Gothic Door Handles on the Front Door of St Mark's Church of England - Corner Burke and Canterbury Roads, Camberwell

            St Mark's Church of England is a smart rendered brick church which stands proudly on a prominent block on the corner of the busy thoroughfares of Burke and Canterbury Roads in the leafy inner eastern suburb of Camberwell.  

St Mark's Parish was first established in 1912, as ribbon housing estates and developments were established along the Burke Road tramline.  In 1914, a church hall, designed by Louis Reginald Williams and Alexander North, was built to be used for all church services and any parish activities on a temporary basis.  The temporary accommodation lasted for fourteen years, until St Mark's Church of England was built between 1927 and 1928, to the design specifications of noted local architect Rodney Howard Alsop.  Mr. Alsop was a significant and prolific contributor to the Arts and Crafts movement in Australia. St Mark's Church of England is an interesting building as it has been designed in rather imposing Gothic design, and yet it is heavily influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, no doubt as a result of the architect's passion for the design movement.  The foundation stone was laid in 1927 and the building opened in July of the following year. During the post Great War era, there was a war memorial movement that influenced architectural design throughout Australia.  The movement was at its peak in the 1920s, so a key feature of the planning of St Mark's Church of England was the inclusion of a war memorial within the church building. This was achieved by way of a chapel which was dedicated to the memory of the men of the parish who died during the Great War (1914 - 1918).  St Mark's Church of England was completed during the one construction period and the building has never been altered architecturally since. The design of St Mark's includes an elegant broach spire, and use of stucco rendering and minimal ornamentation. There are interesting internal aspects, including the octagonal baptistery and the placing of the square chancel behind the altar. 

St Mark's Church of England also features the largest collection of stained glass windows created by the husband and wife artistic team of Christian and Napier Waller outside of the National War Memorial in Canberra. The collection of stained glass at St Mark's dates from the 1930s through to the mid Twentieth Century. Napier Waller's "The Transfiguration", which was installed in 1952, is considered by many to be one of his best stained glass works.

Rodney Howard Alsop (1881-1932) was born at Kew, then an affluent borough just outside Melbourne.  He was the eighth child of John Alsop, a trustee-manager to the State Savings Bank of Victoria, and his wife Anne.  Rodney showed great artistic capabilities as a young child.  Poor health as a child meant he had periods of convalescence which allowed him to develop these skills still further.  As a young teenager he worked on Saturday mornings for the Melbourne architects firm of Hyndman and Bates, which helped develop his passion for architecture.  In 1899 to he went with his family on a tour of Europe where he learned about English church and domestic architecture. On his return to Melbourne in 1901 he was articled with Hyndman and Bates and in 1906, after admission to the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects, he entered into an architectural partnership with F. L. Klingender, with Rodney as the true designer.  In the early 1920s he joined architects Kingsley Henderson and Marcus Martin to form a practice that created the distinctive Temperance and General Mutual Life offices in several major cities. From September 1924 until 1931, when he joined A. Bramwell Smith, he practiced alone.  Mr. Alsop was better known for his domestic architecture designs and those of Footscray Park and in 1932 his design of the Winthrop Hall in the Hackett Buildings at the University of Western Australia was awarded the bronze medal by the Royal Institute of British Architects. St Mark's Church of England is his only known church design.  Mr. Alsop was also a respected designer of furniture and shared a skill in landscape design with his wife Dorothy Hope, daughter of Sir Nicholas Lockyer, whom he had married in June 1912 at Toorak.  The pair only ever had one child, who died in 1915.  Mr. Alsop died suddenly in 1932 as a result of bronchitis and asthma, an ailment he had suffered all his life.

Taken in: Australia / Victoria / Melbourne / Auburn (show map)

Taken on: September 15, 2014

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Sets appears in: • St Mark's Church of England

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Camera: Canon DIGITAL IXUS 80 IS, f/4.9, 1/50 sec, 18.6mm, ISO 200 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon DIGITAL IXUS 80 IS
Aperture:	f/4.9
Exposure Time:	0.02 sec (1/50)
Focal Length:	18.6mm
ISO:	200
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Auto, Did not fire
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
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