This week Roy wanted to visit somewhere fascinating and unexpected. He comes across all sorts of fascinating places on his trips, some of them with a surprising story to tell. He always loves such places as they provide such a fascinating glimpse into our history. One such place he has visited is the St John’s Anglican Church in Raymond Terrace. Roy loves churches, and this one is certainly a beauty, but the surprising thing about this place is not the church itself, but the bell in the grounds which originates from a wrecked ship!
If you would like to visit St John’s Anglican Church, it is located in Raymond Terrace. The Church is on Sturgeon Street, not far from Glenelg Street. To get there, come off the Pacific Highway at Masonite Road and then turn into Adelaide Street. Follow Adelaide Street until you reach Glenelg St and from there, turn into Sturgeon Street itself. You will actually be able to see the church from Adelaide Street (or Roy could, when he visited). There is plenty to do in Raymond Terrace with history, parks, shops, cafes and restaurants abounding. It is a perfect place to break your journey and let the kids stretch their legs.
St John’s Anglican Church is more correctly called St John The Evangelist Anglican Church, and is over 150 years old. Although the first public service was held in 1839 at a local inn, the Church itself was not built until 1862. The Church is an important and unusual example of a ‘rural’ Church designed by the famous architect Edmund Blackett, who is perhaps better know for designing not only Churches in Sydney, but also several buildings at the University of Sydney. Locally quarried sandstone was used in building the gothic style church. The large bell tower, which is separate to the church itself, was built later. The Church has a number of beautiful and historic items, including an historic organ, altar, stone carvings and tablets and spectacular stained glass windows.
The bell in the separate bell tower is of particular interest though. It originates from a ship wreck, that of the Ceres. What is perhaps most fascinating to Roy though is that although many reports about the bell say it was salvaged from a 1935 shipwreck off North Head in Sydney, the only reports about a Ceres to be wrecked in Australia date from the following year, and the wreck was actually closer to Newcastle than Sydney! On a fine, Monday afternoon in August or September of 1836 (reports vary a little), the ship Ceres left Newcastle for Sydney, a trip which was the norm for the ship. By the next evening though there were grave fears for the safety of the ship, a gale having blown in on Monday evening, and a bucket and cable box from the Ceres being washed ashore the next day. Indeed, the ship had been lost, but the crew and passengers were reported to have safely escaped the ship in newspaper articles of the time. Whether this is the wreck from which the bell at St John’s Anglican Church was salvaged, much of the ship was salvaged, including timbers and even boilers (though these were apparently lost again when in transit to Sydney).