Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church including a visit to Mass Rock in Mullewa

Nestled in the town of Mullewa is what is aptly named the ‘Jewel in the Crown’ of Monsignor John Hawes’s church designs.

The architecture is Romanesque-type, similar to churches in the South of France. The exterior has long low proportions reminiscent of the Spanish Franciscan Mission churches.

Hawes commenced sketches of the church in 1920 while holidaying in England and the foundations began in 1921. During the time of construction he was feeling rejected and humiliated by the non-acceptance of his design for the Perth Cathedral and the scorn given by Bishop Ryan re the unfinished Cathedral of St Francis Xavier in Geraldton. The personal, intimate and charming work of the Mullewa Church was to please himself and as he wrote to a friend, “my heart is in these stones”. Hawes wanted his church to signify the antiquity, romance and quaintness of the old hillside churches of Southern Europe.