FIVE years ago, in the middle of an overgrown paddock on a rolling Greendale hill, sat a crumbling church.
Blackwood’s Kathie Hollis said she often travelled through Greendale to Melbourne, thinking what a strange building it was.
“It was literally half a church,” she says.
She discovered the former Holy Trinity Anglican Church of Greendale had an illustrious history.
In the late 19th century Greendale was a thriving stop on the way to the goldfields of Blackwood. After a series of community fund-raisers the church was opened in 1877.
More than 130 years later the abandoned church, which had been vandalised and was storing bales of hay, was offered for sale.
Ms Hollis and friend Marlene Orange snapped up the property and began its restoration.
After three years of toil and a major setback when last year’s floods ruined the building’s foundations, the pair have been awarded a $66,000 federal government grant, arranged by Ballarat Labor MP Catherine King, to restore the church.
Ms King said the building was important for tourism and would be a key community meeting space.
“The vestry will be a museum and tourist information centre while the chancel will be an art gallery and a place for people to enjoy,” she said.
“Given Greendale’s position on the tourist routes of the spa country and goldfields it lends itself to being an important tourist attraction that will generate local employment.”
Ms Hollis said the project would not be possible without the support of historic groups, architects, researchers and the local community, who have also helped raise funds.
“We have a lot of passion for the project,” she said.
“We’ve had a period home transported to the site. The original stonemason was a Ballan resident called David Pierpoint, who used local sandstone quarried at Greendale.”
The pair plan to convert the site to an art gallery-museum with cafe and wedding facilities.
They hope to complete the restoration in time for the church’s 135th anniversary at the end of this year.
