1. THE MAIN ENTRY

The entry is known as the narthex, Greek for vestibule. Work on the narthex floor (tiling of the central section and re-laying the bricks) and the installation of glass doors to the southwest porch were completed by Palm Sunday, 2001. The Pelican tile is new, made by a local ceramic artist and is surrounded by tiles that are 126 years old, found behind a door in the newel staircase.

There is an early painting of the old parish church of St Saviour, which first stood on the site. To the left of the church in the painting can be seen the spire of the Uniting Church (former Wesleyan Church), still a landmark of the city.

The west screen below the gallery is particularly fine. It is made of luminous white sandstone. Ball flowers are distributed along the string at the top of the screen to give added richness.

The grand door is obviously made for processions, and is flanked by elegant niches with "nodding canopies" which have a fineness of detail rarely found in Gothic Revival work. The absence of a western window in the gallery is the consequence of the organ originally being designed for this place. It stood there from 1884 to 1902 as the architect intended, but was then removed to the choir, perhaps because of problems in synchronising with the choristers at the other end of the church. 

In a letter dated 13 May, 1885, Bishop Mesac Thomas complains to E.J. Hopkins, organist of the Temple Church, London "that the silly advice of the Laytons [installers of the organ] to bring the organ down into the Chancel is utterly impracticable and impossible. There is absolutely no other place for it within the building except that which the architect designed, & which was expressly erected for it." [1]

Apparently the organ materials were unable to cope with the dry climate; the organ was too tall for the gallery and the installers cut a hole in the under roof of the gallery to allow the swell box to stand, and left it unprotected.

[1] Letter from Mesac Thomas to E.J. Hopkins, London 13 May, 1885 in Letters from Goulburn: A Selection of Letters from Mesac Thomas First Bishop of Goulburn 1863-1892, Ed Barbara Thorn, Canberra, 1964, p. 71