Divine interventions

Adelaide’s ‘city of churches’ moniker could easily extend to our beloved Fleurieu Peninsula. The South Australian colony was the first in the world to separate church and state, and a multitude of dissenting denominations established themselves here, away from the discrimination they’d experienced in their home countries. In the early days services were held in private homes or in the open – in the old McLaren Vale town of Gloucester, settlers gathered to worship beneath a giant gum tree beside a well at Oxenberry Farm.

Dating from the 1840s, the churches here were among the earliest built by the colony. Often basic structures with plain furnishings, the surviving buildings are nevertheless diverse in history, heritage