Pugin Trail

We are presently working towards the establishment of a Pugin Trail in Tasmania. This will be done in conjunction with local government and tourism bodies. It will be some time before this comes about, so the following material is presented to enable you to travel and enjoy what the trail has to offer even before its formal establishment.

About the Trail

The Trail will link the historic villages of Richmond, Colebrook and Oatlands via the Coal Valley, providing a connecting link between Tasmania's Convict Trail and its Heritage Highway.
It will provide a unique cultural tourism experience, combining history, architecture, design and heritage education.
Centrepieces of the Trail are three Pugin village churches, namely, St John the Evangelist's, Richmond, St Patrick's, Colebrook, and St Paul's, Oatlands.
Nowhere else in the world can be found three small Pugin village churches in such close geographical proximity. Together they constitute a unique cultural landscape.
They are three different realisations of Pugin's ideal for the realisation of a small English medieval village church, and are the perfect paradigm for Pugin's theories which would be taken up in countless thousands of churches across the English-speaking world.
Designed to be made with rudimentary craft skills, the little churches were uniquely constructed from detailed scale models, not drawings, with their more complex details copied from imported exemplar stonework created specifically by Pugin for these buildings.

Image: Brian Andrews

St Paul's, Oatlands

A tiny gem
One of Pugin's smallest
In a renowned setting of historic buildings, including the Callington Mill

St Patrick's, Colebrook

The Cathedral of the Coal Valley
Literally unique amongst all Pugin's churches
Of international significance

Image: Brian Andrews

St John the Evangelist's, Richmond

Already, with the famous 1825 bridge over the Coal River, a major Tasmanian icon
Its 1859 steeple, chancel and sacristy derived from the largest of Pugin's three Tasmanian church designs
Many copies of Pugin headstones in its historic cemetery
The most visited church in Tasmania
Australia's oldest continuously-used Catholic church