By Jenel Hunt
Historic gates that lead to the front entrance of the St Joseph’s Catholic Church at Stanthorpe have been restored in time for the church’s celebration of 100 years.
The church was opened on 25 February 1923 but the gates likely haven’t quite made ‘the ton’ as the original fence was a picket fence and not suitable for such weighty gates. Vic Pennisi said the previous parish priest Father Brian Connolly had made the request a couple of years before that the gates be refurbished for the church’s special birthday.
“Just as long as you know that I can’t commit to doing it in a couple of weeks,” Vic told Fr Connolly.
Vic undertook to do the welding work and told Fr Connolly he knew ‘a guy who has a forge’. That guy was Peter Ingall. Charlie Patane came along to supply some of the brawn required for the very heavy gates and to grind down the weld marks where anything was added or restored.
So the gates were taken away and Peter, Vic and Charlie formed a working trio. Of course, the project didn’t take two years but was undertaken in small blocks of time that they had available.
Over the intervening time, intricately shaped leaves and wrought iron curlicues were worked into miniature works of art on the forge.
When they started the project, 37 of the leaf shapes were damaged or missing and at least one of the wrought iron scrolls was completely missing.
Peter, who does metalwork as a retirement hobby, would create each leaf by starting with a plasticine mould (from a leaf on the opposing gate) to get the 3D shape, and work from there. The veins in each leaf were chiseled in.
The gates were taken to Warwick to be powdercoated in a heritage red to complement the church’s terracotta-hued roofing tiles.
It took a while to get them back to Stanthorpe but eventually the time came to rehang the gates, with three men needed to hold each gate.
And then, they found that the gates wouldn’t close all the way. So it was back to the drawing board, this time to modify the hinges. The old lock on the gate was in sad need of help, too, and the local locksmith has undertaken to fix it in a way that keeps it as authentic as possible.
Now the gates are back in place and back to their original glory.
Whether a local person or a smithy from another area originally built the gates may remain hidden in the mists of history, but for now the gates once again form a lovely entrance to the church.
Will they last another 100 years?
“We’ll have to come back and check,” said Peter.
