Presbyterian Church receives blue plaque

The Presbyterian Church located at 54 Fenter Street received its blue plaque on Sunday after its morning service.
Tony Burisch of the Heidelberg Heritage Association donated the plaque.

Established in 1904, the church held its first service during the second week of October, with 58 people present during the morning service and 70 during the evening service.

The church also only had two elders at the time.

In September 1905, the foundation of the church was started, with Mary Pagan laying the foundation stone.
An inscription on the stone also documents the event.

The building was officially opened on February 13, 1906.

The church developed slowly and has relied heavily on the services of lay preachers or church development evangelists and had not always had sufficient funds to fund a full-time minister.

The changing mining sector also affected the congregation, which grew smaller with these changes.

By 1951, there were only 28 members and six adherents.

The membership continued to decline throughout the next decade and by 1963, the church only recorded 14 members and services were held only every second Sunday of every month.

During the leadership of Rev Smuts, an interim moderator of the congregation in 1968, the church started building cottages on the church plot, now known as the Eventide Homes.

In the late ’60s and early ’70s, the church recorded a membership of less than 10. Despite this, the members of the church had the vision to construct the flats for its needy elderly members.

In 1971, the congregation saw a turning point and started to grow under Rev Laurtz Larson, the first full-time minister at the church.

Due to the small congregation at the time of his appointment, Larson had a part-time job in town to support himself.

Through the continuing ministries of Lain Maclean (early ’80s), Dave Smit (late ’80s), Peter Hurter, Les Dawnson (’90s), Bill Flemming (98-2001) and others, the church continued to grow. This led to the building of the hall, extending the cottages of the Eventide Homes and to the building of a “loft” classroom for the children’s church above the hall.

They also purchased another manse.

In more recent years, the church saw the addition of the remembrance wall between 2008 and 2009, which was followed by various small renovations and alterations, such as the replacement of the wooden window frames with aluminium windows in 2018.

Today, the church allocates for a rich part of the town’s history, and members hope the church will remain a part of the town for many years to come.