914 works included the addition of two gabled transepts on the north and south sides, the extension of the nave by a further two bays and the addition of a square entrance porch on the west. The walls are red brick with rendered details and the steeply gabled roof is corrugated iron. Within the churchyard, there are mature plantings including a large Euphorbia on the north side of the church. The architect of St. Mary's is not known, nor is the builder. Prior to the construction of St. Mary's Anglican Church, services were taken at homesteads and inns and then at the Common School at 'Sand Hill', owned by the Anglican Church.

How is it Significant?
St. Mary's Anglican Church is of historical, social and architectural significance to Glenelg Shire.

Why is it Significant?
St. Mary's Anglican Church is of historical significance as a representation of the importance of the Anglican Church within the community, and its growing popularity in the Casterton and Sandford district early after settlement in the 1860s resulting in the extension of the church in 1914. The church is of social significance to the township of Sandford as the focus for Anglicans who settled in the township in the mid-nineteenth century, mostly small selectors of pastoral land in the mid to late nineteenth century. It is of architectural significance for its conventional use of the Gothic Revival style to express religious values.