St Andrews church at Box Hill had its origins as the West Melbourne Presbyterian Church which was demolished in 1935 and rebuilt at Box Hill as St Andrew’s using the same bluestone blocks.
Amongst the money raising ventures to pay for the new Box Hill church were the sale of tiny pieces of stone from the original building and the re-dedication of the original Ferguson & Urie stained glass windows for £50 each. The appearance of the new memorial dates below the windows gives the impression that the windows are of more recent origin than their original date of manufacture.
The foundation stone of the new church at Box Hill was laid on the 27th of April 1935 and was opened on the 14th December 1935. When the new church was built, its original West Melbourne character was retained but it was shortened by 10ft which was one complete window bay (each side).
St Andrews is a rarity as every stained glass window in the building was produced by Ferguson & Urie of Melbourne (another is St George’s Church Queenscliff). According to the St Andrews church history booklet produced in 1985, eleven of the original Ferguson & Urie windows from the nave were reinstalled in the nave at Box Hill, one went to Trinity church in Camberwell (confirmed as extant), and the remaining windows were refashioned to make the windows in the foyer, tower room, vestries and porches. The main Apostle window was placed in the West Melbourne church in 1876 when the tower was built which faced William Street in Melbourne. The window originally showed two rows of four full length figures of apostles with the head of another apostle above each figure. When it was installed in St Andrews it was remodeled to show the upper four Apostles in one window and the lower four apostles divided into two windows which now flank the one on either side in the tower.
The original Ferguson & Urie stained glass now appears as twenty one sets of windows in the Box Hill church.
The photos were taken 29th October 2010. Every window in the church is represented in this slideshow.
Related posts: 29-04-1867 > 02-05-1867> 27-04-1935 > 09-09-1935 > 16-12-1935 > 01-02-1936
Short link to this page: https://wp.me/p28nLD-MP
Ferguson and Urie 