CHRIST THE KING CHURCH

Statement of Significance

Aesthetic significance as a fine example of a church in the Inter War Gothic style. Social significance to members of the local parish.

Physical Description

Single storey brick and terracotta tile steeply pitched gable roof church, set back and above the pavement level. Decorative render surrounds the windows and doors and cornices the buttresses. There is a circular tracery window above the front entrance and the rear and east side of the building has a projecting faceted bay.

History

Lefroy Road forms the northern boundary of the Lefroy Estate, which extended as far south at Lloyd Street. H Maxwell Lefroy was Comptroller (Superintendent) of the Fremantle Prison from 1859-1876. The portion of the street between South Terrace and Attfield Street was previously called Trinity Street (1908/09), then Sinclair St (1909/10). The Beaconsfield Catholic parish was established from 1903 by Sisters of St Joseph, who walked from St Patrick’s in Fremantle to start a school. The original school site is believed to have comprised only a weatherboard church and classroom. The first brick building were completed in 1953. Additional classrooms were added in 1969, 1971, 1973, 1975 and 1989. A staffroom and library resource centre was also constructed in 1975-76. When Fr John Ryan was transferred to Beaconsfield from Fremantle in 1934 he oversaw the construction of a new church of Christ the King, which was opened in 1935 or 1936. Long-serving parish priest Father Ned O’Donavon began working at the place in 1969, and oversaw numerous conservation and expansion works. Donavon was born in Ireland in 1944, joined the Society of African Missionaries, and served in Nigeria before coming to Fremantle. In 1991 he was recognised in the Australia Day honours for his work with immigrants. A 1978 photograph of the west end of the church shows the place as a brick and tile building with a steep pitched gable roof. Simple white crosses adorn each end of the roof ridge and there is a decorative plaster section in the top of the gable, which includes a small vent. A simple smooth-rendered arch features in the centre of the west elevation, with a smaller window inserted, having three plain glazed panes in a stylised lancet shape. There appears to be an Italianate masonry portico entrance below this arch-and-window feature. In 1980 six services were advertised on Sundays, including two in Portuguese. A fundraising drive to raise $140,000 was launched, at a function at the Portuguese Club, to allow for the development of a parish centre as well as maintenance and improvements to the existing church buildings. In 1985, extensions to the church were completed that almost doubled its seating capacity, with church membership at around 4000. The work was undertaken by local builders Colin and Gae Randazzo over 10 months at a cost of $300,000. New stained glass was also added to the rose window by artist Ken Wildy. Undated photographs taken after the extensions were completed show the main west façade quite altered. A large curved white-painted smooth-rendered arch now dominates the face brick elevation. Within this arch is a large decorative ‘rose window’. The portico entrance shown in 1978 appears to have been removed and an enclosed porch now runs across the width of the front elevation, with central double doors flanked by small lancet windows with multiple panes, possible decorative stained glass. Brick and render finial cones have been added at the four corners of the church. A photograph of the place from the southeast shows a substantial two-storey brick presbytery with two-storey verandahs to at least the south and east elevations. The verandah is supported on large square brick pillars and has a low brick railing at first floor level. The adjacent Christ the King School was vacated in 1997 when the school relocated to larger premises in York Street, Beaconsfield. The school at Lefroy Road was demolished in 1999 to make way for a retirement complex, ‘Beacon Hill Village’.

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

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