Malvern, VIC - St Joseph's Catholic

History and Architecture:

The Very Rev. Father (afterwards Dean) Hegarty, parish priest of St. Kilda celebrated the first public Mass for the Catholics of Malvern in the new Malvern Town Hall on the third Sunday of September 1888. An earlier Mass had been said on the 3rd February 1888 at the recently established Convent of the Sacred Heart in Burke Road. In 1889, a site for a Catholic Church building was purchased in Stanhope Street for the sum of £1400.

The Foundation stone was laid on 16 February 1908 by his Grace The Most Reverend Dr Carr Archbishop of Melbourne. The Architect was A.A. Fritsh and the builders were Swanson Brothers.

The Advocate Newspaper of the 26th September 1908, in an article about the opening of the Church, described it as follows: The building is one of the most handsome and best fitted Churches in the southern suburbs.

The Church has a fine bold entrance, with a marble tympanium filled with two Australian marbles. There are two side towers, surmounted by monier constructed domes, and the central feature of the facade is a large niche with a statue of the Universal Church, St. Joseph Viet (2.7 metres) high. The interior height of the Church is 38.5 feet (11.7 metres). The nave is 110 feet (33.5 metres) by 40 feet (12.2 metres), and there is a recess for the High Altar of 13 feet (3.9 metres) by 26 feet (7.92 metres).