page_title: Wesley Uniting Church, Toowoomba
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Wesley Uniting Church, Toowoomba / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: Wesley Uniting Church (2012) internal view
context_page_description: Wesley Uniting Church is a heritage-listed former church at 54 Neil Street, Toowoomba, Toowoomba Region, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Willoughby Powell and built from 1877 to 1924. It is also known as Wesleyan Methodist Church. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 10 May 1997.
context_section_description: The Wesley Uniting Church faces Neil Street to the west, directly opposite St Stephens Uniting Church. The building is located adjoining the Empire Theatre to the south.
  The church is constructed of Flemish bond brickwork with expressed coursing and rendered stone window surrounds and buttress caps, and has a rib and pan gable roof with ventilation gablets. The west elevation is framed by rendered turrets surmounting a buttresses at each corner, and contains a large pointed arch stained glass window consisting of three lights surmounted by a large quatrefoil. Entry porches are located on the north and south at the western end, and consist of low rib and pan gable roofs supported by short columns on large square bases, with pointed arch paired timber doors. Windows to the nave are lancet shaped, and the north and south transepts have a large intersecting tracery window surmounting a gabled pointed arch doorway which is flanked by lancet windows.
  The interior of the church has rendered walls scribed to imitate ashlar stonework, and the roof construction consists of arched brace timber trusses supported by stone corbels. These trusses have original metal ties, which were incorporated to overcome the need for heavy king-posts, and diagonal timber lining boards with quatrefoil fretwork panels at the cornice line. The east wall has a pointed arch recess behind a large pipe organ, which has a curved timber screen at the front of the organist's seat, which is flanked by pointed arch doorways to the vestry. A low timber and glass narthex has been constructed under the west window between the north and south entry doors, and supports the relocated pulpit rostrum rail. The seating has been rearranged to form a semi-circle facing the south wall of the transept.
  A single-storeyed face brick addition is connected to the north transept via an open walkway and adjoins a timber hall located to the northeast of the church. This structure has brick buttresses, a parapet wall concealing the roof, lancet windows with sandstone surrounds and a foundation stone dated 1961. The timber hall has a corrugated iron gable roof, weatherboard cladding, and a single-storeyed brick addition along its southern elevation.
  The northern brick addition houses a kindergarten with a kitchen connected to the western end of the timber hall. The hall is entered from the southwest corner, and has a hardboard panelled ceiling with a stage at the eastern end with a stylised proscenium arch. Backstage contains storage areas, and the southern addition to the hall contains various rooms.
  The Neil Street frontage has a metal fence with driveway entrances at the north and south end, and central metal gates with English bond brick gate posts with rendered details and commemorative plaques. The church grounds contain a semi-circular drive to the west front, with various commemorative plantings, and a driveway along the southern side to the rear.
caption: Church interior, 2012
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