Yass Valley residents are invited to revel in three days of celebrations in a couple of months to mark an occasion at St Augustine’s Parish.
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On Friday–Sunday, August 24–26, the Parish will celebrate the 180th anniversary of the laying of the church’s foundation stone.
During the three days, there will be a parish dinner on Friday, a music concert on Saturday and a concelebrated Mass on Sunday.
Attending the Mass will be Christopher Prowse, Archbishop of Canberra and Goulburn; Father Mick Burke, Parish Priest; and several priests of the parish from the past.
Buildings will be open to visitors and there will be displays of historical material.
Early days and the Irish
The Yass Plains were discovered by Hamilton Hume in 1821; then, in 1824, Hume and Hovell journeyed south to Port Phillip.
Settlers followed and Rev John Joseph Terry, who came from Cork and spoke Irish, said the first Mass in 1833.
Bishop John Bede Polding, who was sympathetic to the Irish and gave his name to Polding Street, came to Australia in 1835.
Foundation stone
Yass town was gazetted two years later, in 1837, and already money was being collected to build a church.
Surveyors marked out two acres for the church, its presbytery and a school on March 31, 1838.
Five months later, on August 27, the foundation stone of the first church in Yass was laid by Bishop Polding.
Present church
The present church was opened in 1956, but already there were other buildings, most notably the school, all of which are still in use.
This church has recently been renovated and is now known as the Lovat Chapel, after Father Charles Lovat (1799–1858), who became the first parish priest of Yass in 1839.
Taylor Pipe Organ
A special feature of the concert will be the newly-acquired Taylor Pipe Organ, which was installed in the Lovat Chapel in May 2018 by Trevor Bunning, architect and organ builder of Nicholls, ACT.
Built in 1912 by the radical organ builder Frederick Taylor for the Methodist Church, Sydney, it has been refurbished and donated to St Augustine’s by Mr Bunning.
New book to coincide
A new book (2018) about Father Charles Lovat and the parish (by Peggy Jones and edited by Peter Bindon and Anthony MacQuillan) will be launched during the celebrations.
- More about the event: Bob Nash (convenor) on 6226 1674 or Dr Bryan Coleborne (publicity) on 6226 4235.