After a years-long journey full of ups, downs and almost-disasters, a quaint renovated church that found its new home on Market Street in Mudgee has finally been completed.
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For Kim Stanton and her mother Faye Crook, realising their dream of buying and beautifying an old church was all about patience.
It took four years of hard work to complete the project. The church was purchased in November 2019 and was placed on Market Street in December 2022.
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St Aidan's Anglican Church began its life in 1914 near the small northern NSW town of Blackville in Yarraman. There it lived until was it moved on the back of a truck in 1966 from its original foundations up the road road where it remained before going on the market after the diocese made the decision to sell the old building.
"It couldn't have been done without our wonderful tradies, our family and certainly a lot of our friends as well. We've all done some random things, it was a group effort," Kim said.
"I've got to say there was a couple of times amongst it that mum and I thought 'could we go on?' if I'm honest.
"Would we do it again is maybe a question - I don't know. Probably not, probably not. We love it and we're really, really proud of how it's come along and we just hope people come and appreciate it and love it as much as we do."
One hurdle was removing the old tin roof to comply with modern thermal requirements, a necessary move that ate into their already dwindling budget.
While the church has been modernised with electricity, climate control and plumbing, it features everything it can to retain the charm of the quaint original building, even down to reusing existing tables and an old hymn board.
"To get it moved from Blackville, which we thought was a big chunk of the puzzle - it turned out it was 1 per cent," Kim laughed.
"...you're still trying to respect the building, but work with the new building regulations, be mindful of your neighbours, all of that. And still make it a destination people would want to come to. It was pretty hard to tie together, but we're glad we're at the end - or the start, whichever you want to call it.
"We had lots of people just when the fencing was even going up saying, 'can I ask you what you're doing?'. I've had lots of local stop as well, but the tourists were like, 'Oh, is this somewhere we can stay?'"
The two-bed open-plan church has been listed online for those curious at spending a night.
