Morningside Uniting Church

Along with the nearby areas of Bulimba and Balmoral, land in the Morningside area was sold and occupied by farming communities in the mid to late nineteenth century. During the late 1880s a number of portions were subdivided and offered for sale as housing allotments of between 13 perches and one acre. While not all lots were immediately sold and built upon, by 1905 around 200 residents had made their home in the suburb.

Wesleyan Methodist services at Morningside were first held in the home of Mr and Mrs Allison by preachers of the Wesley Circuit. In 1900, the church site was purchased for £50. The building, 50 ft by 20 ft, was completed in 1902, at the cost of £209 by Morningside builder, Mr Crowther. A Sunday School was also started at that time as an important adjunct to the church services. In 1920 a transept was added as a memorial to the soldiers of the congregation who had lost their lives in World War One.

In 1933, the foundation stone for the hall was laid by the President of the Queensland Conference of the Methodist Church. The hall was built for a Sunday school and social purposes and cost £1050. Considerable property improvements were also made in 1947 in celebration of the centenary of Methodism in Queensland.

In 1977, when the Uniting Church was formed by the amalgamation of the Congregational, Presbyterian and Methodist Churches, the church was renamed the Morningside Uniting Church.

The site slopes slightly from front to rear, necessitating the use of steps or ramp for access.

The church is rectangular in plan form with a rectangular hall attached at right angles to the nave axis at the chancel (south eastern) end. This hall has been enlarged by the addition of a skillion roofed extension along the southern side.

The external walls are constructed of brickwork rising from a brick plinth with a rendered capping. Brick walls are strengthened by stepped buttresses which are capped with steeply weathered rendered cappings. The buttresses flanking the doorways to the transepts and each gable end of the hall are terminated partly up the wall and from these concrete obelisk type mouldings rise up the parapeted gable, protruding beyond the gable capping, and terminating at the same level as the gable apex.

The brickwork to the original section of building (nave) is constructed in stretcher bond brickwork with the transepts, which were added at a later stage, constructed in a slightly different colour brick and laid in garden wall bond - three courses of stretcher bricks and one course of header bricks. The external walls to the church hall are constructed in a different colour brick laid in stretcher bond.

The alcoved areas between nave, transepts and hall on both eastern and western sides have been enclosed with the construction of brick walls between transept and hall. The colour of this brickwork laid in stretcher bond again being different from other brickwork.

Brick walls extend up beyond the roof line to form parapeted gables.

All roofs are sheeted with corrugated iron laid on a steep pitch. Eaves overhangs are lined with gauze wire bird proofing. Roof ventilation is provided through fixed timber louvres installed in narrow vertical slots formed in the gable ends of the parapeted gables.

A small timber framed belfry roofed with corrugated iron is located on the ridge adjacent to the northern end parapeted gable. An extant bell is still operable.

Windows to the church are timber framed hoppers with pointed arch fanlights above. All windows are glazed with coloured glass. The main window to the porch on the north end is a pointed arch fixed stained glass window in a timber frame. A mesh screen over the face protects the stained glass from damage by man or nature.

Windows to the hall are timber framed, four and six panel hopper windows with equilateral arch fanlights over. All are glazed with opaque glass. Windows to the hall extension are pairs of casements with opaque glass panels. Arched heads to door and window openings are formed by two courses of brick voussoirs.

Brick sills are laid with a steep weathering and coated with a lime wash.

External doors are framed vertical joint boarding with pointed arches where installed to entry porch and transepts. Elsewhere a transom is installed over the doorway.

A concrete ramp located at the western end of the hall provides access for the disabled. A single step up to the porch entry doors at the western side provides a minor barrier to disabled access to the church.

Stairs generally are constructed in concrete with the exception of the stair to the hall extension that is framed in timber and contains a timber landing.

Due to the terrain of the site sufficient height is available under the eastern end of the hall to allow space for the storage of furniture, etc.

At the northern end of the nave between the entry porch and the transepts, sections of brickwork externally have been highlighted with paint work to indicate sill and head bands, jamb bricks and arch moulding.