St Matthew’s Anglican Church, Moses Street, Windsor, is one of Francis Greenway’s finest surviving works and among the oldest Anglican churches in Australia still in use. Governor Lachlan Macquarie ordered a church for the Hawkesbury township he renamed Windsor in 1810. Greenway’s Georgian brick church rose between 1817 and 1822; the Reverend Samuel Marsden consecrated it on 8 December 1822. Macquarie famously had to re-lay the foundation stone after the first ceremonial coin was stolen overnight.
Convict labour built the church under colonial direction; William Cox is associated with related precinct works. The adjoining rectory and stables (completed in the mid-1820s) complete a landmark group above the Hawkesbury floodplain — Heritage NSW lists the church, rectory, stables and cemetery together. The south porch, shown on early plans, was added later (1857). The graveyard includes burials connected with early colonial Hawkesbury families and, by local tradition, some First Fleet associations.
Greenway’s spare Georgian massing — tower, nave and clear brickwork — remains remarkably intact and is often cited as among the most beautiful early colonial buildings in the country. The slug “winsorchirch” is only a URL fossil; the on-page title correctly names St Matthew’s and Greenway.
Church foundation-stone account, recorded in an early historical source.
Consecration of St Matthew’s Church by the Reverend Samuel Marsden, 8 December 1822.
Storm damage and later history of the Windsor church precinct.
Historical notes on Windsor, St Matthew’s Church and its early community.