page_title: St Mary Star of the Sea, West Melbourne
section_title: Church exterior
hierarchical_section_title: St Mary Star of the Sea, West Melbourne / Description of the church / Church exterior
caption_attribution_description: English: Exterior of St Mary's
context_page_description: St Mary Star of the Sea is a historically significant Catholic parish church in West Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The foundation stone of the church was laid in 1882 and the building was completed by 1900. Since 2002, restoration has been ongoing to restore the church to its original state. Built with seating for over 1,200 people, it has been described as the largest parish church in Melbourne, in Victoria, or even in Australia.
context_section_description: The church is traditional in form, consisting of a tall gable-roofed nave, a crossing and intersecting transepts, with a hipped polygonal apse at the western end. The nave is flanked by a pair of skillion-roofed aisles, which, being at a considerably lower level, allow for clerestory windows to the upper portion of the nave. 
   In the north-eastern corner, the incomplete stump of the tower forms a dominant vertical element. A number of smaller-proposed semi-detached single-storey elements project from the main bulk of the church: two pairs of chapels flanking the apse, the cluster of hip-roofed sacristies in the south-western corner, and the former baptistery in the south-eastern corner.
  The church itself is of brick construction, with an external stone facing. It has a plinth of rock-faced Malmesbury bluestone, which is surmounted by a course of splayed blocks of Mount Somers limestone. Above this is the facing of Barrabool Hills sandstone. Two types of limestone, both of New Zealand origin, have been used for the external dressings: Mount Somers limestone for the plinth course, doorjambs and window tracery, and Oamaru limestone for all other dressings. The colonettes, flanking the window and door openings, are of polished Aberdeen (red) granite.
  The roof of the church is clad in Westmorland slate, with 'tile ridging'. Westmorland slate is of English origin; it has a tendency to be green in colour, in contrast to the blue-coloured slate from Wales. The slates are doubled-nailed with copper nails. The original 'tile ridging' was replaced in 1941. At the crossing of the roof is a flêche, substantially of pressed zinc on timber framing. This is in the form of a polygonal shaft with eight trefoil-arched openings, containing louvred vents, surmounted by a tapering conical spire, clad partly with rounded slate, and partly with flat sheet zinc. The flêche is further embellished with a row of projecting decorative elements at the base of the spire, and a Latin cross, once gilded, at the apex.
  The Fitzgerald Tower, as it was named in the 1890s, remains incomplete. It was originally to be 162 feet (about fifty metres) tall, to the tip of the spire. The tower, presently consisting of the equivalent of only two storeys, is square in plan, with intersecting buttresses at each corner. The first floor level (approximately in line with the roof of the aisle) is articulated by a course of splayed limestone blocks, and the upper level by an arcaded limestone frieze, consisting of a row of trefoil arches supported on squat columns with cushion capitals.
caption: The exterior of St Mary's. Notice the uncompleted tower.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A590 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2011:05:08 15:54:44", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5108", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4602", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/400", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:05:08 15:54:44", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:05:08 15:54:44", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "277/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "11/4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "29/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3264", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2448", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "3264", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2448", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "3178", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "43520/3", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "2448000/169", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}