Methodist Church, now Chapel Gallery

1167? Frankston Dandenong Road, Carrum Downs

Citation:

History
The Chapel Gallery was built as a Methodist Church in 1934 on part of the Hope family property in Crown Allotment 30, Parish of Lyndhust. Before this, Methodist Church services were held in the school and then in the Memorial Hall. The bricks used in the construction of the former church were made by hand. Later, the building was sold and is currently being used as a business.1

Description
This stuccoed and gabled building, with its gabled entry porch, pilasters and corrugated–iron clad roof, is recognizable as a public building built in a form which has been used in both the nineteenth century and twentieth centuries. The church use is underscored by the pointed arches to the side windows and the gable finials presumably once were crosses. Although in a traditional conservative church form, the building expresses little of its own era (1930s).

Condition
Externally the church appears little changed, with the addition of a coach lamp on the porch and signs being the only obvious changes. The church would have presumably had a yard fence.

Context
The former church is set facing a busy main road as the former social centre of Carrum Downs community. It is near the public hall, opposite the school site, and is visually linked to the school by mature and unusual pines (cluster pines?) on the school yard boundary and in the median between the two sites. These elements reinforce the sense of an established civic centre which includes this place.

Significance
This former Methodist Church has historical significance to the Carrum Downs locality as a long-term, externally well-preserved and relatively early public building. It survives as one of a small number of churches built in the inter-war period in the various farming townships on the eastern side of Frankston. Architecturally it is typical of this simple type and belies its age.

Boundaries
Extent of current allotment, including the building interior and exterior and public views to the building.