The Former Colac Wesleyan Methodist Church Hall – Corner of Grant and Skene Streets, Colac

            The former Wesleyan Methodist Church and Hall, located on the corner of Grant and Skene streets in the Victorian provincial town of Colac was built between 1924 and 1925 to the designs of Alec Stanley Eggleston (1883 – 1955).  Built of the red bricks used to build the original 1874 Wesleyan Methodist church on Murray Street, the former Wesleyan Methodist Church and Hall complex is architecturally significant as a fine and unusually intact example of an Arts and Crafts church in Victoria.  

The church is built in the shape of a cross with a central dainty belfry.  It has restrained use of stone tracery with Old English style detailing.  The interior is particularly significant for its unusual amphitheatre form with multiple entry and exit doors, all of which feature pretty Art Nouveau stained glass panels of grapes in blue, green and purple glass.  This unusual layout was inspired by early Twentieth Century thinking by the Wesleyans who believed in the efficacy of religious services and the importance of church architecture representing and reflecting the messages of the church’s religion.  They wanted their church to be plain and simple meeting house, rather than a grand edifice to religion.  The church was completed in 1925.  

Next door, the Wesleyan Methodist Church Hall matches the church and has been constructed in Arts and Crafts style.  It too is built of red brick and has stone tracery, but unlike the church, it has a hip roof, and features wooden gabling.   It was also completed in 1925, and it has been used, amongst other things, as a kindergarten for local children.

In October of 2011 local business Quinn Funerals moved into the empty former Wesleyan Methodist Church and renamed it Wesley Place.  Today it serves as a chapel for all denominations as the grieving farewell their loved ones.

Alec Stanley Eggleston is most famous for the number of church buildings he dsigned in Victoria.  These include the Middle Park Presbyterian Church (1922 – 1923), the Box Hill Wesleyan Methodist Church (1925 – 1926), the Bentleigh Wesleyan Methodist Church (1928) and the Yarraville Wesleyan Methodist Church (1930 – 1931).  He ran a busy and successful architectural firm, Eggleston, Macdonald and Seacomb, for nearly fifty years and worked on architectural committees associated with the Victorian Institute of Architects.  He published a book on architecture, “The Practicing Architect” on the year of his death.  

Located approximately 150 kilometres to the south-west of Melbourne, past Geelong is the small Western District city of Colac.  The area was originally settled by Europeans in 1837 by pastoralist Hugh Murray.  A small community sprung up on the southern shore of a large lake amid the volcanic plains.  The community was proclaimed a town, Lake Colac, in 1848, named after the lake upon which it perches.  The post office opened in 1848 as Lake Colac and was renamed Colac in 1854 when the city changed its name.  The township grew over the years, its wealth generated by the booming grazing industries of the large estates of the Western District and the dairy industry that accompanied it.  Colac has a long high street shopping precinct, several churches, botanic gardens, a Masonic hall and a smattering of large properties within its boundaries, showing the conspicuous wealth of the city.  Today Colac is still a commercial centre for the agricultural district that surrounds it with a population of around 10,000 people.  Although not strictly a tourist town, Colac has many beautiful surviving historical buildings or interest, tree lined streets.  Colac is known as “the Gateway to the Otways” (a reference to the Otway Ranges and surrounding forest area that is located just to the south of the town).

Taken in: Australia / Victoria / Colac (show map)

Taken on: April 22, 2014

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Camera: Canon DIGITAL IXUS 80 IS, f/2.8, 1/160 sec, 6.2mm, ISO 80 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon DIGITAL IXUS 80 IS
Aperture:	f/2.8
Exposure Time:	0.006 sec (1/160)
Focal Length:	6.2mm
ISO:	80
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Auto, Did not fire
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
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