St John The Evangelist Church history

He became an artillery officer in the Royal Marines and retired in 1822.

A road was surveyed from Hartley to Mudgee in 1823, eleven years after the first successful white crossing of the Blue Mountains.

Colin Stewart, pioneer Presbyterian minister who arrived in the area in 1830.

Thomas returned to Scotland and married his wife, Robina Ramsay Walker, his cousin, in 1832.

In 1837 he applied for more land between the Wolgan Valley and Bathurst.

James Walker died on 24 November 1856, aged 71 and was buried in the family cemetery on the estate.

Mrs Barton commissioned renowned Gothic Revival church architect and family friend, Edmund Blacket, in 1880 to design St John The Evangelist Church on the estate as a place of worship for the Church of England and the Presbyterians of Wallerawang.

The church was opened on 6 November 1881 by the Rev.

The church window is in memory of Georgina Lyon Wolgan Abbott, who married Thomas Abbott in 1882 after the death of her first husband Edwin Barton.

Popular among citizens he was elected the first mayor of Lithgow after establishment of the Municipality of Lithgow in 1889.

He held the seat of Hartley in the NSW Legislative Assembly jointly with Joseph Cook from 1891.

The window was installed after Georgina's death in 1906.

James Lyong Walker Barton and his sister, Lue Loveday Walker Barton, were murdered at Wallerawang (by then renamed and rebuilt as 'Barton Park') on 26 September 1948.

On 18 November 1952 the Trustees of the Church of England, Sydney Diocese and the Presbyterian Church NSW became the new owners as tenants in common, with equal moiety.

The latest window was installed in 1962 in memory of Mary Barton, Georgina's daughter.

Regular Anglican workship ceased at the church in 1971.

In 1983 a violent storm damaged the north-east tower's pinnacle, which fell and smashed. badly damaging the roof.

In 2001 the church was advertised for sale.