[1] The Tingalpa site, one acre of high ground fronting the road to Lytton (now Wynnum Road) about 6 miles (9.7 km) beyond Kangaroo Point, was transferred early in 1868 from Joseph Berry to the Church Trustees (Bishop Edward Wyndham Tufnell and Tingalpa farmers Charles Coxen, John Mackenzie Shaw, Richard Warren Weedon and William Roach Wood).

Importantly, the site was central to the small but scattered farming community of the Bulimba-Tingalpa district (which in 1868 encompassed Wynnum, Manly and Lota as well).

Guests at the Christ Church consecration ceremony of 27 October 1868, to which 400 persons were invited, included the newly appointed Governor of Queensland, Colonel Samuel Blackall; the President of the Legislative Council, Sir Maurice O'Connell; the Chief Justice of Queensland, James Cockle; and the Mayor of Brisbane, Alderman John Hardgrave.

[1] The first Christ Church Tingalpa was a picturesque building and a landmark on the road from Brisbane to the southern end of Moreton Bay.

[1] In 1873 the Church trustees acquired from Joseph Berry an additional one-acre block adjoining the eastern boundary of the original allotment.

Through the 1870s and 1880s Christ Church Tingalpa continued to serve a small, scattered rural community of approximately 50 square miles on the southeastern outskirts of Brisbane.

The second and present Christ Church Tingalpa was re-consecrated on 25 July 1886, smaller and less decorative than the first building, but still of weatherboard construction with a shingled roof.

An early, undated photograph shows a detached, timber-framed bell tower with double cross-bracing and a pyramid-shaped shingled roof, to the east of the chancel.

By the late 1880s Bulimba had become more densely settled and Wynnum-Lota-Manly boomed following the opening of the Cleveland railway line (via Wynnum) in November 1889.

[1] In 1923 St Peter's at Wynnum became a parish in its own right and Christ Church Tingalpa was declared to be extra-parochial and placed under the control and care of the Order of Witness.

A painted figure of out Lord on the Cross hangs from the roof and the Altar is backed by dorsals and flanked by riddels of blue material.

Local parishioners were encouraged to attend the Chapel services, and a call was made for funds to restore the building and cemetery.

EJV Cavey, appointed to the Manly parochial district in 1938, took charge of Christ Church and organised a loan to renovate the building.

[1] In the post-Second World War period much of the farming land in the Tingalpa district was subdivided for suburban and industrial purposes, and the population expanded rapidly through the 1950s and 1960s.

[1] It was subsequently saved and restored by The Friends of Tingalpa Cemetery Heritage Group Inc, and the building is now known as the "Pioneer Wedding Chapel".

The church is aligned roughly east–west on the site, presenting a side wall to the street, but the entrance in the western facade is visible from the road on the approach from Brisbane city.

[1] A small entrance portico is centrally located in the western facade of the building, and above this is a pointed arched vent with sloping timber louvres.

Some of the earlier graves retain their elegant wrought iron surrounds, and there are a number of substantial monuments and headstones illustrative of a variety of periods and styles.

[1] Christ Church Tingalpa and Burial Ground was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 2 February 1998 having satisfied the following criteria.

The establishment of Christ Church Tingalpa is important in illustrating the determination of early immigrants to transplant to Queensland the culture and religion of their homeland.

It survives in reasonable order, and is a good example of a small church burial ground established in what was initially a rural district.

Despite some white ant damage, the church remains a good example of its type - the simple, rectangular, pragmatic, ubiquitous Queensland weatherboard church - but appears to have retained some of the decorative elements of the first architect-designed building, including the timber trefoils to the windows, a trefoil arch in the portico, and the substantial pointed arched timber entrance doors.

Both church and burial ground are of special significance to the local community, with several generations of Tingalpa and district families having worshipped and been buried there.