A new calling

From B&Bs to a brewery, old churches throughout the bush are being repurposed in many innovative ways.

Story Ken Eastwood  Photo courtesy Jess Bickerstaff 

The combination of ambience and often high ceilings means old churches have become desirable and useful for many different purposes. A Facebook page, Churches for Sale Australia, is dedicated to listing the latest offerings. Not far from the Chapel Theatre in Glen Innes is a radio station also housed in a former church. Elsewhere around the country, the old buildings are becoming antique stores, offices, houses, wineries, homewares shops, conference venues and places to store everything from wine to hay.

As well as permanent residences, many old church buildings have been turned into B&B-style holiday accommodation, such as the Vanbery Chapel in South East Queensland’s Scenic Rim. Roofless after a 1968 storm, and being used as a hayshed, it was bought sight unseen for $4,000 in 2021 and moved from its Tarome home to its new site on a hill on Vanbery Cottage Host Farm. “It was just because it was the Tarome church – we also had the old Tarome school here and we just thought they needed to be back together,” part owner Helen Roebig says. “The building was nothing – it was overgrown with cobwebs and all the windows were broken, but when we saw it sitting in our paddock, we burst into tears. It just had such a beautiful feel to it. I get teary thinking about it – just the kindness that was felt there. Past people and how they must have looked after each other.”

Now with a mezzanine bedroom, a kitchenette and bathroom, the tiny 6 x 9m chapel was used for the wedding of Helen’s daughter Jess when it was still in a very rustic state. It’s taken the best part of four years to get approvals with council for the removal and restoration of the building, including a difficult midnight transfer of the building, when the semitrailer got bogged on a very rainy night. “I think we lost a few beams on the way,” Helen says.