Chatswood South Uniting Church, Sydney

Front view of church

Rear view

Bryson grave

Chatswood South Uniting Church, Sydney is a sandstone church located in the suburb of Artarmon, New South Wales, Australia. It was built in 1871 and is heritage-listed. It was originally a Methodist church but is now a Uniting Church. It was not in use as of 2012.

History

Methodist services in the Artarmon area were originally conducted in the home of Mr. and Mrs. John Bryson, who lived opposite the present site of the church, at the corner of the Pacific Highway and Mowbray Road. The church was built in 1871 after being designed by Thomas Rowe. The church was designed in Gothic Revival style, as was usually the case with ecclesiastical buildings of that period. One of its distinctive features was a small belfry on the east side of the building. Changes and additions were carried out in 1883 and 1930. The church has a national heritage listing. ^[1] A commemoration ceremony was held on July 4, 1971, to mark the first centenary of the building of the church. A commemoration plaque was installed by the Governor of New South Wales.

On the east side of the church is a small cemetery that was established in the early 1870s. The first person buried there was the infant Mary Elizabeth Holland. It is one of only two surviving churchyard cemeteries on Sydney's north shore. It was closed in 1924 and afterwards suffered considerably from vandalism. Later, the Uniting Church gave the cemetery to Lane Cove Council, which asked the National Trust to carry out a restoration plan. The cemetery was then dedicated in 1984 as the Pioneers' Memorial Reserve.^[2]

One feature of the cemetery is the camellia tree growing in the north-west corner. The story behind this tree is that in 1878 a young man by the name of Hugh Bryson was riding to Willoughby to visit his fiancee. Unfortunately, his horse shied and he was thrown to the ground and killed. In his button-hole was a camellia, which was taken by his fiancee. At his funeral, she planted the camellia in the soil over his grave and it took root, resulting in the tree that can still be seen growing alongside the Bryson graves.

References

1. The Heritage of Australia, Macmillan Company, 1981. p.2/34
2. Interment Website Archived December 25, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.

Coordinates: 33°48′20″S 151°10′44″E / 33.805684°S 151.178974°E