Saint James Church in Sydney is one of the older buildings in the former colony town of Sydney in Australia. Built in the earl 19th century, it is now quite unassuming in a modern day Sydney... and quite honestly, looks more like an old city hall instead of an Anglican Church!
In fact, the only thing that really gives it away as a church is this bell tower off to one side of the building.
And this little plaque at the front door gives away the reason for the non-church-like appearance. This was originally designed to be the courthouse! And yes, for that purpose... it does have the right sort of look to it!
Moving to the indoors... it is definitely a church, albeit a very colonial one and not one of the more impressive European ones. A double stack of organ pipes flanking the main altar area... and the organ is pretty nice, an original old one... upgraded and modified of course!
Then looking backwards into the gallery and congregation area....
Quite a few historically memorable Australians are commemorated here... I don't think that they are actually buried in the walls... that would be a more than a touch creepy! But there are marble commemorations... and it really is a bit of a who's who of the upper crust of Australian history.
The various small alcoves do house small chapels or other religious artefacts.
... and you do have some really nice stained glass windows, but some of the allure is taken away due to the fact that the relatively small building is now dwarfed by surrounding modern structures that block out the sun.
And there is one little side chapel that has a really nice modern design for the stained glass!
Weirdly enough, there is a cafe/restaurant in the tunnels under the church... and that is where the toilets are placed as well. Strange design... but quite likely it wasn't really in the original plan (the cafe AND the toilets...).
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I was going to say the porticos do really give it that very civic building appearance don't they, this explains everything including the interior design XD
All those pipes are impressive :O
There are churches that have tombs inside them, like the one in New Norcia where it's somewhere in the altar area (and is in line with another very similar tomb in the middle of the cemetery which I think is in line with a statue or something in one of the buildings), and two in Whichford St Michael's (which I fell over when I was doing research for the game I"m currently running) so XD
That is some really nice stained glass.
Buried in the walls would be super creepy! Especially as those walls aren't that thick! Lots of the European ones seem to have the tombs inside or in the floors... a bit weird when you start thinking about it! But I guess that is our changed sensibilities!
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Neat and compact in wood design with stunning stain glass windows, from the outside it definitely does not look like a church.
!BEER
Right! Definitely not what you would expect from the outside facade!
Was it a contender for orchestral music, many older churches designed to reverberate the sound through stone walls.
It does work quite nicely for music... we didn't have a large orchestra, more like a small chamber ensemble. But it was really nice to play in.
Old halls or churches here were used quite often, although we did have full orchestra house in all major cities.
Old halls seem to be the norm in colonial Australia, mostly serving dance style events.
Our municipal halls have been neglected and look run down if still standing, few churches in good repair depending on the community.
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BEER.Oh wow, all he wood. Not what I was expecting at all. Very nice though.
Exactly! I was expecting something more in line with courthouse idea... but I guess that here was a surplus of wood around at the time!
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