St Michael's Roman Catholic Church

Child Places

• 24408 St Michael's Roman Catholic Church
• 23620 Herne Hill Playgroup

Statement of Significance

STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE St Michael’s Roman Catholic Church has cultural heritage significance for the following reasons: • The place has some aesthetic qualities as a modest brick church constructed during the Inter-War period of architecture. • The place has social significance for those people who have celebrated or worshipped at the church. • The place has social significance to the local community members who were associated with its tenure as a local primary school during the 20th century.

Physical Description

St Michael’s Roman Catholic Church is a single storey face brick church with a corrugated steel gable roof displaying characteristics of the Inter-War vernacular style of architecture. The place is set close to the road on the eastern side of Great Northern Highway. The place has a symmetrical form with a high pitched gable roof addressing the street. A brick entry foyer projects from the front elevation. The foyer has a battlemented parapet which has been capped with a new corrugated roof and gutters. A separate skillion porch has been constructed to the southern side of the entry foyer. The porch is connected to the main building and supported by a single timber post. The external walls are face brick with terracotta vents. The northern and southern elevations feature brick buttresses with rendered capping. The main entry is through a timber door to the entry porch and is flanked by a sidelight. The entry foyer has a central timber framed window while the northern and southern elevations have timber framed louvred windows. There is a small weatherboard lean-to to the rear of the church with a brick chimney. To the north of the site is a gravel parking area and a series of mature trees. To the rear of the church is a timber weatherboard school building which is utilised as the church hall.

History

In March 1827, Captain James Stirling explored the Swan River including the area which was later named Guildford, and noted the fertile soils in the Upper Swan. Stirling returned to establish the Swan River Colony in June 1829. In September 1829, Stirling and Surveyor General Roe travelled to the head of the Swan River above Guildford with a group of settlers to whom permission had been given to select land. These were the first rural land grants in the Colony.1 From 1830-31, a number of the original 1829 rural land grants were transferred to other European settlers. William Locke Brockman, pastoralist and stockbreeder, arrived at the Swan River Colony in January 1830 and took up a land grant in Upper Swan. He named his grant ‘Herne Hill’, after his wife’s, Anne Francis Isabella Hamersley, family estate. Though widely known as Herne Hill the locality boundary wasn’t approved until 21st May 1972.2 The influx of population to the state due to the goldrushes of the 1890s resulted in the need for additional land for settlement. This saw many of the original estates, including Herne Hill, subdivided into small farms in the early 1900s. St Michael’s Catholic Church opened on 17 November 1935, with a mass and blessing by Archbishop Redmond Prendeville. It was established to meet the needs of the increasing numbers of ‘Dalmatian’ (Croatians and Yugoslavs) who had been settling in the Swan Valley since 1914. The building was to serve as a school- church: a classroom on weekdays and a place of worship on Sundays. The Record noted that the church was “situated by the roadside in a delightful setting of vineyards and virgin country with the Darling Range for a background” and that it was a “neat brick structure with a small castellated porch”. The interior was in pure white, space for 150 people, and had electric lights and a harmonium. (Record 23 November 1935) In February 1936, St Michael’s School commenced with an intake of 37 pupils, all but four of which were of Dalmatian descent. The teachers were nuns from St Brigid’s, Midland. The building continued to function as a school until 1965. The timber school building to the rear of the church was relocated to its current location in 1967 having originally been part of the Herne Hill State School (originally 1922).3 The building is now used as a church hall. The church’s front porch was built in the early 1980s as an undercover extension to the existing entry foyer. The roof sheets were replaced in the 1990s.4

Integrity/Authenticity

Integrity - High-Moderate: The place has undergone some changes including roof replacements and capping of the front entry portico. Authenticity - High

Condition

Good

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

Publish place record online (inHerit):

Last Update