page_title: St Andrew's Church, Brighton
section_title: Main church
hierarchical_section_title: St Andrew's Church, Brighton / Present church complex: 1962 / Main church
caption_attribution_description: English: St Andrew's Brighton West Front showing window
context_page_description: St Andrew's Brighton is the oldest continuous Anglican church in Victoria, Australia. St Andrew's is the Anglican parish church of the beachside suburb of Brighton, Melbourne.
  Opened on St Andrew's Day in 1842, St Andrew's was one of the earliest Christian churches established in the Port Phillip District and predates both the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne and the colony, now state, of Victoria. Located in a large historic precinct in Middle Brighton, including a rare pre-gold rush graveyard, St Andrew's is one of Australia's most notable churches, known for its liturgical and musical tradition since the mid 19th century.
  The present building, opened in 1962, was designed by the noted Australian architect Louis Williams to become the cathedral for the proposed Diocese of the Mornington Peninsula following the planned division of the Diocese of Melbourne. Although the Melbourne diocese remained intact, St Andrew's was completed to be one of the largest church buildings in Australia; its vast and versatile space has been described as the "Cathedral of Light".
  St Andrew's Brighton maintains close and historic ties with both Brighton Grammar School and Firbank Grammar School.
context_section_description: As it was decided to retain the west end and four bays from the nave of Charles Webb's bluestone church built in 1857, the main section of the new church building, incorporating a new nave, transepts and sanctuary, was reorientated and set at a right angle to the bluestone building, so the new nave was built on a north-south axis rather than the traditional liturgical east-west.
  Sir Edward Maufe’s design for Guildford Cathedral in England, consecrated in 1961, was held up as “an example of good taste” for the design of the new St Andrew's Church and many of Louis Williams' personal ecclesiastical design ideas are also apparent at St Andrew's. Williams retained “the traditional layout of an Anglican church favoured by ecclesiologists in the 19th century and following the pre-Reformation pattern”, and used a modern Gothic style for overall design with modern materials and construction methods. Williams had used this conservative approach frequently and successfully in other smaller buildings in suburban Melbourne and country Victoria.
   Williams’ desire for extremely generous planning is manifest throughout the main church with well-spaced pews, a clear view of the altar, wide aisles, a vast sanctuary and a large choir and organ gallery at the rear with a spacious narthex below. The narthex's low ceiling emphasises the height of the nave and sanctuary, "which is obvious as one enters the body of the church and the walls seem to rise in an impressive upsurge - 'an offering of height'."
  The windowless recessed sanctuary wall, lit by concealed clear side windows, was originally intended to be enriched with a reredos of Venetian vitreous mosaic, "rising towards its summit in a stirring outburst of joyous, expressive colour". The commissioning of this large and colourful mosaic, however, was deferred and finished instead with a large cross. The sanctuary recess now features a bronze sculpture of the prodigal son by Guy Boyd below this "temporary" cross.  The sculpture was installed in 1987, the new church building's 25th anniversary.
   The main church building, of cruciform shape with shallow transepts, has a steel frame; red autumn-tinted "ripple-tex" brick was used for the exterior and hard-faced "oatmeal"-coloured cream brick for the interior.  The dimensions are spacious: the building is almost 200 feet long and the nave is nearly 50 feet high with a distinctive ceiling of golden anodised aluminium tiles. Externally, the copper flèche over the crossing is nearly 120 feet high.
  The nave of the present building, the “Cathedral of Light”, is a vast light-filled space. Large stained glass windows and travertine piers dominate the cream brick walls; clear glass doors, placed the entire length of one side of the nave, open to the cloister garden.
  Many artistic features in the main building are the result of the close collaboration between Louis Williams and the Dutch-Australian artist Rein Slagmolen of Vetrart Studios, including the brass representations of the Four Evangelists on the 'Polylite' pulpit and lectern panels, the copper font cover featuring a dove and vine leaves, and the "Tree of Life" west window.
  Using the German-made "antique" stained glass favoured by Williams, the windows in the nave are toned from quiet and cooler colours to richer and warmer colours as they progress to the sanctuary and the intended artistic highlight of the main building, the vibrant and multi-coloured sanctuary mosaic. The stained glass in the main building is non-figurative, relying instead on the colour gradation of the leadlight to imply symbolic references.
  The sanctuary and baptistery windows are predominantly deep blues, greens and reds, while the large Tree of Life west window, by Rein Slagmolen, at the opposite end of the building, uses cool blues at the base rising to warm golds at the top of the window.
   The west window tracery was designed to suggest the branching of a tree; the impression is enhanced by the inclusion of leaf-shaped russet-coloured glass at the apex of the window and the large double-winged organ cases branching ou
caption: The "west" front of St Andrew's Church, showing the large Tree of Life great west window
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