St Anne's Catholic Church, North Bondi

Indigenous history Significant Aboriginal rock carvings provide evidence that Aboriginal people occupied sites nearby the location of St Anne's Shrine in Bondi Beach, long before European settlement. An important type of tool was first found in the region and is still known as the Bondi point. The indigenous people of the area at the time of European settlement have generally been referred to as the Sydney people or the Eora (Eora means "the people"). There is no clear evidence for the name of the particular groups of the Eora people that occupied what is now the Waverley area. Most sources agree on the Cadigal but there are sources which name the Biddigal and Birrabirragal bands as well. A number of place names within Waverley - most famously Bondi - have been based on words derived from Aboriginal languages of the Sydney region. By the mid nineteenth century the traditional owners of this land had typically either moved inland in search of food and shelter, or had died as the result of European disease or confrontation with British colonisers. Few religious beliefs of the people were recorded, but oral traditions have ensured that some have been carried on. The initial brief for St Anne's Shrine required that the church be built in two stages as only half of the proposed budget of A£20,000 was available. In 1934 only the back, southern section of the church including nave and aisles was completed. In 1957 a newly appointed Father Patrick Cunningham set up a Parish Building Fund to raise money for building the northern section of the church comprising sanctuary, sacristies and altar. In 1964 the completed church was solemnly blessed by the Archbishop of Sydney, Norman Thomas Cardinal Gilroy. Interior aspects of the 1964-designed church were later adjusted in view of the liturgical changes that followed the Second Vatican Council. In 1980, when Father Kenneth Sargeant was appointed parish priest, a stone altar was placed in the sanctuary to allow the priest to celebrate Mass facing the congregation. Also the church was carpeted throughout. Born in Australia but educated in England, Joseph Fowell (1891-1970) arrived back in Australia in 1919 where he taught under Leslie Wilkinson at the University of Sydney. The partnership went on to design a number of Catholic churches in Sydney and some New South Wales country towns. Kenneth McConnel left the practice in 1939 due to ill health. After World War II, McConnel formed a new partnership with Stanley Smith which was eventually to become McConnel Smith and Johnson. The church is featured in A Pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian Architecture, where it is presented as an example of the "Inter-War Romanesque" style. There it is described as a "nobly scaled design influenced by French examples such as Albi Cathedral" and Joseph Fowell listed as one of the style's "key practitioners". == Description ==

St Anne's Church is a fine example of Inter-War Romanesque church architecture. The textured red brick façade contrasts with the sandstone plinth, entry portico, door and window surrounds and parapet copings. The roof is of red tiles over the nave and aisles, and copper over the northern apses. The south (Blair Street) elevation of the church features a sandstone portico with a gabled roof supported by sandstone columns and pilasters, described as "outstanding" in the Waverley Council heritage inventory file. A statue of St Anne with the child Mary forms the finial to the portico gable. The chamfered corners of the sandstone parapet wall to the portico gable are carved with gargoyles supporting saints. The corners of the sandstone entry door reveals are carved with a chevron pattern. Above the mullions to the three windows over the entry portico are two figures of angels. These were formed by carving green pressed bricks which were then fired and rebuilt in position. All other bricks in the building were apparently hand brushed by university students to give the façade a subtle texture. The main east and west gables of the church have sandstone crosses as finials. The interior is distinguished by a technically innovative ventilation system consisting of holes in the floor covered by ventilation boxes (hidden under pews) that could be opened by pulling on a drawstring to allow cool air from under the church to circulate throughout. On hotter days a motorised fan stored below the church could be activated to extract hot air from the ceiling of the church, thus aiding the convection process. A parishioner had been carrying out electrical maintenance on this system for much of the past 55 years that he had been attending the church. This ventilation system has been recently dismantled as part of a redesign of the spacing of the pews to allow for larger parishioners. However the removal of ventilation boxes and the filling in of the holes in the floor are reversible and the ventilation machinery remains intact, enclosed in a small sealed room under the church. Condition As at 29 January 2004, the building is generally in good condition. However, there is a structural crack at the south end and much of the timberwork is in need of refinishing. The church is substantially intact in exterior and interior fabric although there have been many minor changes to the interior in recent years including carpeting, removing the altar rail, relocating altar gates and baptistry font, and dismantling the ventilation system. Many of the items that have been removed are being stored underneath the church. Modifications and dates Although the main body of the church was constructed in 1934, the second stage including final altar and apses were not completed until 1964, under the supervision of one of the original architects, Joseph Fowell. Carpet was laid in the nave in 1980 and relaid in the late 1990s, and now includes the aisles. In 1999 the altar gates were removed and later repositioned on the eastern aisle. Other recent internal changes include: removing ventilation boxes from beneath the end of the pews and plugging the associated ventiation holes in the floor; removing several rows of pews and re-spacing the rest to allow for the comfort of larger parishioners; re-locating the baptismal font from the rear of the church to under the apse and then to the western front of the nave; installing glass panelling and doors at the end of the nave to provide a quiet "crying room" for parents of young children; replacement of two exterior light fittings with spherical lightbulbs; removal of six bronze candlesticks from the altar; removal of the altar rail. == Heritage listing ==

