LOCATION:     16 English Street, Hahndorf

Note:  This property is currently leased by the New Apostolic Church

[Photo Required]

The foundation stone was laid on 27th April, 1885 and the church was dedicated in February 1886 by Bishop Kennion, the Bishop of Adelaide.  At this time the building was not free of debt, however, due to various appeals, assistance came from other Anglican communities some from as far as England.  The altar was made from an old sea chest, which belonged to one of the early settlers.  It is interesting to note, St. Paul’s Church of England was built by Germans, J. W. F. Faehrmann and M.C. Born.  The church provided a home for the growing number of Anglicans in the village who had previously worshipped at the Hahndorf Academy or at Blakiston.

Brief History

Extract from 'Hahndorf - A Journey through the Village and its History', by Anni Luur Fox (2002)

Lined with thatched cottages and post-and-rail fences overhung with fruit trees, English Street or “Billygoat Lane” as it was called in the late 19^th Century was a dirt track that passed St. Paul’s Church of England at the top of the hill and ended at the open fields at the edge of the village.  The foundation stone of the church had been laid on 27 April 1885. Dedicated on 2 February 1886 by Bishop Kennion, the church had been built by two Lutherans, M.C. Bom and J.C.F. Faehrmann according to plans drawn up by C.R. Wilton, editor of the Mt. Barker Courier.  A master carpenter, Faehrmann had supplied and fixed the timber and slates for St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in 1858 and had constructed the massive timbers of Wittwer’s Steam Mill four years earlier.  While Carl Bom the monumental mason laboured on St. Paul’s masonry, Carl Faehrmann constructed the timberwork.

The British and Germans in the district had coexisted peacefully right from the early days of settlement. J.D. Woods in his “Narrative of the Visit of the Duke of Edinburgh” in 1886 wrote of the Germans, “It is their inestimable quality of adapting themselves to British customs and institutions, combined with their own industry and perseverance that has contributed to make them such valuable colonists, and generally so prosperous and happy.”  Amongst the lists of communicants at St. Paul’s there are a number of German names, including one of the first trustees, August Pade, publican of the German Arms Hotel.  He was a grandson of one of Hahndorf’s founders, Christian Jaensch.  St. Paul’s filled a need in the community.  The Lutheran churches had stuck to the use of German in the belief that they would lose the true faith if they worshipped in English.  This had posed a problem for congregation members marrying people of British descent who were not prepared to learn German.  A solution for some Lutherans was to join the Anglican Church as they considered its doctrine closest to their own.

The idea for building the church had taken root in the schoolrooms of the Hahndorf Academy.  Until Archdeacon Bussell started holding Sunday church services at the school in 1884, Anglican students used to travel by horse and wagon to Blakiston Church nine kilometres distant.  By 1885 Hahndorf’s growing Anglican population rallied enough support to build their own place of worship.  Septimus Boord, a gentleman of private means, donated the land and oversaw fundraising for the project.  He lived next door to St. Paul’s in a cottage that became the home of Selma and Hans Heysen when they moved to the village in 1908.

From this vantage point next to the church, Heysen was able to look out over the valley and wander through the fields to record its human and natural landscape.  Although his rented cottage, cowshed studio and many other old buildings along Billygoat Lane have been demolished, the Anglican church is still at work.  To mark its centenary in 1986, the congregation published Reg Butler’s excellent history of the church , “In an Essentially German Village.”  The two contented figures on the cover are Selma and Hans Heysen carrying baby Freya on his back up to their first home in Hahndorf.

My small drawing is based on an etching by George Reynolds of English Street in the 1890’s.  He would have sat sketching near the corner, at No. 30 Main Street where Joseph Waltrowitz plied his trade as a carpenter and undertaker from the stone barn.  There was a third trade listed on Joseph’s Certificate of Title – Jam Maker!  When the barn became my studio for a short period in the 1970’s, I used one of his baby coffins for a wood box.

The drawing of the church is from the Hahndorf Sketchbook first published in 1976.  For some years my studio and family’s graphic design company occupied the house opposite the church.  Shaded by large pine trees in a field whose sole occupant was Frank Schubert’s cow, the church and its bucolic setting provided welcome relief from my work as a designer.  Frank milked the cow daily in the paddock behind the studio and gave us billycans of warm creamy milk with bits of green grass floating in it.  Inevitably, our curious young children Lia and Jaan shrieked with delight at being squirted from the teats as Frank performed an age-old task.  It was a sad day when this gentle bovine died and was cut up for pet food right there on the grass, wet with drizzle.

Early Ownership

Information From Reg Butler's Property Data-Base

Notes:

• # D Schmidt, nee Kluge, had moved to the Barossa Valley before official land transfers began in Hahndorf. 
• Farm allotment 116b linked with Farm allotment 117 to form NH 217.
• 1885 - S Boord divided Farm allotment 117 into two sub-lots:
  • Sub-lot 1: 16 English St - 3102/137 current title.
  • Sub-lot 1: 18 English St - 4053/123 Metric title.
• St Paul's Anglican Church is built on this site - combination of Farm Lot 116 and part Farm Lot 117
• Sub-lot 1 donated by the Boord family in two gifts: one in 1885 and the other in 1962.