St Matthew’s Church, Riversdale

I still have 2 posts left about my 2008 trip to Europe but I just cannot seem to find the right words.  So I will finish that trip later.  While thinking about what to write I discovered that I never posted my last post about our day in Heidelberg and Riversdale in December last year.
We spend the morning in Heidelberg exploring the town, the Dutch Reformed Church and the Anglican Church. We then drove the 30 kilometers to Riversdale and walked around in the town.
One of the highlights of the day was visiting St Matthew’s Church.  Bishop Gray visited Riversdale in 1848 and in 1850 he was offered a site for the building of a church.  The church was designed by Sophy Gray and building started in about 1854.  The cornerstone was laid on 22 November 1854.  Bishop Gray consecrated the church on 25 September 1856.























We entered the church grounds through an old gate for a closer look.  At one end there was also a small cemetery with old graves.  The writing on the headstones were mostly faded away. We could make out that the graves were from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Once again the church was closed and we could not go inside.  It was about 14:00 the afternoon and very hot.  We decided to make a last stop at the historical cemetery before returning home.

Comments

  1. Firefly the Travel Guy22 April, 2013 11:55

    I have driven through Riversdale and Heidelberg so many times over the years and have never taken the opportunity to pull into town other than to stop at a petrol station. One is always in such a hurry with the long road ahead. Perhaps at some stage I must take a week or so and explore the Overberg area properly.

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