Uniting Church & Sunday School Hall, 26-28 McMahon Street, ST ARNAUD

The St. Arnaud Uniting Church is architecturally significant at a LOCAL level. It demonstrates original design qualities of a Victorian Early English Gothic style. These qualities include the parapeted steeply pitched gable roof form (clad in slate) and the tower and steeple, with elongated loopholes in the second stage, etiolated colonnets at the corners of the belfry, a tightly designed eave, and a spire of a broken-backed profile. Other intact qualities include the unpainted brick construction, elegant cast iron spire finial; ventilation dormers adorning the ridgeline of the church roof; distinctively neat cement dressings including the plinths, projecting stringcourses, architraves and quoinwork about the windows and doors, drip moulds and octagonal minor spire; pointed windows; large three light window in the gable; steeply pitched gabled doorway and skillion porch (with the roof clad in slate); segmentally arched doorway with two early double timber doors and a quatrefoil above; rear, side minor gable roof form clad in slate; double doorway with a Tudor-like drip moulded arch; timber framed, twelve paned, double hung windows; and the unpainted brick chimney.

The St. Arnaud Uniting Church Sunday School Hall is also architecturally significant at a LOCAL level. It demonstrates original design qualities of an interwar Gothic style. These qualities include the simple gable roof form clad in lapped galvanised corrugated iron with four galvanised iron ventilation stacks on the ridgeline. Other intact qualities include the unpainted brick construction, wide eaves with exposed rafters; regularly spaced brick pilasters; pointed timber framed windows with dressed cement sills; quatrefoil window in the main gable; timber finial; and the main double timber door opening. The open lawn areas of the Queens Mary Gardens, mature trees and other landscaping also contribute to the significance of the place.

The St. Arnaud Uniting Church and Sunday School Hall are historically significant at a LOCAL level. They are associated with the development of the Presbyterian Church from 183-75 until the 1970s when the Church buildings became part of the Uniting Church of Australia. The Church building is also associated with the Melbourne architects, Wharton and Vickers.

The St. Arnaud Uniting Church and Sunday School Hall are socially significant at a LOCAL level. They are recognised and valued by the St. Arnaud community for religious reasons.

Overall, the St. Arnaud Uniting Church and Sunday School Hall are of LOCAL significance.

Group

Religion

Category

Church