A country town’s ‘little treasure’ gets a new lease of life
After the church closed in 1971, its new owners, Rupert and Josie Saines, would hire it out, and in the 1990s Mapley attended the wedding of the grown-up baby “Jesus” from her 1968 nativity play.
Wren, a former police officer and flight attendant who now runs a bed and breakfast in an adjacent 1980s house, said she was captivated by the church before buying the property in 2021.
“It was never going to fall down on my watch,” she said.
The weatherboards were rotten, there were no downpipes and the floorboards were bowed and termite-infested.
Wren and a local tradesman repainted the exterior in cream with red trim, restored a “beautiful” walnut altar rail, and cleaned the pink and green stained-glass windows.
Wren, who has Parkinson’s disease, says the project has given her a sense of purpose.
Win Mapley gardening on Sunday outside the church where she worshipped in the 1960s.Credit: Alison Wren
“It’s something I wanted to do not just for myself but for the community,” she said.
She loves hearing stories about the church, including one related to its first wedding, between Annie Greer and Mark Lowerson on March 15, 1910.
According to Annie’s 1942 obituary, the night before the wedding, Mark was helping to finish construction of the church.
But all was well, with the local paper dubbing it “a very pretty wedding”.
A wedding photo of Annie and Mark Lowerson, who were the first couple married at St Clement’s, on March 15, 1910.
The couple’s granddaughter, Lois Fitzpatrick, says the family story she heard was that it was the very morning of the wedding that Mark cycled 15 kilometres from Myrtleford to Eurobin to help finish the church.
Fitzpatrick said it was wonderful the church had been restored and would be used for weddings.
“I think it’s a little treasure, and it would be sad to lose it,” she said.
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