TL;DR – Today I explore the moving of historic St. Philips Anglican Church

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Today I drove south of Brisbane to the suburbs because for some people in Rochedale a big move was happening and I was asked to record it for history’s sake. For most people in the area it was the little brown church on the corner, but it is a building with a lot of history. As the older parishioners will tell you, the church was made out of wood salvaged from an American World War Two barracks. During WW2 Brisbane was the headquarters for the South West Pacific campaign, with places like the University of Queensland being converted into the advanced headquarters for the Allied Land Forces. The legacy of WW2 and the American presence still exists across Brisbane and St. Philips Anglican Church is but one reminder of it. But like all things, the march of progress is upon the area as Rochdale is transformed from a rural enclave into a new residential/commercial suburb, and the time for the little brown church on the corner has come to an end, of sorts. For the land it is on will soon to be turned into a traffic intersection so the choice was to move it or destroy it and Coles Supermarkets the new owners decided to give it a new lease of life as a community centre. However, it is an old building, and an old building that needed to be moved, and that precarious endeavour is what we are looking at today. Just a warning that there are a lot of images after the fold, so if you are on mobile you might want to check that you are on wifi.

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