Christ Church Cathedral

Newcastle's Anglican cathedral, built from 1892 over the site of the colony's first stone church

Christ Church Cathedral occupies the commanding hilltop position at the intersection of Church and King Streets, overlooking the city towards the harbour. The current Victorian Gothic building, designed by John Horbury Hunt, replaced an earlier sandstone church and was constructed in stages over more than a hundred years. The result is a building of considerable presence, its stone tower visible from much of the central city.

The interior is calm and well-proportioned, with good stained glass and a recently restored organ. The cathedral grounds offer one of the better elevated views over the rooftops towards the harbour and the industrial cranes beyond. Worth a visit even for the view alone — the hilltop position makes the scale of the city's layout clear.

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A story
The cathedral sits on the highest point of the original settlement, where convicts quarried stone for the colony's earliest buildings in the 1810s. The foundation stone for the current building was laid in 1892, but construction dragged on for over a century — the western towers were only completed in 2008, making this one of the last Anglican cathedrals in Australia to be finished.