St.+Mary+of+the+Angel’s+Basilica

St. Mary of the Angel’s Basilica. ([]): Back in 1842, on November 27th, there was a small wooden chapel erected on Geelong’s Yarra Street, thanks to donations from the catholic congregation. The small hut was one of the first churches in Geelong. This was because the town of Geelong had only really been settled 4 years earlier which meant that Geelong was still in infancy and a hard place to live. In the following years, a large group of Irish immigrates swelled the catholic population to about 1,000. Because of this increase, the small wooden shed was simply too small, so the generous congregation set about rasing enough money for an improvement. Then, in 1846 the foundations for a stone church were laid. The church was finished the following year. By 1852 the number of Catholics had grown again to about 4,000, so it was decided that the congregation needed a larger church! This ‘new church’ was to be more than just a place of worship, but would be able to do good in the name of St.Mary and be a striking icon in the city of Geelong. ‘So in 1846, a design by Samuel Jackson was commenced. Work was ceased and plans put on hold. However in 1854, Dowden and Ross won a competition to design an extension to the existing church. It was to be an enormous task using local stone with spires which would dominate the whole of the Geelong landscape. However, in 1856 ‘work on the new church ceased, turning the grand vision of Dowden and Ross into nothing more than an eyesore for the community.’ But then in 1871, with the appointment of a new archdeacon, work commenced again and in the following year, the building was completed and could now seat over 1,000 people, and was admired by everyone even though it still didn’t have the spires on the top yet. Then, in 1931, work was started again to finish the church Six years later, during the great depression, the work was finally completed and after 80 gruelling years, St.Mary of the Angel’s was finished.