There is a cemetery within the church grounds with about sixty graves dating back to the 1880s. The graves are spread through an area of about 5,000 square metres.
So far from the city, the delivery of pastoral care was patchy at best. Although the town of Arthur River was established in the 1850s it did not have a church until the 1880s and even then had to share a minister with the surrounding communities. Even in the present time the church shares a minister with some forty communities in an area of about 3,000 square kilometres, with five active churches served from the Diocesan centre of Williams.
The local Taylor family donated the land and Fifty Pounds ($100) towards the construction of the church. Work commenced in 1882 and was finished just before Christmas in 1884.
I first visited this church cemetery on March 8th 2011, and wrote the following log for the Geocaching Australia locationless cache GA1531 The Cemetery Bonanza by stringy:
WanderingAus wandered by, meandering towards home from Albany after the GC2KA92 WA Caching 10th Birthday Bash - Albany 2011 by tangowithcupcake, and came across this Cemetery at Saint Paul's Church Arthur River.
While there I also placed a cache, GC2Q58C WanAus 193 - LKA Arthur River
, which I described as:
Last Known Address Arthur River
Should be an easy find in the Dead Centre of Arthur River.
I was meandering through the countryside on the way home from GC2KA92 WA Caching 10th Birthday Bash - Albany 2011 by tangowithcupcake and came across the Arthur River Cemetery. I was surprised to find it didn't have a cache, so I decided to rectify that situation.
Logs for my cache indicated my coords were wrong, although 21 geocachers had found it, and none of the finders bothered to give me a correct set of coords, but as the cache is located 180 CroKs from my home location it took me some time to arrange a return visit.
(CroK = Crow Kilometre, the distance "As the crow flies", known to some as the straight line distance, the shortest distance between two points.)
I finally returned on January 12th 2012 to check and correct them, and wrote the following Owner Maintenance log:
WanderingAus wandered by with the WanderingMrs and our three oldest grandchildren, heading home after a 12 day trip, and stopped in to check and correct my errant coordinates.
At the same time I took some photos for this waymark, and the grandchildren wandered over and took a look too.
When we returned to the car the youngest of those grandchildren, Ethan, remarked "That's the strangest church I've seen in my life", to which his grandmother (the WanderingMrs) remarked "that's in your whole 11 years is it?". I asked "How many churches have you been in?", and Ethan replied "four I think".
Knowing that my daughter and her family were members of the Revival Centres of Australia I suspected this may in fact have been the only "church" building Ethan had ever visited, but I let the matter slide. The following afternoon, when their Mum and Dad came over to pick them up, Ethan (as the youngest) eventually got his chance to tell of his adventures during the 12 day trip with Nan and Pop, and finished with the story of Saint Paul's Church.
His Mum then asked "How many churches do you think you've been in?", and Ethan replied "four I think", and went on to describe the three halls at which he had attended Meetings of the Revival Centres of Australia. Vanessa then explained to him that in their belief the people were the church, and that they met for worship in any suitable building, including the three halls he'd mentioned, but also in any member's home where they held House Meetings.
As a former Methodist and sometime Anglican, I personally worship at The Church Of The Great Oudoors, and believe that any place at which I choose to give thanks for the endless bounty I have been blessed with is my church.
I have included a photo of the headstone of a veteran of the First World War, Private E. Bunce, 3 Light Trench Mortar Battery, who passed away on April 8th 1954 at the age of 61. The official headstone bears the Rising Sun Badge of the Australian Imperial Force. The inscription includes the details mentioned as well as:
Beloved Husband of Eleanor, Father of Vi, Bob, Ted & Alan.