1929) of Clarke Gazzard and Partners was commissioned to design the new church to house a congregation of 350 (this being the minimum diocesan standard size of the time).
Gazzard trained as an Engineer and architect in England and upon returning to Australia worked for a number of years with Harry Seidler.
In the early 1960s he became part of the firm Clarke, Gazzard and Partners and was a leading member of the Paddington Society and contributed to the conservation of the suburb in the 1970s.
He became well known in the area of architecture and town planning and worked on the Trans Australia Airlines Terminal at Sydney Airport, the Mona Vale community centre and Goodwin Village at Edgecliff and his own home in Woollahra.
Donald Gazzard added the copper hood above the door to the mausoleum and is thought to have designed the path that connects it to the Church and Fitzwilliam Street, however, this is yet to be confirmed.
A copper plaque in the floor with black lettering proclaims "We remember with pride and gratitude those who in the 1939 - 1945 War put service to their country before life itself."
"[1][3] "During my six years working overseas I had become increasingly interested in the unerring way vernacular buildings respond so directly to local climate and materials, and much was made at the time of the whitewashed "Greek Island" look of this church.
"The construction is very simple with white painted brickwork, timber floors and ceiling, and specially designed pews from Tasmanian Blackwood.
The size was optimistic of course; the hoped for religious revival has still to happen and although the church is full at Christmas and Easter the congregation normally numbers less than a hundred people.
[1] The c. 1965 church designed by Donald Gazzard is an acknowledged and significant example of the regional architecture that evolved in New South Wales in the 1960s and is known as the Sydney School.
Jennifer Tayler equates the journey to the church as one of "revelation" with the turning path providing "various viewpoints of the building", however most of these views have been reduced to mere glimpses due to encroaching vegetation.
The entrance verandah is both physically and visually an extension of the main roof form, the lowest point of which comes to rest on a white angled column.
Reinforced concrete elements are cantilevered from the walls at the rear of the church and on the altar to form shelves for objects of service and bench style seating.
The raw formed shelves are simple and modest, while the bench like seats are covered in a shaped natural timber the lip of which curves over the edge on the concrete.
[1] The Wentworth Memorial Church is widely considered to be the finest surviving work in the Sydney School style of the important mid to late Twentieth Century Architect Donald Gazzard (b.1929).
[1] Wentworth Memorial Church was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 25 September 2012 having satisfied the following criteria.
[1] Donald Gazzard who was one of the first employees of the eminent architect Harry Seidler from 1950 to 1954, commenced practice in New South Wales in 1960 and came to prominence for the design of a house at 12 Ellesmere Avenue, Hunters Hill, which was awarded the inaugural Wilkinson Prize for domestic Architecture in 1961.
[1] The place is important in demonstrating aesthetic characteristics and/or a high degree of creative or technical achievement in New South Wales.
[1] The church which crowns a rocky hill top with its soaring white walls has State significant landmark qualities.
[1] The moveable collection of purpose-built furniture, metalware and artwork by significant Twentieth century artists and craftsmen is aesthetically distinctive and designed specifically for the Church.
As evidenced by its inclusion on the RAIA's Register of Twentieth Century Architecture and its inclusion as an exemplar of the work of the Sydney school and the Late Twentieth Century Ecclesiastical style, the place is held in high esteem by NSW architects and others interested in Australian architecture.
More particularly it is thought to be the only ecclesiastical work in the Sydney School style using the idiom of roughly surfaced off white finishes over brick or concrete.
The Wentworth Memorial Church is of State significance as part of a group which collectively illustrates the Sydney School style of architecture.
The Twentieth Century architectural historian and critic Jennifer Taylor has noted that "the use of roughly surfaced, off-white finishes over brick or concrete was not alien to the Sydney School palette", having been used "as a foil to dark timbers in early houses by Allen, Jack and Cottier" and by the mid-1960s it had become a hallmark of Ken Woolley's low cost housing.
[1] This Wikipedia article was originally based on Wentworth Memorial Church and Moveable Collection, entry number 01882 in the New South Wales State Heritage Register published by the State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) 2018 under CC-BY 4.0 licence, accessed on {{{accessdate}}}.