In my previous post, I introduced some of Launceston’s historic buildings, including a few of its commercial historic buildings.
Launceston also has a large selection of another sort of historic commercial building: churches. So much human skill, design, effort, and community wealth went into old churches that they are nearly always beautiful complex, and highly decorated buildings.
Here’s my selection of Launceston’s beautiful historic churches:
Fortunately, I’m here in winter to photograph St Andrew's Presbyterian Church – that’s a big deciduous tree in front of it – in the summer, when the tree has its leaves, there won’t be much of the church to see!
Unfortunately, winter also makes the Pilgrim Uniting Church harder to photograph; the church faces south, and in the winter in Tasmania the sun rises and sets in the north, and doesn’t get very high, so the front of the church is heavily shaded with a bright sky behind it:
A bit of Photoshopping helps to correct and balance the exposure, though!
An ex-church
As the demand for churches reduces many church buildings get repurposed. This remarkably ornate building in Launceston, Chalmer’s Church, is no longer a church:
Despite the run-down appearance of its exterior, it's an amazing looking building (pity about that power pole).
While the exterior looks run down, the interior is a different story: Chalmer’s Church has been repurposed into a graphic design studio for Walker Designs. In 2014 the interior was stunningly redeveloped for the studio. It’s not open to the public, so I can’t show you any photos; but, if you’re interested, there’s a video and slide show on their own website, here.
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