The Founding of Old Saint Mary's : 3

DESIGNING  OLD  SAINT  MARY'S :  part one

In a previous article, we discussed the design drawn-up by the famed architect of the Macquarie era, Francis Greenway and how it did not find favour with the Catholic Chaplain, Father Therry.  The old Saint Mary’s chapel - later a Cathedral - which was built from 1822 onwards, was different in every aspect from Greenway’s design.   It has frequently been asserted  that the design which was built was that of Father Therry himself.  EN 1  In this two-part article, we wish to discuss that theory. 

At the time in which old Saint Mary’s was commenced, Sydney was nothing more than a township with few notable buildings and only two churches, both of them being Anglican.  One of these two churches had been built quite recently from the design of Francis Greenway, namely, Saint James' church in King Street, near the Law Courts.  It still stands. The other was a somewhat older church, located in The Rocks and dedicated to Saint Phillip.  This old church was a very peculiar affair and was once described as "the ugliest church in Christendom".   EN 2  

Figure 1.  The old Church of Saint Phillip on Church Hill.
Image : The State Library of NSW.

It was a matter of great significance - even notoriety - that Catholics were about building their own chapel, still less, one on the scale envisaged by Father Therry.  The aspirations of Father Therry - but not of the majority of his congregation - are revealed in a sketch which he drew in pen and ink, between 1821-22, upon which he wrote : "Rough Outlines of Intended Cathedral".  EN 3

Figure 2.  Father Therry's drawing "Rough Outlines for Intended Cathedral."

FATHER THERRY’S ROUGH OUTLINES

Many things are noteworthy from this sketch. The first is that the design is referred to as a “Cathedral”, namely the church which is the seat of a bishop.   In 1821, the notion of Australia having a bishop - let alone a Catholic bishop - would to most people have seemed far-fetched. There were only a few ministers of Religion and but one Catholic priest on the Australian mainland : what on earth would be the use of a Bishop? Evidently Father Therry had great aspirations indeed; this large church would one day be the seat of a Catholic bishop.  And indeed it became so, only thirteen years later.

Another aspect of note from the “Rough Outlines” is that it certainly depicts a building in the Gothic style - well, at least, a rather basic form referred to then (and since) as Gothick.  EN 4    This was the style of rural churches in Ireland and England, but it certainly was not the architecture found in the colonial town of Sydney.  So, we see that Father Therry wished the Catholic chapel to be set apart; he wished it to be large and he wished it to be in a more ancient form of ecclesiastical architecture.  It was to look like the old churches that Irish Catholics knew.  One senses that Father Therry's interest in this style of architecture was not a fashionable romanticism, but a deep desire to honour, even revive, an Irish Catholic heritage on the far side of the world.   EN 5   Consequently, stylistic correctness was not important to him so much as the general "look and feel" of old Catholic Ireland.

Yes, stylistic "correctness" was lacking;  the "rough outlines" indicate - somewhat painfully - that Father Therry had no idea of Gothic architecture whatever.   His “Rough Outlines” reveal a strange hybrid between the Gothick style and a domestic style of architecture, which we would call Colonial or Georgian.  The large building he sketched out looks more like an English manor house than it does a church.  This style, with its layers rising upward, is often referred to as Wedding Cake Gothic.  Studying its oddities, one is not quite sure which end of the building is which.  A three-storey tower with a spire is in the centre of the drawing.  Would that be the centre of the building as a sort of crossing?   On either end are smaller towers; perhaps these were the opposing facades of the building, one being the entry, the other being where the altar was situated.  We also find that the main body of the church has two storeys of windows. And all the windows are pointed at the apex, in the Gothick style.  Crenellations, giving the appearance of battlements, are also depicted.

Although he might have been seeking to create the appearance of old Irish churches, we would be looking for a long time to discover a church in Ireland - an exemplar we might call it - upon which Father Therry based this design for Saint Mary’s.  Very few churches were built in Ireland after those dreadful years when the English subjugated the Irish and their religion.  And many of what were mediaeval Catholic churches had become the property of the Church of Ireland (Anglican).

Figure 3.  The old Christchurch Newcastle;
a section of a watercolour by EC Close.
Image : The State Library of NSW.