As at 2 February 2004, St Anne's Church is of State significance as a fine and representative example of the Inter-war Romanesque style. A Catholic church largely built in the 1930s but completed in the 1960s to the competition-winning design of Joseph Fowell and Kenneth McConnel, the decorative scheme is restrained but features highly crafted timber, brick and sandstone detailing. It has a careful integration of furniture and fittings also largely designed by the architects that includes an ingenious and possibly unique ventilation system (recently dismantled but stored onsite). Winner of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects' 1935 Sulman Award, this is the only church to win this prestigious award as a complete design, and has been described as "perhaps the highlight of ecclesiastical architecture in interwar Sydney". Its representative significance is enhanced by its continuing role and positioning as a landmark element in a church-school precinct of buildings. This precinct also represents the establishment of the Bondi Beach Parish of the Catholic Church and its importance as a place of worship for the local Catholic community through several generations. The interior detailing is richer than the exterior and skilfully executed in brick, carved stone and timber. The spatial qualities of the interior, including the open relationship between nave and aisles, and the particularly fine modelling of the sanctuary with its encircling arcaded ambulatory are of considerable aesthetic merit and capture a symbolism and spatial quality evoking the medieval origins of the style. The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group in New South Wales for social, cultural or spiritual reasons. St Anne's Church is of social significance for its historic role in the establishment of the Bondi Beach Parish of the Catholic church and its importance as a place of worship for the local Catholic community through several generations. The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of the cultural or natural history of New South Wales. St Anne's Church is of state significance in this criterion for its architectural qualities that provide an important point of reference in the adaptation of the Romanesque style as symbolic of the meanings and functions of the Catholic Church. Its contribution to understandings of 1930s taste and aesthetics is enhanced by it being the recipient of the Sulman Award of 1935, and by it being considered a primary example of the Interwar Romanesque style. The (currently dismantled) ventilation system using convection to circulate cool air from beneath the church through ventilation holes under the pews is an ingenious, environmentally sustainable and possibly unique system of temperature modification that is worthy of further study. The place possesses uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of the cultural or natural history of New South Wales. St Anne's Church contains a rare ventilation system using convection to circulate cool air from beneath the church through ventilation holes into boxes hidden under the pews (where drawstrings could be pulled to allow the air to circulate into the church). This ingenious, environmentally sustainable and possibly unique system of temperature modification has been dismantled, however all the parts are stored on site and capable of reinstatement, or study. The church more generally is of local significance for being a fine building of relatively monumental scale within the Waverley area. The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a class of cultural or natural places/environments in New South Wales. St Anne's Church represents a fine example of the Interwar Romanesque style of architecture, which was commonly used in the design of Catholic churches throughout New South Wales in the 1920s and 1930s. It has been described as a "nobly scaled design" and as "perhaps the highlight of ecclesiastical architecture in interwar Sydney". The church's representative significance is enhanced by its positioning as the key element in a church-school precinct of buildings. == See also ==