Historic Melbourne Churches

This pleasant building has the distinction of being the oldest church buildings in Melbourne, dating from 1839 - over 60 years before Australia formally came into existence as a federated country. A brief history of the church is here - see here for details of the organ (under "West Melbourne")

St. Francis' was officially opened in 1845 as the first Catholic church of the infant colony and is today Melbourne's oldest building. The erection of the church, designed by Samuel Jackson, had been an ecumenical project that took six years to complete. St. Francis' became the RC cathedral of Melbourne in 1848 and remained so until the new St. Patrick's Cathedral was ready in 1869. The church has always had a fine musical tradition and details of its fine choir are here . Details of a fine Casavant organ installed during 2000 are here