AS investigators comb through the remains of the former St Luke's Anglican Church in Mount Pleasant, which was gutted by fire on Thursday, historians and those that grew up around the church have lamented the loss of a Ballarat icon.
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A crime scene was set up on Friday at the Gladstone Street site after a fire broke out in the building which was first built in 1933. It was built after a fire destroyed the original church in Bond Street in 1931.
In it's 86-year life span, the church provided a community meeting place, school, and Sunday School with many residents, including Delacombe's Valda Younger, remembering it as a home away from home.
Mrs Younger's first memory is of the fire that gutted the former church at nearby Bond Street.
"We just lived around the corner from the original church in Gladstone Street, I don't think there would be many of that congregation left now," she said.
"There was a man, Harold Young who was a Ballarat historian, he was one of the ones who founded Sovereign Hill, when Harold's wife Ivy died, Harold dedicated a stain glass window in that church, it was the only one that was there.
"I was there every night of the week with the church choir and for Sunday School.
"I used to help clean it out in the afternoon, I hated those brass vases, but it was my life, we used to run a dance every Thursday night as well and that was where I met my husband Alan."
President of the Mount Pleasant History Group Max Duthie said it was a sad day for the region.
"It's a pity to see a historic building in a state like this, we don't know what the future will be now," he said. "Not being an active church, I don't know if it will be rebuilt or knocked down."
"To lose an historic building like this is very bad, it's part of the history of Mount Pleasant."
Mr Duthie said a church had been operating at the site since the late 1800s.
"This was a gathering place in this part of Mount Pleasant. It was an Anglican church, it had a Sunday school hall and then in 1980 the school was refurbished and turned into a parish primary school, my children were actually part of the first intake of students," he said.
"That ran here until 1995 and It was around that period that the church ceased to have services and sometime in the recent history it was converted in the back into a residence.
"To lose an historic building like this is very bad, it's part of the history of Mount Pleasant."
If you know more about the church's history, contact the Mount Pleasant History group via the Facebook page at facebook.com/History-of-Mount-Pleasant-Ballarat.
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