Melbourne, Australia - St. Paul's Cathedral - postcard c.1960s

Postcard
• Picture / Image:  St. Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne, Australia
• Publisher:  Renwick Pride
• Postally used:  no
• Stamp:  n/a
• Postmark(s):  n/a
• Sent to:  n/a
• Notes / condition: 

Please ask if you need any other information and I will do the best I can to answer.

Image may be low res for illustrative purposes - if you need a higher definition image then please contact me and I may be able to send one.

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

Postage & Packing:

UK (incl. IOM, CI & BFPO): 99p

Europe: £1.60

Rest of world (inc. USA etc): £2.75

No additional charges for more than one postcard. You can buy as many postcards from me as you like and you will just pay the fee above once. (If buying postcards with other things such as books, please contact or wait for invoice before paying).

Payment Methods:

UK - PayPal, Cheque (from UK bank) or postal order

Outside UK: PayPal ONLY (unless otherwise stated) please.   NO non-UK currency checks or money orders (sorry).

NOTE: All postcards are sent in brand new stiffened envelopes which I have bought for the task. These are specially made to protect postcards and you may be able to re-use them. In addition there are other costs to sending so the above charge is not just for the stamp!

I will give a full refund if you are not fully satisfied with the postcard.

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

Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

*************

St Paul's Cathedral in Melbourne is the metropolitical and cathedral church of the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne, Victoria in Australia. It is the seat of the Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne and Metropolitan of the Province of Victoria. The cathedral, which was built in stages, is a major Melbourne landmark.

The cathedral is in a prominent location in the centre of Melbourne, on the eastern corner of Swanston Street and Flinders Street. It is diagonally opposite Flinders Street Station, which was the transport hub of 19th century Melbourne and is still an important centre.

Immediately to the south of the cathedral, across Flinders Street, is the new public heart of Melbourne, Federation Square. Continuing south down Swanston Street is Princes Bridge which crosses the Yarra River, leading to St Kilda Road. The cathedral therefore commands the southern approaches to the city. The location for St Paul's Cathedral marks the location of the first Christian service held in Melbourne in 1835. Previous buildings in this location include a corn market and St Paul's Parish Church.

St Paul's Cathedral is built on the site where the first public Christian service in Melbourne was conducted in 1835. The area of the current site became a corn market until 1848, when it was made available for the construction of St Paul's Parish Church, a bluestone church. St Paul's Parish Church was consecrated in 1852 and was in use until 1885 when it was demolished to make way for the current cathedral.

A distinguished English architect, William Butterfield, designed the cathedral, in the architectural style of Gothic transitional. The foundation stone was laid in 1880 and, on 22 January 1891, the cathedral was consecrated. St Paul's replaced St James Old Cathedral which then stood on the corner of William Street and Collins Street - later moved to a site near the Flagstaff Gardens. To fit the block, the cathedral building is orientated NNW.

The erection of the spires began in 1926, to the design of John Barr of Sydney instead of Butterfield's original design. The 1960s saw extensive work completed to the exterior of the cathedral and the T.C. Lewis organ was restored in 1989 by a major National Trust appeal. Major restoration works were completed in 2009 with significant repairs to the spires, the building of the Moorhouse Tower Lantern and the new processional doors.

Although there was no established church in colonial Victoria, most of the colony's establishment were Anglicans and the Church of England (as it was then) was given the best site in Melbourne for its cathedral. At the time of its construction St Paul's was the tallest building in central Melbourne and dominated the city's skyline. The growth of multi-storey buildings in central Melbourne during the 20th century robbed St Paul's of its commanding position and restricted views from many angles. The recent construction of Federation Square, which involved the demolition of a pair of adjacent highrise buildings, the Gas and Fuel Buildings, has improved the cathedral's visibility from the south.

St Paul's is built in a revival of the style known as Gothic transitional, being partly Early English and partly Decorated. It was designed by the distinguished English architect William Butterfield, who was noted for his ecclesiastical work. The foundation stone was laid in 1880. Butterfield never saw the site and the building work was frequently delayed by disputes between Butterfield in England and the church authorities in Melbourne. Butterfield resigned in 1884 and the building was finished by a local architect, Joseph Reed. Consequently the design of the spires differs greatly from those originally planned (similar to those built at Christ Church, South Yarra). The cathedral chapter has a scale model of the original completed design.

The cathedral was consecrated on 22 January 1891, but the building of the spires did not begin until 1926. The spires were designed by John Barr of Sydney. An organ was commissioned from the English builder T. C. Lewis, one of the most prominent organ builders of the 19th century.^[1] Besides Sunday and weekday Eucharists the cathedral ""maintains the English tradition"" (p. 14) of a daily choral Evensong, the only Anglican cathedral in Australia to do so.^[2]

St Paul's is unusual among Melbourne's more notable 19th century public buildings in that it is not made from bluestone, the city's dominant building material. Instead it is made from sandstone from the Barrabool Hills and limestone embellishments of Waurn Ponds limestone, both from near Geelong, giving the cathedral a warm yellow-brown colouring rather than Melbourne's characteristic cold blue-grey. This gives it a strikingly different appearance to the bluestone Gothic of St Patrick's Roman Catholic cathedral on the eastern edge of the city. Because the spires are made from Sydney sandstone and are 30 years newer, they are of a darker tone than the older parts of the building. St Paul's Moorhouse Tower is the second highest Anglican spire in the world, the tallest being that of Salisbury Cathedral.^[3]

By the 1990s the constant traffic vibration of central Melbourne had led to concerns about the structural soundness of the cathedral, particularly the spires. A public appeal, led by the then Dean of Melbourne, the Very Reverend David Richardson, raised A$18 million to restore the spires and improve the interior of the building. The seven-year restoration project was completed in 2009, under the guidance of Falkinger Andronas Architects and Heritage Consultants (now Andronas Conservation Architecture). The restoration works were undertaken by Cathedral Stone. The restoration works were acknowledged by the Australian Institute of Architects with the Victorian Chapter Heritage Architecture Award 2009 and The Lachlan Macquarie National Award for Heritage Architecture 2009.

As part of the work, stone heads of Dean David Richardson and philanthropist Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, created by Melbourne sculptor Smiley Williams and carved by stonemason Daryl Gilbert, were added to the spires and new dalle de verre glass was created by Janusz and Magda Kuszbicki for the new west doors and the ""Eighth Day"" lantern in the Moorhouse Tower.

type=printed postcards

theme=topographical: rest of the world

sub-theme=oceania/ australasia

county/ country=australia

number of items=single

period=1945 - present

postage condition=unposted