Northgate Methodist Church (former)

It was the Nundah Circuit of the Wesleyan Church that appointed a committee in 1913 to investigate purchasing a church site in Northgate, however no action was taken. Undeterred by the absence of a permanent church, Methodists in the Northgate area commenced worship fourteen years prior to the building of the present church. Services and a Sunday School were begun in the Peary street home of local resident W.B. Robinson as early in 1914. The Sunday School ceased operation in 1921.

During 1924 the District Synod recommended acquisition of land at Northgate. It was purchased in 1925 for £580. In November 1926 weekly services were commenced in the School of Arts in Ridge Street, remaining there until the church was built. The foundation stone of the church was laid on 31 March 1928 by the President of the Queensland Methodist Congregation, Rev James H. Heaton. Built by L. and O.G. Machin to a design by architect C.E. Plant, the red brick English Gothic church was completed only six months later in September 1928.

By 1933 the Sunday School was again operating and commenced a building fund. A hall for that purpose was erected and opened in 1936 at a cost of £1116. During World War II the hall was declared a Clearing Station and Rest centre for the District. A Kindergarten Hall, with its kitchen facilities, was opened in 1955. After 1977, when the Uniting Church was formed by the amalgamation of the Congregational, Presbyterian and Methodist Churches the church was renamed the Northgate Uniting Church. In recent years both halls have been leased for the operation of a child-care centre. 

The church is presently in private ownership and is used as a residence.

The church is built in the traditional form with a cruciform plan containing nave and transepts and large vestry to the rear. A tower dominates the western front of the once symmetrical front elevation. The addition of a more recently erected roof and portico disrupts this symmetry.

The single storey red brick structure rises from a rendered brick plinth and is constructed generally in stretcher bond with the brickwork to the tower laid in garden wall cross bond brickwork. Stepped buttresses provide stiffening and decoration to the walls. The walls to the transepts and the eastern and western walls of the nave extend above the roof level to form parapeted gables.

The steeply pitched roof is sheeted with terra cotta tiles. The roof to the transepts is extended between the side buttresses to form hoods for windows and doors. These hoods are supported on timber brackets. Similar tiles have been installed in the skillion roof over the entrance portico. Eaves overhang to the nave are lined with slatted timber boarding spaced apart to allow ventilation to the roof.

Metal ventilators are installed along the ridges over the nave, transepts and vestry.

Windows are generally timber framed lead-light casements with pointed arch stained glass fanlights.

Centre windows to north and south parapeted gable ends are similar to other windows, however   they are taller because of the installation of a stained glass panel between the casements and the fanlight. Above these elongated windows towards the apex of the parapeted gable are triangulated windows glazed with stained glass.

Brick jamb linings to windows are slightly recessed from the wall face to produce a shadow line.

Windows to the vestry at the rear are timber framed casements glazed with opaque glass.

Doors to main entry and to the north and south transepts are framed tongue and groove vertical joint. Main entry doors are hung on decorative heavy duty hinge brackets. Rear doors to vestry are single leaf framed tongue and groove vertical joint doors. Access for the disabled is provided by way of a small ramp leading to the south transept doors.

The tower over the western entry porch is three stories in height and is terminated at the top with a parapet surround spanning between the extended corner buttresses.

The western wall of the tower, at ground level, contains a large stained glass window terminating in a pointed arch. Above this window is placed a label mould. Similar label moulds appear above the entrance door on the southern side and the casement windows on the northern side.

Above the stained glass window on the western face is installed a typical lead lighted casement window with pointed arch fanlight. The north and south faces at this level of the tower contains pairs of blend niches.

Each face of the upper storey contains pairs of lancet type openings with pointed arch heads. Fixed timber louvres are fitted to these lancet openings.

Levels in the tower are accentuated externally at sill level by horizontal rendered bands. Stepping of the tower buttresses also occurs at these points.

The roof framing is supported on exposed hammer beam trusses and the ceiling is lined with fibro cement.

Internally the walls are plastered above the brick dado.

The church hall is an Inter-war timber framed structure with weatherboard cladding and features some Old English design elements. The steeply pitched roof is sheeted with terra cotta tiles.

A prominent feature of the eastern end gable is a section of imitation half timbering which forms a transition between wall and gable. This section of half timbering also contains a bank of three casement windows. This imitation half timbering element has also been incorporated in the attached porch on the eastern end.

Windows generally are pairs of multi-panel timber casements with fanlight above. A design element of all these windows is the curved underside of the top rail.

The roof space is ventilated through fixed timber louvres located above the imitation timber boarding on the eastern end gable.

1. Architectural & Building Journal of Queensland, October 1926

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

3. A Jubilee History of the Northgate Uniting Church, 1928 - 1978

4. Uniting Churches in South East Queensland, file, John Oxley Library