Repurposing architecture

The other day we went for a wander around our bit of Canberra. On the way home, we passed this church. I’ve gone past it dozens of times in the past months, but I’d never really looked at it properly, so we stopped to have a nose around. We couldn’t go inside, but it had one of those helpful local historical society signs outside, which enabled me to learn all about the building’s bizarre history.

You may not be able to tell very well from the picture, but the church has somewhat odd proportions—note the giant front door, for instance. This is because the building started its life as a railway station. But its resemblance to a church is not accidental; it was not an ordinary railway station, but a Mortuary Station, built specially to service trains to Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney.

(Rookwood is itself notable: it is the largest cemetery, or, as it is officially known, “necropolis” in the Southern Hemisphere, and has been operating since the mid-nineteenth century, when it was built to relieve pressure on older cemeteries in Sydney that were reaching capacity.)

Because of Rookwood’s distance from Sydney’s center, a spur line of the railway, and the Mortuary Stations, were built to service funeral parties. There were three stations in different parts of the cemetery (serving different denominations), plus one at the main entrance and another one at the start of the line in Sydney, adjacent to the central railway station; they were deliberately designed to create an appropriately solemn atmosphere for funeral processions. The stations (and the line) were in use until 1948, when they were rendered obsolete by increased use of cars and roads. All Saints Church was formerly Mortuary Station No. 1; it was purchased by an Anglican minister for £100 and relocated to Canberra in 1957.

Many of the building’s other architectural features also started life somewhere else: one of the stained-glass windows came from a church in England that was bombed during World War II; the church bell came from a train; and the tower was originally located on the other side of the building.

If you look carefully at the tower, you can see two dates on it: at the top, “1868,” when the building was originally dedicated; and underneath it, “1958,” when it was re-dedicated as a church. Quite an amazing story, really, of historical preservation and thrift.

Canberra may be nearly brand-new, as cities go (it’s not even 100 yet!), but it still manages to present interesting bits of history here and there--often when I least expect it.

Brain block

I’ve been a little slow about posting lately. (Sorry about that. I’ve got a lot on the brain.)

I’ve been slow on the uptake in other areas, too, if that helps. An explanation, by way of a digression: one of the by-products of having a child in preschool is that they meet other kids. Those other kids have parents. If you’re lucky, your child will hit it off with some other children, and you will hit it off with some other parents. If you’re very lucky, some of those children and parents will be related to each other.

Challenge outtakes

Just in case you’re thinking it’s all sunshine and flowers and effortless production and consumption of deliciousness 24/7 here at Casa Roving Lemon, I thought I’d share a couple of less-than-stellar moments during this past month’s Cookbook Challenge:

1. Zeppoli I was gunning to make it to five recipes this month for once, and the fifth one I had bookmarked was zeppoli—an Italian sweet treat made with fried dough. I read through the recipe, and thought, “Oh, that’s just bread dough. I’ll just use the bread dough I have in the refrigerator.” Completely ignoring that a) the recipe had a much higher ratio of yeast to flour than standard bread dough; and b) I’m always trying to achieve more of a country-bread, slow-rise, chewy tang with my bread dough. This second fact, in particular, gives you pretty much the opposite of what you’re looking for in zeppoli, as I discovered when I bit into one. They tasted pretty much like tiny, fried sourdough rolls. With powdered sugar on them. Not my finest effort. (Not that that stopped me from eating them all.)

2. Broccoli Note to self: if you are fortunate enough to have a child that happily eats her own body weight in broccoli when you produce it in the normal way (or, rather, the way that’s normal for you), don’t change things. Don’t suddenly roast the broccoli and present it to her like that. She will say things like, “Mummy! It has brown stuff on it!” and “Mummy! I don’t like this brown stuff!”. She will try to claw off the brown stuff. With her fingers. She will make faces and gag theatrically and try to scrape her tongue clean. No matter how much you like the broccoli (and I’m sure you will), believe me, this will interfere with your enjoyment of dinner.

3. Dining post hoc(kily) I’ve eaten cold cereal for dinner at least four times in the past month, usually after hockey. By the time I’ve finished training, schlepped all my kit home on the bus, and taken a shower (since the rink does not offer such sissy amenities as hot water), I’ve got no energy left to turn on the stove, even to heat up leftovers.

But, as you can see from the photo at the top (crappy as it is), we still make the effort. Those may be Deep-Fried Sugar-Frosted Mini Dinner Rolls, but, who cares, we’re still gonna decorate ‘em. With cachous! (That’s Australian for what we in the US call “those little silver balls you stick on cakes”.)