Cathedrals in Australia - St Patrick's Cathedral, Toowoomba South Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia
By Team MavEtJu on 05-Oct-17. Waypoint GA10887

Cathedrals in Australia - St Patrick's Cathedral, Toowoomba

St Patrick's Cathedral is a heritage-listed Roman Catholic cathedral on James Street, South Toowoomba, Toowoomba, Toowoomba Region, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Toowoomba architect James Marks and was built from 1883 to 1935.

St Patrick's was a large project, which was delayed by a shortage of materials and labour as well as by the desire of Father O'Connell to open the Cathedral free of debt. It took six years to complete during which time the builder, Richard Godsall, died, and the work was completed under the guidance of his firm, Godsall & Mayes. The Cathedral was completed in 1889 and consecrated on 17 March of that year at a ceremony presided over by Archbishop Dunne and witnessed by some 2000 people. The original projected costing of no more than £5000 had by completion blown out to a total of £8500, much of which had been funded by the continual raising of funds amongst the local community.

The Cathedral's walls and foundations were built from blue stone while the buttresses, pinnacles and piers were of freestone, which was mostly acquired from Murphy's Creek quarries. It was a dominant building within the Toowoomba townscape, measuring 124 feet in length, 60 feet in width and 56 feet in height. The newspaper press of the time resounded with praise for the new cathedral. The Brisbane Courier described the facade as having a "majestic and stately appearance" and the Toowoomba Chronicle reflected upon how St Patrick's was "stately yet elegant in appearance, at once handsome and massive, and by its beauty adds very much to the amenity of the town . . . . clergymen and parishioners alike may feel proud in the highest degree at the most praiseworthy and satisfactory result of their labours". Yet the Cathedral was not fully complete and plans were in place for the enlargement of the chancel and the addition of an eastern and western transept. Still other items were only temporarily in position, including the chancel window, the pulpit, and an Estey organ on loan from W.H. Paling & Co.

It was not until the 1930s that the Cathedral was fully completed and in the interim plans had been made by Reverend Monsignor Denis Fouhy to employ James Marks in designing a new tower for St Patrick's. While these plans did not come to fruition, Fouhy's successor, Father McKenna, was able to achieve his goal of building a new Presbytery in place of the old timber one. In 1927, the architect John Donoghue designed the new brick Presbytery, which was built by H Cheetham and consecrated on 12 February 1928. Also included in the building contract was the construction of a maid's quarters, a laundry, an underground tank, a brick belfry as well as some landscaping works for a total cost of £8863, funded by donations, loans from parishioners and the estate of Monsignor Fouhy.

For more information, see the Wikipedia entry.

Denomination: Roman Catholic
Founded: 1883

When logging this virtual cache, please add a photo of yourself and/or your GNSSr receiver in front of this building!