St James’ Church is the oldest church
building in the City of Sydney and has been in continuous use from its
consecration on 11 February 1824 to the present. It is a prime example of
the architectural work of the Macquarie period, designed by Francis
Greenway and built by convict labour. Subsequent changes to the building
and its contents exemplify the development of ecclesiastical thought and
practice in the Australian context. The church has always formed a
significant element within the city of Sydney, as a spiritual and
intellectual stimulus and as a centre of musical excellence and community
activity. While this contribution has been realised in various ways over
its long history, the reality of its work and its essential
characteristics have been maintained. The church has long been regarded as
a prime element of Sydney’s built environment and its conservation is an
example of a long history of heritage concern in the community.
The church contains a rare collection of 19th century marble memorials,
its painted Children’s Chapel is unique in Australia and it includes
amongst its collections and contents rare items of movable heritage.
St James’ Church is an integral part of the most extensive surviving
group of Macquarie period buildings in Australia, Macquarie's construction
of official Sydney in the eastern part of the city, which includes the
former Hyde Park Barracks, Supreme Court, General Hospital and Government
House stables. The church is the only building of this group that retains
its original function.
St James’ Church is located at the east
end and on the south side of King Street, Sydney and was constructed
between 1819-1824. Set on an impressive sandstone base, the building is of
face brick with the walls articulated by brick piers. The elongated
windows have semi-circular heads with radiating rubbed bricks and
protective fish-scale pattern, green glazing has been installed in the
windows on the north side. On the east gable is a sandstone commemorative
plaque with the inscription ‘St James’s Church Erected 1820 Lachlan
Macquarie Esq. Governor’. The hipped roof is of slate with four gable
vents on the north and south sides. The detailing of the lower, eastern
extension (built in 1832-1833) is closely comparable with the original but
with sandstone piers and pediment and with a domed copper roof. The two
small porticos on the north and south sides, with sandstone columns and
pediments, complement the original and much larger central porticos. A
third small portico, added in 1894-1895, on the north side of the tower is
of comparable design. The south portico was filled in before the building
was completed and is now enclosed with glass. All of the entrances have
slate steps with sandstone risers and are tiled with black and white
marble. The square brick tower at the west end has a timber framed, candle
snuffer spire, clad in sheet copper with chevron pattern, surmounted by a
copper orb and cross. There is a peal of eight bells in the tower.
The interior of the church, which is essentially as rebuilt in 1900-1902,
faces east and has a raised chancel and sanctuary (the latter set within
an apse with gold mosaic semi-dome) with marble and mosaic flooring,
flanked by the organ and choir. The chancel is separated from the main
body of the church by a wrought iron and brass screen with marble base on
which stand the cedar pulpit and brass lectern. The western gallery,
marble memorials and cedar panelling are parts of the 19th century
interior retained in the later work. The pews are open cedar benches and
the flooring is of polished timber blocks with white marble aisles with a
black key border. The stained glass windows are mainly English and of 20th
century date with some 1890s coloured and painted glass, including
internal doors and fanlights. The pressed metal ceiling (installed in
1894-1895) has been adapted to improve ventilation and to accommodate
modern pendant lights. The font is on a raised marble platform in the
baptistery at the base of the tower. The emblems of St James the Great are
incorporated in various decorative elements of the interior including
stained and painted glass, pew ends and mosaic flooring. The walls of the
Chapel of the Holy Spirit (the southern portico), installed in 1988, are a
major contemporary glasswork which the chapel’s furniture and fittings
were specially designed to complement.
The original building has an extensive undercroft (called the crypt) with
sandstone walls and a central corridor with brick groined ceiling and
twelve brick barrel vaults. The flooring is concrete with slate tiles. The
basement beneath the eastern extension is of similar construction but has
a timber ceiling as does the entrance at the base of the tower. The
Children’s Chapel and columbarium are located in two of the bays of the
crypt. The church is enclosed with a decorative wrought iron fence set on
a sandstone base. (Annable 2004)
St James’ Church is an integral part of the group of surviving Macquarie
period buildings which also includes the former Hyde Park Barracks, [Old]
Supreme Court, General Hospital [the Mint and Parliament House] and
Government House offices and stables [Conservatorium of Music]. The church
is the only building of this group to retain its original function.
