Northampton - Places to See

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Northampton - Places to See

Chiverton House

Chiverton House was built by Captain Samuel Mitchell, the manager of the Geraldine Mine, between 1867-1874. It is claimed that convicts built the building. If this is the case it must have been one of the last structures built by convicts in Australia as transportation ceased in 1868. Chiverton House later housed the local branch of the Western Australian Bank and today it is the town's museum.

There are really three basic kinds of local museum in Australia. The theme museum which concentrates on an aspect of history, the time-specific museum where, for example, a house from the 1890s is precisely recreated, and the general repository museum where bits and pieces of memorabilia from the local community are stored in a rather haphazardous manner. In the latter category Chiverton Museum is one of the most fascinating and successful in Australia. It has managed to collect unusual pieces of memorabilia including a fiendish attempt to produce a rolling shaver which looks like it would scar its victim for life. There are also some very interesting old kitchen utensils including a strange butter cutter. The museum's emphasis is on the unusual rather than the common place and thus it is well worth a visit. It is open from 10.00-12.00 and 2.00-4.00 on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday and can be opened at other times by phoning (08) 9934 1215.

Church of St Mary in Ara Coeli
Northampton is noted for its Church of St Mary in Ara Coeli which was constructed by the famous Western Australian architect-priest Monsignor John Hawes (see introduction for details of Hawes' life). Between 1915-1939 Hawes designed and helped to build a large number of churches and church buildings in the Central West. St Mary in Ara Coeli, which is located in Hampton Street (the main street), was described in the Cathedral Chronicle soon after it was built in the following glowing terms: 'As regards the exterior of the building, it gains character from the rugged nature of the hammer-dressed masonry, the deeply raked-out joints emphasising the charming and various colours of each stone. The main front of the church sheers up a precipitous cliff of rock: the effect of height increased by the long vertical lines of the massive buttresses springing upwards from the ground, and the soaring effect of the single deeply recessed arch. In the middle of this is set two?light long mullioned windows with traceried head. The green tiles that cover the roofs give a very similar appearance to the green Westmorland slates of the north of England. Over the intersection of chancel and transepts rises a tall slender fleche surmounted by a silver ball and cross of wrought iron.'

Hawes saw the church as expressing spirituality in its soaring Gothic lines.

Gwalla Church
A little way out of town to the south (turn east at Gwalla Street) are the cemetery and ruins of the Gwalla church which was built by Joseph Lucas Horrocks, a convict who was sentenced to 14 years transportation for forgery and arrived in Fremantle in 1852. In Fremantle he worked in the medical section of the convict settlement and, due to a chronic shortage of medical officers in the colony, was appointed medical attendant for the new settlement of Port Gregory in 1853. He was given an unconditional pardon in 1856 and spent the rest of his life (he died in 1865) working in the Northampton-Champion Bay area running a store, agitating for improved conditions for convicts, and building the Gwalla non-denominational church (it had separate Anglican and Nonconformists pulpits and a reading desk for anti-ritualists). Horrocks is buried in the cemetery which, sadly, in recent years has fallen into disrepair.

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