Baptist Church, Ipswich

Baptist Church is a heritage-listed former church and now theatre at 188 Brisbane Street, Ipswich, City of Ipswich, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by George Brockwell Gill and Richard Gailey and built in 1954 by Messrs MacGregor and Brown, Messers Mackenzie and Co. It is also known as Studio 188, Memorial Gate, and Central Baptist Church. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 4 July 2006.HistoryThe former Ipswich Baptist Church, first designed by eminent Queensland architect, Richard Gailey and erected in 1877 on Brisbane Street, was originally a simple gabled brick building in a classical idiom. The church acquired adjacent land on Limestone Street and established a Sunday School hall and a manse there. An Art Deco-influenced refurbishment of the church was completed in 1938 under the direction of prolific Ipswich architect, George Brockwell Gill. A gateway comprising a gable roof supported on barley-twist columns was opened by the church in 1954 to honour those from the church who fought, suffered and died during World War II, and to provide an entrance to memorial grounds established next to the church on Brisbane Street. In 2004 the congregation established itself elsewhere and the church was sold to eventually be transformed into a performance venue by the Ipswich City Council in 2012.Ipswich was one of the earliest settlements in Queensland, commencing as a convict out-station known as Limestone in 1827. From its inception as a free settlement in 1842, Ipswich was important as a port on the Bremer River located at the intersection of routes to the Darling Downs and Upper Brisbane Valley. Its people, together with many squatters, cherished the hope that the town might become the capital of the prospective Colony of Queensland, however, Brisbane assumed that role after separation from New South Wales in 1859. Nevertheless, Ipswich remained important as a major regional centre, being declared a municipality in 1860 and then a city in 1904.