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| CHURCH AT WINDERMERE |
Rather more of the “look around”
than the Launceston this time.......only a short drive away, though,
and still in the Launceston council area. This little church, St
Mathias Anglican, at Windermere has one of the prettiest settings in
the state.
The land, and a sizeable amount of the
money required to build the church was donated by Dr Matthias Gaunt,
in 1842, as he had promised his wife that a church would be built, if
they moved to an area without one. The bricks were made in
Launceston and an article in The Examiner in 1943, suggests
that the building of the church may have been achieved with the use
of convict labour.
The first marriage took place in the
church in 1845 (the year the church was formally dedicated), and the
first baptism the year later. The church became an important part
of the life of settlers on both sides of the Tamar, at a time when
the river was the main “highway.”
A history of the church can be read at
http://www.winderdoon.com/community/st_matthias_church.htm.
The cemetery at the church
contains the graves of many early settlers, and there are many others
buried there in graves that are no longer marked. An article in The
Examiner in 1926, said that church records showed that there had,
even at that time, been over 300 burials, many of them already lost,
due to “the want of a systematic layout.”
Sometime before the
mid-1920s the church had fallen into disrepair, and was saved by the
efforts of David Medwin of Woodlawn, but by the 1930s, cracks had
appeared in the church and fundraising had to be undertaken. It was
closed for five months in 1939 while repairs were effected, as it had
become unsafe. We owe a debt to the Tamar River community, and their
dedication to saving the church. The much admired building would
probably otherwise not be here today