The site for Sydney’s second church was
chosen by Governor Lachlan Macquarie in 1812, but it was not until 31
August 1819 that the foundation stone was laid, on George Street, for his
‘grand metropolitan church’ of St Andrew. On 7 October 1819 the
Governor laid the foundation stone for another new building, a courthouse
at the north end of Hyde Park. Shortly afterwards, following objections by
the British government’s newly arrived Commissioner of Enquiry, J T
Bigge that St Andrew’s would take five years to complete, a more modest
plan for a second church was adopted and the intended courthouse site
arrogated to the purpose. By February 1820 a church, to the design of the
Civil Architect, Francis Greenway, was under construction by government
(convict) labour. Work on St Andrew’s was suspended and finally
abandoned in May 1820.
During 1820 work proceeded swiftly on the new church. By June the tower
basement had been completed, by October a disagreement about the form of
the entrances was settled in favour of square porticos and by November, as
the brickwork was nearing completion, the building was referred to as St
James’ Church. A stone plaque inscribed ‘St James’s Church Erected
1820 Lachlan Macquarie Esq. Governor’ was placed on the east gable and
in 1821 the building was roofed. In January 1822 the Revd William Cowper
held the first (and only) unofficial service in the empty building to
shelter his congregation from the Hyde Park Barracks from the weather. The
Principal Chaplain, the Revd Samuel Marden insisted that the building
should not be used until the legal formalities had been properly attended
to. In September 1822 the timber framework of the spire was under
construction. In November Greenway was dismissed from government
employment. Nothing is known of the work following Greenery's departure,
including finishing and furnishing the interior, but by the time the
church was ready for use the south portico had been enclosed for use as
the vestry.
St James’ Church was consecrated on 11 February 1824 by the Revd Samuel
Marsden, using a form of service for non-Episcopal consecration, approved
by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The first baptism was held on the same
day. The church has been in continuous use for divine worship, according
to the rites of the Anglican Church, ever since. The building was part
Macquarie’s ‘official Sydney’, a group of government buildings along
the eastern ridge of the town. Bordering the Domain, Macquarie Street and
Hyde Park these included the Government Stables, the Light Horse Barracks,
Hospital, the Hyde Park Barracks, St James’ Church, the Supreme Court
and the Georgian School. Although the plan had been the governor’s, the
functions of the buildings on Hyde Park and the vagaries of their
construction, were a direct result of the intervention of Commissioner
Bigge and of the consequences of his Report on the administration of the
Colony. The church’s connection with ‘official’ Sydney was to be a
formative and enduring aspect of its ministry.
The interior of the church was a simple, rectangular ‘preaching box’,
with a small holy table and tall, three-decker pulpit against the east
wall and a gallery at the west. All levels of society were accommodated
and the seating arrangements reflected the social divisions and
distinctions of the time. The high box pews were rented and free open
benches were provided at the back of the church for the poorer inhabitants
and visitors. A single entrance on the north portico served the main body
of the church. The prisoners and military were in the gallery which was
served by its own entrance in the tower. A small group of musicians and
choir led the music. In 1827 an organ by John Gray of London arrived and
was placed in the gallery. It was played for the first time on 7 October,
the anniversary of laying the foundation stone of the intended courthouse.
By the early 1830s more accommodation was needed and was provided by the
construction of a separate eastern gallery. In order to provide access, an
addition was made to the east end of the church with entrances on the
north and south sides from which stairs led up to the gallery. The small
sandstone ‘Doric porticos’ were modelled on the original porticos and
the architect was John Verge. The room in the centre of this addition was
used as the vestry. Changes were made to the interior arrangement of the
church to accommodate the new gallery and the loss of its original
eastward facing orientation. The pulpit was moved to the centre aisle,
facing the eastern gallery and the whole of the pews in the eastern half
of the church turned round to face the pulpit. The holy table was brought
forward of the gallery and surrounded by a circular communion rail. This
seating arrangement continued in use for the remainder of the 19th
century.
From the 1830s to the 1850s St James’ was the fashionable town church.
