By Dominique Tassell
The Leyburn community came together on 14 November to celebrate 150 years of St Augustine’s Church.
A service was held at the church at 10 am, with Archbishop Phillip Aspinall present, joining Padre David Snape.
Locals celebrated after the service at QCWA Leyburn, complete with a cake honouring the milestone.
St Augustine’s was built and dedicated in 1871 and is credited as one of the earliest churches in the state of Queensland.
The church was named for the College of St Augustine in England, from which a number of students reportedly sent money for the build.
It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 August 1992.
The architect behind the design of the church, Richard George Suter, is one of Queensland’s most notable and is responsible for at least ten of around 34 churches built during the episcopate of Bishop Tufnell from 1859 to 1874.
This includes St Mark’s in Warwick, St David’s in Allora, and St James’ in Toowoomba.
The church is also a rare example of a surviving timber church with a shingled roof; it is believed to be the only one of Suter’s to have survived.
The use of timber for churches was reportedly an ideological challenge to the theological thinking of the time which saw timber as unsuitable material for a house of God.
The timber used for the construction of the church was locally grown and mostly consisted of spotted gum and cypress pine.
Suter was reportedly inspired by English village churches when designing the church, and also incorporated simplified Goth motifs.
The belfry of the Church was completed in 1876 and the vestry was added in 1918.
The stained-glass windows and other furnishings were donated as memorials to parishioners; locals present at the celebration on 14 November were from these families.
One could remember her family donating the stained-glass windows to the rear of the altar in 1986.
The Leyburn Parish was an immensely important one in the late 1800s, extending up to Kingaroy and down past the New South Wales border.
Prior to the church being built services were conducted wherever possible, including at local pubs and inns, homes, and even the courthouse.
The first baptism at the church was registered on 21 December 1873 and the first wedding on 25 February 1874.
