ST VINCENT DE PAUL CATHOLIC CHURCH (FORMER)

Other Names

- ,  Revival Centres International, Extra

Location

5970 SOUTH GIPPSLAND HIGHWAY, WELSHPOOL, SOUTH GIPPSLAND SHIRE

Level

Recommended for Heritage Overlay

Statement of Significance

What is significant?
The former St Vincent de Paul Catholic Church opened on 30 July 1939, at 5970 South Gippsland Highway, Welshpool, is significant. It is an interwar Carpenter Gothic church with modest detailing. Like other examples of this style, it is a timber-framed structure with weatherboard walls and a gabled roof and projecting gabled porch. This building also has a projecting hipped vestry at the rear with a timber ledged door, timber shingling at the gable ends, including the main gable projecting slightly from the wall and resting on modillions, and lancet windows on the sides of the nave and the front of the porch. 
Non-original alterations and additions are not significant.
How is it significant?
The former St Vincent de Paul Catholic Church is of local historic, aesthetic and social significance to South Gippsland Shire
Why is it significant?
Historically, it is associated with the development of Welshpool and district in the interwar period due to closer settlement, which resulted in the need for a permanent church. It is associated with the development of the Catholic Church in the area between Foster and Yarram, which led to Toora being elevated to Parish status in 1940. (Criterion A)
Aesthetically, it is a simple Carpenter Gothic church with distinctive details such as the timber shingling to the gables and lancet windows. Situated on a prominent site adjacent to the Primary School, it is an historic landmark in Welshpool. (Criterion E) 
It has social significance through its use as a church, originally by the Catholic and now the Revival Centre congregations, for almost 80 years. (Criterion G)

Group

Religion

Category

Church