One intriguing thing, however : the tower and spire of Father Therry's “Rough Outlines” - together with its porches at the foot of that tower - strongly resemble that of the Anglican Christchurch in the convict settlement of Newcastle (North of Sydney), constructed but a few years before Father Therry’s arrival in New South Wales. Perhaps he had visited Newcastle and admired that tower and spire, perched defiantly on the hill overlooking the Newcastle settlement. We cannot be certain.  If the design for Saint Mary's tower was based on Christchurch, Newcastle, Father Therry intended to out-do it, by adding a third storey to his tower.  EN 6

A much more likely exemplar, however, is not in Australia at all, but in Dublin, another Anglican church opened in 1814, at much the same time as Father Therry ministry in that city.  EN 7   This was the Church of Saint George in Hardwicke Place, Dublin.  This is a building in the Classical style or English baroque, of which style other splendid churches of the 18th century are to be found in London. EN 8   Ignoring the classical portico and Baroque detailing of the tower of Saint George's, significant similarities are to be observed with Father Therry's "Rough Outlines".

Figure 4.  The Church of Saint George, Hardwicke Place, Dublin.
A very early photograph of 1843.
Image : The Bodleian Library Oxford University.

Great, then, were Father Therry's aspirations !  But this design never progressed to the stage of being built.  Like Francis Greenway's small and stylistically correct design for Saint Mary's, what came to be built opposite Hyde Park bore almost no resemblance to the "Rough Outlines".  The drawing alone survives as a curious indicator of Father Therry's Grand Designs;  but it is also amongst the earliest examples of design in the Gothick style to have been drawn in Australia.  If for no other reason than these, the drawing is of great historical significance.

In the following part of this post, we will attempt to determine how old Saint Mary's took on the form and appearance it did and who was responsible for the eventual design.

AMDG

-------------------------------------------------------------------

ENDNOTES

EN 1  Architectural historians Joan Kerr and James Broadbent reiterated this theory in their study Gothick Taste in the Colony of New South Wales, David Ell Press, Sydney 1980.  

EN 2  This unkind description is found in most articles about old Saint Phillip's church.  Old Saint Phillip's church stood in what is now Lang Park, directly opposite Saint Patrick's Church Hill.

EN 3  The whereabouts of the original sketch is not presently known, but it was reproduced in Father Eris O’Brien’s biography of Father Therry, published a century ago.

EN 4  The term Gothick came to be used of a revived style of architecture of the 18th century.  This revival was part of a romantic movement in the arts and architecture and was initially domestic rather than ecclesiastical.  These romantic beginnings gave away to a more scholarly attempts to reproduce mediaeval architecture.  This second school is called The Gothic Revival.  

EN 5  We must remember that Catholicism in Ireland was still officially an illegal religion before the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829.  This prevented Catholics from constructing anything that even looked   like a church.  After 1829, however, new Catholic churches sprung up everywhere across Ireland and often in this revived style of the mediaeval period.  Father Therry did not have the benefit of seeing this blossoming : he had left Ireland in 1820, and never returned.

EN 6  Old Christchurch, Newcastle, was largely completed by 1818 and also in a rustic style of ecclesiastical architecture.  Its splendid tower and spire had to be taken down because of the effect of buffeting winds on a very exposed site.  The first stage of this modification was in 1820.  For this reason, it can only be a conjecture that Father Therry saw the church before these modifications.

EN 7  Father Therry was ordained in 1815, after several years study at Saint Patrick's College in the city of Carlow.  After ordination, Father Therry ministered to Catholics in the city of Dublin, before returning to his native city of Cork circa 1818. 

EN 8  Saint George's church, Dublin is regarded as a "daughter" of the famous church of Saint Martin's-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, London, constructed early in the 18th century.

 

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Morton, Herman, The Early Australian Architects and Their Work, Agnus & Robertson, Sydney, 1954.

Kerr, Joan and Broadbent, James, Gothick Taste in the Colony of New South Wales, David Ell Press, Sydney 1980.

O'Brien, Eris, The Life and Letters of Archpriest John Joseph Therry, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1922.