So you may ask - what is the difference between The Old St Thomas Chapel and a Church. Quite a bit!
The Chapel USED to be a Church. It was built in 1884 and was an Anglican Church. This is quite evident by the architecture of the building. The original architect was Edmund Blacket (25 August 1817 – 9 February 1883)
Edmund Blacket was best known for his designs for the University of Sydney, St. Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney and St. Saviour's Cathedral, Goulburn.
Arriving in Sydney from England in 1842, at a time when the city was rapidly expanding and new suburbs and towns were being established, Blacket was to become a pioneer of the revival styles of architecture, in particular Victorian Gothic. He was the most favoured architect of the Church of England in New South Wales for much of his career, and between late 1849 and 1854 was the official "Colonial Architect to New South Wales". Ref: Wikipedia (Edmund Blacket - Wikipedia)
As you may deduce - Edmund Blacket died before the completion of our Church/Chapel, and so it was his sons who completed the build.
So, our little Chapel operated as a Church of England (Anglican) church from 1884-2000. The very first wedding ceremony took place on 11th February 1885. I shall give more history of this period in future blog posts. But suffice to say there were Anglican services in this building until the late 1990’s when the parish grew too big for the building and the Anglican Church of Australia put the building (and the Old School Hall Building) up for sale.
Along comes newly married Kylie and Peter Lyons in January 2000. Kylie is a professional photographer. She has decided its time to move the business out of her 3 bedroom home in Narellan Vale and move into a bigger studio space.
With ice-creams in hand, Peter and Kylie look at the real estate agent window at Narellan Town Centre for a bigger house. Instead, they find a church for sale!
I don’t mind telling you - the church was in a state of disrepair. IMHO It had been let go by the Anglican Church for some time. The grass was excessively long, there were peppercorn trees growing too close to the buildings effecting the foundations. there was a plumbago bush that was wild and overgrown. There are still photos to prove this!
The Anglican Church had sold off all the pews and were using plastic school type chairs instead. The interior had been painted some time in the past but it was looking a little tired.
Fast forward 8 months - that’s how long it took for our DA to be approved by Camden Council and for us to go through the purchase process. We received the keys to the property on the 8th August 2000. We began our restoration work on that Saturday 10th August!
In the meantime we had a meeting with some members of the Anglican Church parish group who we bought the Chapel off. We were talking to them about our plans to name the building and our business. They said to us: You are not a Church. The Church is the people within the building. Its not the building itself.
That suited us fine. We are a PRIVATE Chapel. The building was no longer owned by the Anglican Church of Australia - it is privately owned by two individuals. We do not have Sunday services in the Chapel like a Church would do - BUT we still operate the building like a Church where we have ceremonies and services relating to the rites of passage of life.
The Church was always called “St Thomas’" when it was owned by the Anglican Church of Australia. We wanted to keep a reference to its historical name and so we registered a business name of “The Old St Thomas Chapel”.
The next difference with our Chapel is that it is Non-Denominational. That means you can still have a religious service within the Chapel - but it can be of any faith. Christian, Orthodox or even non-religious etc. There is no one denomination associated with the building anymore.
So while we do not have regular church services here - we do have religious weddings, baptisms and funerals. So we operate like a Church, but we are more flexible and allow you to BYO priest, pastor or minister or civil celebrant.
So perhaps in short:
Church = set denomination - you do what they tell you to do.
Chapel = private building that looks like a Church but is adaptable to your ceremony and you can do whatever you like to achieve the wedding of your dreams!
If walls could talk I know The Old St Thomas Chapel would have many a story to tell. I look forward to recounting some of this history to you in future blog posts.
Let me know if you have more questions about the history of the Chapel. Email me anytime and I will place more information in this blog as future reference for you and future couples.
Regards
Kylie
The thoughts and ideas expressed in this blog post is that of the author. References are made where possible to information sources.