St James' Anglican Church, Morpeth
St James' Anglican Church is a heritage-listed Anglican church precinct at 19 Tank Street, Morpeth, City of Maitland, New South Wales, Australia. The original design has been attributed to Edward Charles Close, with later additions by Edmund Blacket and John Horbury Hunt and built from 1837 to 1875 by E.C. Close and James Sherwood. The precinct also includes the St. James' rectory and parish hall (formerly schoolhouse). The property is vested in the Trustees of Church Property for the Diocese of Newcastle.It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 27 January 2017.
St James' Anglican Church, Morpeth
The church as originally built was too small to accommodate a growing population, and was also less than suitable for the High Church ecclesiology to which Bishop Tyrrell subscribed. This led to the engagement in the early 1860s of architect Edmund Blacket, who designed a chancel and vestry, joined to the existing nave via a high chancel arch. This work, including the introduction of a carved stone pulpit and font, both designed by Blacket, was completed in 1862. The sandstone pulpit, a replica of the 13th Century example in Beaulieu Abbey, Hampshire, where Tyrrell had formerly been parish priest, was carved by Maitland stonemason Daniel Yeates from Blacket's copy of measured drawings in 'Weale's Quarterly Papers' (1844), an English journal. Joan Kerr describes it as "really something special", and "one of the glories of the church". Like Blacket's later design for the Pulpit of St Thomas' Anglican Church, North Sydney, a variant on that of St. James', it was corbelled, in this case out of the east wall of the nave. As distinct from that of St. Thomas', the pulpit of St. James' was able to be entered only from the vestry, a quite unusual feature. In this, as well as in its exquisite detail, the pulpit demonstrates the Anglo-Catholic aspirations of Tyrrell, as well as the very close interest that this exceedingly busy and resilient man took in St. James'. The Yeates family was also responsible for the font and pulpit of St. Paul's West Maitland. In 1864, pews of local cedar, with elaborately-carved ends, were installed, replacing the original enclosed pews. The bench-ends are of some interest, being typical of Blacket's earlier practice, as by the 1870s he was already beginning to embrace much simpler pew designs. The pulpit, font and pews also demonstrate Blacket's considerable interest in furniture design as a reflection of his preferred High Church ecclesiology, an ideal to which he was able to give full expression in the "High Church" Diocese of Newcastle, as distinct from the constraints of the Diocese of Sydney, always predominantly "low church" but in those days still recognisably Anglican.