Regional Victorian churches hit market as congregation numbers dwindle

Country churches are on the market and buyers are snapping up some picturesque pieces of rural history. Here's why.

Searing winds whipped the exterior of Caramut’s Catholic Church the day Wilma and Terry McDonald wed six decades ago.

“It was hot and windy on Easter Saturday, 1964,” Mrs McDonald said. “It was a long time ago but that’s my strongest memory of the day, how hot it was for March.

“We had our reception at the local hall and the CWA catered. Everyone had their wedding in the church back then. Not so much these days – people have their weddings in racecourses and wineries and other locations.”

The Mortlake couple are set to celebrate their diamond anniversary this year – but the long-time union between Caramut and the Catholic Church is well and truly over.

Once a centre for hatching, matching and dispatching, St Joseph’s held its last church service in 2022 and is now on the market for $130,000 to $142,000.

Terry and Wilma McDonald married at Caramut's Catholic Church back in March 1964. Photo: Nicole Cleary

Charles Stewart Hamilton agent Leeson White said dozens of churches had been sold across southwest Victoria in recent years.

He said it was not just the Catholic Church, with Anglican, Presbyterian, Uniting and other denominations also selling up their real estate stake in small towns.

“I’ve sold a few churches in recent times. There’s an interest in the history from buyers who want to purchase a home or a second property that’s a bit out of the ordinary,” Mr White said.

“Last year, we sold the Anglican Church at Breakaway Creek, which is not far from Heywood. Church attendance has been going down for some time, that’s played a role.”

While there’s a common assumption that regional areas are more religious that urban Australia, Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show the opposite.

At the 2021 census, 43.3 per cent of southwest Victoria ticked the non-religious box while the figure in Greater Melbourne was 36.9 per cent.

Religious affiliation has been declining for decades in both city and country, but that’s not the whole story behind the clerical closures.

Former parishioners out the front of Caramut's Catholic Church. Photo: Nicole Cleary

Former Caramut resident Tom Dickson says several generations of his family were connected to the church – even if they weren’t Catholic.

His Presbyterian grandfather Thomas William Dickson donated the land for construction of St Joseph’s, built in 1906.

“Caramut was a strong area for soldier settlement after the wars,” Mr Dickson said.

“In the 1950s and 1960s, you had the baby boom, so it was always very busy on a Sunday.”

Sunday attendance started to ebb with the rise in popularity of television and sport on the Sabbath, once taboo, became commonplace.

“There was a good crowd there every Sunday right up to 20 years ago. Then it really started to fall away,” Mr Dickson said.

“Even if you have a good crowd, most are retirees and you need more than a few to be fit enough to maintain the church buildings. That’s one of the reasons why a lot of churches have been sold off. The other is that there’s a shortage of priests in the Catholic Church and I understand there’s a shortage of ministers in the other churches.”

Just as old schoolhouses, telephone exchanges and infant welfare centres that dot the countryside have been repurposed as residences, so too are churches becoming popular as secular homes.

“There have been some great transformations of country churches in recent years,” Mr Leeson said. “Country churches are often beautiful buildings and people see a new purpose for them.”