St Peter's Anglican Church, Richmond

About

St Peter's Anglican Church is a heritage-listed Anglican church and associated Sunday school, rectory, and cemetery at 384 Windsor Street, Richmond, City of Hawkesbury, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by Francis Clarke (church and rectory) and Edmund Blacket (rectory additions in 1863) and built from 1836 to 1841 by James Atkinson (church). It is also known as St Peter's Anglican Church Group, St Peter's Church Group, Church, Rectory, Church Yard, Cemetery and Stables. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 16 August 2019; and on the City of Hawkesbury local government heritage register, and listed on the New South Wales Heritage Database on 12 September 2012.

The site of St Peter's Church was nominated in Governor Lachlan Macquarie 's planned layout for Richmond. He intended to have the church, schoolhouse and burial ground on a very beautiful elevated block immediately above Pugh's Lagoon, a fine basin of fresh water. The burial ground, then one hectare (2.5 acres), was surveyed by James Meehan and consecrated by the Reverend Samuel Marsden and fenced by William Cox. The first burial was George Rouse and contains the headstones of many early Hawkesbury settlers The first school/church opened in 1810. It played an important part in the early life of Richmond. It was situated in Francis Street near the northern corner of the cemetery. The lower floor was the residence of the schoolmaster whilst the upper room was used for school and church purposes.

This building soon became too small to meet the ever increasing congregation and at a meeting chaired by the Reverend Samuel Marsden on 26 November 1835 the inhabitants of Richmond resolved to erect a church for the celebration of divine worship. A notice calling for tenders to erect the church appeared in The Australian on 18 October 1836. The committee formed to forward the project included Mr Cox, Senior ( Fairfield ), Mr Cox, Jnr ( Hobartville ), Mr Bell ( Belmont ), Mr George Bowman, Mr William Bowman, Mr Faithful, Rev H. T. Styles, Mr Martin, Snr., Mr G. Palmer, Mr Digit, Mr C. Powell, Mr Parnell and Mr C. P. Wood. By 1833 A£ 570 had been subscribed and A£200 had been donated by the English Church Society. Tenders were called for the erection of the church in The Australian in October 1836.

Built as a result of the establishment of the Church Act of 1840 St Peter's Church was one of four churches consecrated in 1841. The church was built on a site overlooking Ham Common and the Hawkesbury River flats. It was agreed 162 hectares (400 acres) of the common would be given as Glebe land for the church. It was opened by Bishop William Broughton on 15 July and designed by Francis Clark and built by James Atkinson who also built St Bartholomew's, Prospect and St Thomas, Mulgoa at the same time. It was designed in the Old Colonial Georgian style in contrast to most of the other churches, except St Batholomew's, which have Gothic style detailing. Clarke was responsible for a number of Sydney houses and the church of St Mary Magdalene at St Marys. A simple rectangular building with a square tower topped with a timber spire the original layout of the pews was to face inwards to the centre of the church. In 1850 a porch designed by Edmund Blackett was added to the northern side and not long after, in 1857, a chancel was added. Once the chancel had been added the internal pew layout was altered to face the chancel. William Woolls, a prominent late nineteenth century writer on the botany and flora of Australia was incumbent at St Peter's from 1873 and from 1877 to 1883, the Rural Dean of Richmond.

In the churchyard a small obelisk was built of bricks from the old school church building.

The cemetery is older than the church and contains the graves of many early pioneers including John Bowman, Thomas Matcham Pitt and Lt Thomas Hobby of the NSW Corps, the Chief Officer at Hawkesbury in 1800 and a supporter of Macquarie. It was the second cemetery dedicated in the Hawkesbury district, around 1814, four years after St Matthews.

The rectory was designed by Clarke and completed in 1847 and is said to have been a copy of an English rectory known to Bishop Broughton in the mid 19th century vogue for picturesque rectories. It was added to in 1863 by Blacket. Later alterations have changed its quality.

The complex is located on the western edge of Richmond. The site falls away steeply to the west with buildings and burial ground on the higher level ground overlooking the surrounding lowlands. The site stretches over the north and south sides of Windsor Street and is bounded on the south side by Kurrajong Road. The church is on a prominent isolated site, high at the end of the ridge on which the town of Richmond had been positioned in 1810. It bears a strong relationship (in typical English fashion) between church, cemetery, rectory, stables and township.

