In June 1892 St Mary's Church, Avenel was consecrated and opened by Coadjutor Bishop Stephen Reville to the delight of an ‘exceptionally large’ congregation. In April 2024, the Church was deconsecrated by Bishop Shane Mackinlay to a much smaller congregation of the faithful. Diocesan Archivist, Dr Donna Bailey shares a history of St Mary's Church, Avenel.
By Dr Donna Bailey
The story of the church building, including its unique architectural and devotional trimmings, is one that should be read in context with the story of the place. The narrative of Avenel is both colourful and dramatic. Themes of pilgrimage, bravery, kindness and faith have abounded in this community across time.
Prior to the Europeans arriving, the area around Avenel was occupied by the Taungurong people of the Eastern Kulin Nation. Their remaining scar trees here, near the township, are a reminder of the significant presence of those First Nations clans in central Victoria.
Situated on the Hughes' Creek, Avenel boasts an impressive sandstone bridge, constructed in 1859. The bridge is perhaps less famous for its striking architecture than it is for the story of a brave ten-year-old boy named Ned Kelly who saved another boy from drowning in the rushing waters of the creek near where the bridge now stands. Ned Kelly, eventually notorious for his unlawful antics spanning a decade, ending in his early demise in 1880, only lived at Avenel for around four or five years but his family’s imprint remains here. His father is buried at the Avenel cemetery and the story of Ned’s bravery and his surviving green sash, awarded to him by the people of Avenel, which he wore with pride throughout his life, are more than just folklore. It is reasonable to suggest that Tipperary born John Kelly and his wife Ellen, were typical of the Irish-born Catholic people who settled throughout this Diocese as the opportunity to take up land became available. They personify the hardship that many families would have endured alongside keeping their Catholic faith commitment.
The first European settler in the area was Henry Kent Hughes who, in 1838, ‘took up’ a pastoral run of 60,000 acres and named it Avenel after his home in England. From 1839, at the point where the Sydney, Port Phillip Track crossed Hughes’ Creek, it became a stopover place for bullock teamsters travelling the long route to deliver mail. The township of Avenel was formally established in 1849 when government land was first offered for sale and by the mid-1850s it was the main thoroughfare to Beechworth in the northeast for those in the quest to find gold.
In 1862, around the time that the Kelly family arrived at Avenel, renting a small dairy farm on the Hughes' Creek, Bishop Goold of Melbourne paid a flying visit to the town, staying overnight, like others, probably using the site as a necessary stopover during a long journey. On that occasion, Goold was travelling from Kilmore to Euroa to examine children in the Catechism; he mentioned the weather, which was ‘cloudy and threatening’, but not much else. Goold returned in 1866, this time passing from Euroa towards Melbourne, where he had laid the foundation stone for the Euroa church, St Michael the Archangel. Here he noted that he ‘got a little out of the way before reaching Avenel’: this short account offers some insight into the difficulties presented during long distance travel into Australia’s interior by its early pioneers. Goold’s visits predated the construction of the first timber church, built in the ‘old town’ of Avenel around 1875, however our pioneering priests, Tierney, followed by Galen, Branigan and Hayes were referred to in his 1862 and 1866 journal entries.
Reverend Branigan and Reverend Hayes circa 1860s
Until 1874 when the Sandhurst Diocese was formed, Avenel would have been serviced by priests from the Kilmore Mission, then the Beechworth and Heathcote Missions. The first timber church built around that time, is believed to have survived approximately fifteen years; its last days saw it being propped up by timber stays as it had begun to lean.
By 1891, tenders to construct a new brick church were advertised. In June 1892 the church was completed and subsequently consecrated and opened by coadjutor Bishop Stephen Reville. An ‘exceptionally large’ congregation attended which included ‘residents of the district’ as well as visitors from neighbouring towns. 57 children were presented to the Bishop on the day as candidates for Confirmation and a collection at the door raised so much money, that the ‘building debt was almost wiped out.’ Fr Richard Carr, the parish priest at Nagambie, who concelebrated the Mass, was described as ‘highly pleased ’with this outcome.
Newspaper reports, following the opening of the church boasted its many fine features, such as tuckpointing on the exterior walls, white copings of the buttresses and sills, tall (14ft) interior walls and beautiful ‘mellow’ tinted glass windows. Later, in August 1917 the first of the stained-glass windows was unveiled, donated by the O’Dwyer family who had lost their son to the war, in France in 1916. In 1925 and 1935, Patrick Gleeson commissioned further stained-glass windows in the church. The Stations of the Cross were gifted to the church by Mrs Sterling of Locksley in 1926.
In terms of the naming of the church, records show that during the occasion of confirming children at Avenel in 1931, Bishop John McCarthy reportedly named the church, St Mary, Star of the Sea. This November event coincided with the celebration of the Golden Jubilee of the St Vincent de Paul Society in Melbourne where Archbishop Mannix asked that the Society mark the occasion by establishing a seaman’s institute (Stella Maris). Given the close relationship between Mannix and McCarthy, this could explain why Bishop McCarthy named the church this, at the time.
Earlier, a surviving decree, written in August 1917, (notably immediately after the date that first stained-glass windows were unveiled), named the church as St Mary Mother of God. It could be that the assigning of church names was influenced by events and practices that occurred throughout a particular church’s life.
Today we know this church simply as St Mary’s, and that is enough. She has served us well across thirteen decades of continual challenge and change and is a testament to our faith story, in this Diocese.
