st kilian's church

Well worth a visit. This weatherboard church was created as a 'temporary' building. The early gold miners had an architect designed church built on the site from local stone. However, it became unsafe and had to be demolished and this temporary replacement erected. Many features from the original building form part of this building, including a delightful old German pipe organ, sadly nowadays rarely used. The original stone church is depicted in a painting at the Art Gallery - 'Sandhurst 1862' by goldfields artist Thomas Wright.

Great Church, fascinating historical wooden structure. St Kilian's is the final resting place of Henry Backhaus.

The church is interesting by the fact of it being one of the largest wooden churches and its historical significance due to its founder.

Weatherboard exterior, high wooden ceiling inside. Hot in summer but atmospheric. Old weathered pews.

This is one of the biggest weatherboard churches in the world. It dates from 1888 and is in excellent repair thanks to work in the 1990s. You can walk in during the day, using the doors at the side facing the adjacent hall. The atmosphere is peaceful, as you'd expect, and the look of the interior is quite airy and simple (rather than dark and heavily ornate, as is the case with a lot of old churches). A previous church made of sandstone and opened in 1857 was defective and had to be demolished. Before the stone church there was a timber slab and canvas church, built in 1853 after formal Catholic worship began in 1852 to meet the needs of immigrants and transients from Ireland and Cornwall.The hall (which has a 1905 frontage) is currently used by a commercial bingo business but is scheduled to revert to church and Catholic school use.St Kilian's is close to Bendigo's Chinese museum, so you could visit both in one half-day.