I’m not much of a Sunday church goer, but what wonderful heritage we have with our churches in Bathurst. If you get the chance, any day of the week check out the magnificent Coburn paintings hanging in the Anglican Cathedral in Church Street, and my favourite, the organ and sensational balconies inside the Uniting Church in William Street – did you know it can sit 800 people?. Over in Kelso of course is Holy Trinity which dates to 1834 and is the oldest church in inland Australia.
Our pic is the 1860’s St Thomas at O’Connell.
Recently I met some friends from Sydney at the Church Bar in Ribbon Gang Lane for a gluten free pizza and a number of bottles of Renzaglia Shiraz. While we started better than we finished, it was an opportunity to yarn about adaptive re-use of heritage buildings, and the Repair, Restore, Reinstate credo. Racing Car John wanted to know all about the Ribbon Gang who were hung in the laneway in 1830. If we craned our necks, we could almost see their ankles dangling outside the window, and I recalled one of the 10 crying out “I told me mother I wouldn’t die wiv me boots on”, and he kicked them off as the noose tightened. Gruesome – yes, but true.
What a terrific job they have done on the adaption of the old building there – its cool and trendy, and a great social relax.
Thought of the month from Racing Car John “More of this Bathurst, please, but why don’t you tell the world about it?”
by a humble heritage advocate – April 2022
