Christ Church

The National Trust lists 'Christ Church & Organ' as having 'State' level significance, noting it is "One of the oldest substantial churches on the Victorian goldfields, of great interest for its use of local sandstone and for details such as the rose window and the faces carved on the crockets. This is a particularly charming and intact church, integrally involved in the history of the Castlemaine goldfield" Read full Trust record HERE​

A guide to the interior of Christ Church will be posted on this page soon
​ Photos of some of the exterior carved faces are at the end of this page​

Heritage Register
Christ Church Castlemaine is also listed on the Victorian Heritage Register which records the following: 
STATEMENT OF CULTURAL HERITAGE SIGNIFICANCE
The foundation stone for Christ Church, Castlemaine was laid on February 24th 1854 by Anglican Bishop Perry but it was not completed until 1858. The delay, mainly caused by problems with the foundation, resulted in legal action between the trustees and the architects, Burgoyne and Poeppel. The church is a Gothic style stone building comprising a nave, chancel, transept and vestry. The flags in the church are from regiments which served in Victoria during the gold rush days. The present pipe organ was built by George Fincham in 1888 and re-built in 1953 with further restoration in 1992. The chancel and vestry were added in 1892. The large east window was placed as a memorial of sixty years of Queen Victoria's reign in 1897. Christ Church is of historic and architectural significance to the State of Victoria. Christ Church, built on Agitation Hill where the diggers gathered to protest about conditions on the goldfield, is historically important for its associations with the early history of Castlemaine from the time in March 1852 when the Bishop of Melbourne, Bishop Perry, preached from a tree stump on Forest Creek field. Christ Church is one of the oldest substantial churches on the Victorian goldfields and is particularly notable for its relative intactness. Christ Church is architecturally significant for its use of local sandstone, its rose window and its detailing, including the carved faces on the crockets. Notable interior features include the timber pews, the baptismal font, the creed and commandments panels in the chancel, the lettering around the chancel arch and nave walls, the George Fincham organ of 1888, and the stained glass including the rose window."

St John's Chewton

By March 1852, six months after the discovery of gold, an estimated 25,000 hopeful diggers were living along Forest Creek in canvas tents or shelters. Some had their families with them. Many found gold, others died. The Children's Cemetery at Pennyweight Flat attests to the harshness of the living conditions.
News of the gold rush spread to other countries and ships from many parts of the world brought eager men and women to Port Philip. In one day late in September 1852, a recorded 3,000 people arrived at Forest Creek.
A canvas town grew there, with butchers, bakers, gold buyers, lemonade sellers, blacksmiths, druggists, and traders of all manner of goods, as well as a post office, and 'offices' for newspaper and government representatives. Church services were held in the open or in tents.
Soon structures of wood and stone were being built at Forest Creek along the road that led from the diggings to the Commissioners Camp 4 km to the northwest at the confluence of Barker's, Forest and Campbell's Creeks. A new town was laid out there and in 1853 was named Castlemaine 
The growing township at Forest Creek diggings was named Chewton in 1857. In that same year St John's Church had just been completed. The Church of England (much later renamed Anglican) had been granted a large parcel of land on which to build a church with the proviso that a burial ground was established within the property at the Main Road end so that those dying in Chewton could be properly interred locally rather than an expensive journey to Castlemaine, or an unrecorded burial in the bush. This plan however did not work out as when the burial ground was being prepared, a reef of solid sandstone was discovered lying just two feet beneath the surface. So no one was ever buried there. But the church of St John's Chewton had been built and St John's and its community has continued holding worship services and other events since then.
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By the late 1850s the surface gold that had been easy for the first diggers to find had all been dug and fossicked. Deeper mining was needed. In the 1860s ten quartz crushing mills served the local mines. Chewton had a busy commercial sector, with a mining survey office, two banks, a court, 14 hotels, and buildings not tents for the butchers, grocers and blacksmiths.
 
A hundred years later, in 1970, St John's became a part of the Parish of Castlemaine sharing a minister and resources.
More recently, the population of the always energetic township of Chewton is growing again.

A history of the first fifty years of St John's Chewton is nearing completion. Details will be featured here soon