Norman Park Methodist Church (former) & fence

In the areas surrounding this district, Wesleyan Methodist churches were formed at Coorparoo in 1885 and at Thompson Estate in 1888. Services at East Brisbane were held in a borrowed shed until the congregation erected a small church in 1889. The Primitive and Wesleyan Methodists amalgamated during the late 1890s, forming a united front for the challenges of the new century. A new church was erected at nearby Morningside in 1902, but it was not until World War One that Methodists in what was then called the National Park Estate, congregated to worship. This was no doubt because of the small population of the district in earlier times. Though the first main subdivision in Norman Park took place in 1887, settlement had not been rapid. A local station for the railway was not constructed until 1911, twenty-two years after the service had been built through the district. This encouraged residential development and it was during the pre-war and years of World War I that the population of Norman Park slowly built up, and the local Methodist community expanded.

The land was acquired and trustees were appointed to establish the church in February 1917.  The building of 30 feet by 40 feet was designed and built by one of the trustees George Turner. It seated about 200 people, and was considered notable for its large semi-Gothic windows, artistic pulpit, and its splendid lighting apparatus. Donations were used to finance the building costs and in an innovative fund-raising process offering the boards at 5 shillings each paid for the ceiling. The donor names were inscribed on the boards. The Norman Park Methodist Church was opened on 22 July 1917 as part of the East Brisbane Wesleyan Methodist Circuit.

A building committee was formed in 1928 to build a Sunday school 30 feet by 50 feet. Tenders were called in July 1928 and the tender of W H Wilmot was accepted. The stump capping occurred in December and the hall opened in early 1929.

A new porch was built on the church in 1952, and in 1961 a minister’s vestry, choir’s vestry, kitchen cupboards and furniture, and toilet blocks were added. In 1966 a basement hall was built under the main church for it’s youth group. It is probable the brick retaining wall/fence was built at this time.  A parsonage was built adjacent to the church in 1968.

The land and church were divested from the corporation of the Methodist Church and vested in the Uniting Church of Australia property trust in June 1979 following the formation of that church through the 1977 amalgamation of the Congregational, Presbyterian and Methodist Churches.

The church is rectangular in plan form with an attached entrance porch on the western end. Attached to the eastern end and at right angles to the church axis is the church hall and attached toilet facilities.

The entire structure is seated on a painted concrete masonry perimeter wall that extends up to floor level. External walls are generally sheeted with chamfer boards, the church section being sheeted with newer boards than those used for the hall. The southern gable ends to the church hall and its attached entry porch are lined with asbestos cement sheeting with wide timber vertical cover strips.

Vertical timber boarding, spaced apart, and supported on a timber rail provides modest ornamentation to the projecting gable on the western end of the nave.

The pitched roof is sheeted with corrugated iron which projects beyond the wall line to provide an unlined eaves overhang. Similar roofing is provided to church and hall entry porches and to the toilet facilities.

Windows to the nave are timber framed pairs of casements with semi-circular fanlights over. Each casement contains three panels which are glazed with opaque glass. Windows elsewhere are timber casements without fanlights and hung in pairs or groups of three. All are glazed with opaque glass. A solitary small circular window in a square window frame ornaments the southern wall of the hall's entry porch. 

Windows to the toilet facilities attached to the end of the hall are adjustable glass louvres.

Windows to the lower area beneath the nave are a combination of aluminium framed sliding glass windows and timber framed hopper windows.

Access to the main entry porch and southern side landings is by way of timber framed steps with timber batten balustrading. No provision is made for disabled access.

Doors are generally framed and ledged vertical joint boarding with the top of the main entry doors curved in a semi-circular shape.

1. Rev R S C Dingle ed Annals of Achievement: A Review of Queensland Methodism 1847- 1947, Queensland Book Depot, Brisbane, 1947

2. Methodist Leader, 17 August 1917

3. Queensland Post Office Directories, 1914-18

4. Queensland Land Titles Office Records