An Old Colonial Georgian style church three bays long with a parapeted tower with a metal spire at the west end and a gabled chancel at the east end. A gabled porch entry is centred on the north side of the church. The church has a simple gabled roof with wide boxed eaves. The gables form pediments at each end. The windows to the body of the church are arched multipane sashes with coloured glass sashes being installed to 5 of the windows in 1874. The tower has multipane square headed windows to the first and second floor. The walls are constructed in locally made bricks with a sandstone plinth, string courses and window sills. Openings are finished with tuckpointed brickwork to the arches and bays are defined by engaged pilasters. The pilasters to the chancel use a contrasting darker brick. Internally the church is plastered with polished cedar joinery. The walls are painted a soft blue grey. The ceiling was replaced with plasterboard in 1964.The semi-circular headed windows are small paned; the pews and gallery are of cedar. The porch was added in 1850 and a crying room in 1988.

Two-storey Victorian Rustic Gothic style house built with locally made bricks. The roof has intersecting steeply pitched gables and two brick chimneys, now rendered. A dormer window is located on the north elevation. The original roofing has been replaced with concrete tiles. The south and west walls have been rendered. A rear kitchen wing has been added. The original gabled entry porch has been replaced with a verandah on the north side of the east wing. Original venetian sash windows survive to the north and south walls of the west wing, most others have been replaced, altering the gothic proportions of the house. Internally the house is austere in detail. The original geometric stair survives as do chimney pieces.

A simple gabled hall with some Victorian Rustic Gothic detailing to the windows and porch of the south elevation. The walls are brick, the roof is corrugated steel and trimmed with plain bargeboards and simple finials. A gabled entry porch is centred on the north side of the hall. The main hall runs north south and is divided into 4 bays. The windows all have arches of contrasting tuck pointed brickwork. A rear addition exists with a low pitched gable roof. Internally the hall has its original floor of wide timber boards, painted brick walls, exposed king post trusses and boarded timber ceiling. The original fireplace in the east wall survives.

A large churchyard enclosed by a hedge and post and rail fence on one side and by bordering trees. There are no trees within the site, It adjoins St Peter's Church across Windsor Street, its central path leading to the church door. Cemetery and church occupy a magnificent site along the top of the terrace overlooking the Richmond Bottoms. The older headstones are closer to the terrace edge although modern graves have been mixed sympathetically with them. The comerery is quite densely developed with some large monuments and statuary of the Victorian period, their vertical nature emphasised by their massing. A number of headstones are badly eroded, inscriptions unreadable and some have fallen. Dominated by the spire of St Peter's to the south, the site is very tranquil and rural in character.

The coach house and stables are located to the south of the rectory and on axis with the entry hall and stair of the rectory. It is a simple gabled brick building. The roof is corrugated steel. The lower rooms have few windows. The doors and louvered openings were reconstructed in 1992. There is evidence of lathe and plaster ceilings to the ground floor rooms. The floors are brick flagged. The loft also has evidence of lathe and plaster ceilings. A skillion has been added to the east side. The site has archaeological potential.

The Churchyard contains a number of mature plantings, including the following trees: pepper tree ( Schinus areira ); black locust/false acacia ( Robinia pseudoacacia ); orchid tree ( Bauhinia speciosa ); Jacaranda mimosifolia; silky oaks ( Grevillea robusta) ; southern nettle trees ( Celtis australis ); privets ( Ligustrum spp. ); white cedars ( Melia azederach var. australasica ); trident maple ( Acer buergerianum ); camphor laurels ( Cinnamomum camphora ); oaks ( Quercus spp. ); English elm ( Ulmus procera ); golden Monterey cypress ( Cupressus macrocarpa 'Aurea' ); Chinese juniper ( Juniperus chinensis ) (a 10-metre (33 ft) tall hedge of this species near the main road); tree of heaven ( Ailanthus altissima ); Mediterranean cypress ( Cupressus sempervirens ); Chinese elm ( Ulmus chinensis ); and a long-needled pine species ( Pinus sp., possibly P.roxburghii / P.canariensis ); and including the following shrubs: Syrian hibiscus, ( H.syriacus ); sky flower ( Duranta plumieri ); Cape plumbago ( P.capensis ); laurustinus ( Viburnum tinus ).

It is thought that the church roof over the nave, prior to the construction of the chancel and porch, was hipped with the eastern extremity altering to a pediment gable, when the chancel was added. The original slate roof has now been replaced along with other roof repairs. The remaining structural fabric is extant, however the internal pen configuration, ceiling fabric and some windows have been altered and/or replaced. Although it has lost its original kitchen wing, the main part of the rectory survives, together with the associated coach house and stables and privy.

- 1850 – The porch designed by E Blackett was added

- 1856 – The chancel was added and the internal layout of the pews were changed to face the chancel

- 1866 – A portion of the church lighting was changed from candles to kerosene

- 1874 – The plain glass window in the nave was changed to stained glass to give it a more dignified appearance

- 1891 – The stone based iron railing and gates were installed