belltowers

St Thomas' Church has remarkable aesthetic value with strong landmark qualities; it is a well-composed building picturesquely situated on a prominent site. The building has many well-crafted items of considerable aesthetic value including internal joinery, particularly the altar, pulpit, lectern and internal panelling; stained and coloured glass windows of William Bustard; font; various internal and external memorials and landscaping. The established plantings surrounding the church contribute to its picturesqueness and contain remnants of the nineteenth and twentieth-century garden design.[1] The church has had a special association with the St Thomas' parish as their principal place of worship for about 120 years.[ St Thomas' Anglican Church is a heritage-listed church. It was also known as St Thomas' Church of England. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.[1] Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Thomas%27_Anglican_Church,_Toowong

The Catholic Church in Innisfail is dedicated to Mary, Mother of Good Counsel (‘Mater Boni Consilii’), a title of Mary, Mother of God, closely associated with the Augustinian Order of priests, who served this parish from the 1880s to 1993. The present church on the corner of Grace and Rankin Streets was the third built in Innisfail. In 1885, the land was purchased in Owen Street for a church that was built in 1891. It stood on the hill facing Owen Street, approximately where the storage shed adjacent to the presbytery carport now stands. Beside it on the Grace Street side of the hill was a separate bell tower. This church was dedicated to the Mother of Good Counsel. It suffered significant wear and tear in a short time, the result of termites, etc, and of severe heat and heavy rain. A cyclone in 1906 caused such further damage that it was decided to build another church. A second church was built, larger and stronger than the first, of silky oak and cedar, on the other side of the bell tower which survived the cyclone intact. On Sunday, March 10, 1918, a cyclone of unimagined ferocity caused enormous damage to the town and district and, although not completely destroying the church, making it irreparable. The church was rebuilt and reinforced several times as cyclones in this area were very destructive. On March 20, 2006, severe cyclone ‘Larry’ caused havoc in and around Mother of Good Counsel Church: windows were shattered, the church structure was weakened and in many places ruined as some of the roofing and the silky oak rafters were torn away. Flying debris from within and without made the church unsafe for the duration of the cyclone and for some time afterward. In 2009, the church was repaired and renewed; there has been a transformation – a death and resurrection. The severe damage provided the opportunity to redesign in particular the altar and sanctuary, to accord with liturgical requirements. This has been done by Architect, Steve Gleeson, who has highlighted theological insights of Vatican II using the best of modern methods and technology while preserving the integrity, simplicity, and harmony of the original design of the church. Bishop James Foley provided much helpful advice in the redesigning. Source: www.gcparish.org.au/Pages/History.html

St. Andrew’s Anglican Church was constructed in 1926 and was the second Anglican church to be built on the site. The new church integrated parts of the old 1866 timber church in its design by Melbourne architect Louis Williams. It has become a local landmark for its unique architecture and prominent hilltop position. It was also the first Church of England church in Brisbane to have a tower or spire. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, St Andrew’s parish continued to expand and by 1947 had become the largest parish in the diocese. To accommodate this continued expansion, in 1960, the 1866 church parts were demolished and sympathetic extensions were made to the 1926 church. A timber lych gate, which was completed in 1924 in anticipation of the new church, is also included in this heritage listing. The symmetrical front facade of the building has a central square tower, with an entry door, accessible via a flight of tiled steps. To each side of this, massive parapet walls feature a few narrow stained glass windows. Below sill height, several projecting stringcourses form horizontal bands across the facade above a narrow stone and brick plinth. The tower rises above the building's main entry doors which are set into a stepped pointed arch opening and surmounted by a decorative brick cross. Above this, the front wall of the tower features a pair of lancet windows and a clock. Large vents to each face of the tower identify the belfry, each vent is framed by a squinch arch. Buttresses to each corner of the tower extend past a chamfered brick coping that caps the tower. It is crowned by a flagpole that extends from the center of the tower. Source: heritage.brisbane.qld.gov.au/heritage-places/1009#descrip...