As such it became the place in which to memorialise not only those who
worshipped there but also eminent colonists. In 1836 he church gained
ecclesiastical status when Bishop William Grant Broughton was installed as
Bishop of Australia in St James' and continued to use it as his official
church until he moved to St Andrew’s temporary cathedral in 1843. The
first ordinations were held at St James’. From 1846 prisoners no longer
attended but with the growth of population after the gold rush more
seating was still needed and the galleries were extended to almost
encircle the interior. The pulpit was moved to the south wall (by the
present chapel) and the church retained this form until the turn of the
century.
From the 1840s under the Revd (later Canon) Robert Allwood (ultimately to
be the church’s longest serving incumbent) a Tractarian form of worship
was adopted. With more frequent celebration of the Holy Communion and more
elaborate music, St James’ developed a distinctive liturgy, divergent
from the increasingly Evangelical Diocese of Sydney, a tradition that it
still retains.
By the middle of the 19th century a move had begun to live in the suburbs
and the church was losing its resident population. Its architecture was
considered antique (even pagan) by comparison with the fashionable Gothic
style, for some the only ‘correct’ ecclesiastical architecture. By the
1880s St. James' was in decline, its congregation dwindling and the
building in a bad state of repair. Moves for change were stalled by its
Parsonage Trustees, who did not wish to see the internal arrangement of
the church altered and who controlled the available funds for doing so.
Eventually in 1894-1895 an extensive programme of external restoration was
carried out by Varney Parkes. Much original fabric was replaced including
the roof timbers and the spire which was completely rebuilt to a different
design with new copper cladding. A new entrance was made on the north side
of the tower with a small portico modelled on John Verge’s 1832-1833
additions. The north portico was opened up and rebuilt and many
late-Victorian details added to the building.
In 1900 after long discussion, the interior was totally remodelled to the
design of J H Buckeridge. To provide for a more elaborate ritual and a
liturgy centred on the altar, the interior of the church was totally
re-oriented. An apse, in the manner of St Matthew’s, Windsor, was
created by breaking through the original east wall of the church into the
Verge addition and a raised chancel and apse built against the east wall,
flanked by the organ. Almost all of the existing fittings and furnishings
were removed with the exception of the memorials and the western gallery
and new bench pews were installed. A modern interior was created within a
nineteenth century exterior. In 1902-1904 the south portico was made into
a side chapel and some decorative elements of the 1900 scheme were
completed. The architect for the works was J Burcham Clamp. With a renewed
church building, the charismatic Carr Smith as its rector and a
distinctive liturgy the congregation of St James’ grew once more. No
longer resident in the city, its parishioners came from the suburbs making
the deliberate choice of association with St James’, rather than their
local church.
The interior arrangement of the church has remained essentially unaltered
with some changes to lighting and decoration, the dedication of the war
memorial in 1922 and the decoration of the semi-dome of the apse with gold
mosaic in 1961.
A programme of stonework repair and replacement was carried out in the
1950s, followed by much more extensive work in the early 1970. The crypt
was extensively renovated in 1976-1978.
In 1988 the side chapel in the south portico was redesigned as the Chapel
of the Holy Spirit, a bicentennial project. The original infilling between
the columns was demolished and replaced with glasswork. The design, by
David Wright, represents the landscape formed by the interaction of earth,
air, fire and water, symbolic of the action of the Spirit in creation, in
life and in rebirth in Christ. The furniture by Leon Sadubin was specially
commissioned for the new chapel and is of cedar, in keeping with the rest
of the church furnishings.
The large brick-vaulted undercroft or crypt beneath the church has served
many purposes including the verger's residence for over a century. From
the 1820s to 1840s the space was used by two of the parish schools and
some of the bays enclosed. Following the work carried out in the 1890s and
the revival of the congregation in the early 1900s, the space began to be
used for parish purposes. Various bays were converted for use for
meetings, offices, parish records and a columbarium. In 1929 the bay next
to the west entrance on the south side was painted by a group of modernist
artists, the Turramurra painters, under the direction of Ethel Anderson.
Designed as a chapel for children, the colourful murals depicted the
Christmas carol I Saw Three Ships, in the familiar setting of a
contemporary Sydney Harbour with the bridge under construction. Officially
named the Chapel of St. Mary and the Angels, it was better known as the
Children’s Chapel. Salt in the walls eventually caused considerable
deterioration and the loss of paint surface and the murals were restored
in 1992-1993.
A peal of eight bells was installed in the tower in 2003. (Annable 2004)
Special thanks to http://www.heritage.nsw.gov.au/
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