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Saturday, September 26, 2015

Brough Church

Brough Church
Brough Church, one of the chief worship centers of the region was founded by Mr. Antony Watson Brough, an Australian missionary. This church of South India was established in the year 1928-29.
The church missionary is engaged in various public service activities in interest of the society. Situated in the middle of the city of Erode nearby Panneerselvam Park, the church can be advanced from a Brough road, which is also named after the church.



The construction of the church started in 1930 and it was completed in the year 1933 by Antony Watson Brough. The church was dedicated in 1933 by Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah. The church is built with lime mortar with egg and the stones were brought from Karur. The church is constructed in the Indo-Saracenic style architecture.
It is normal church like every other Church across various cities across India. The specialty of this Church is that it is the biggest Church of Erode and located in the prime area of Brough Road , P.S Park signal, the largest signal of Erode. The Church is big and accommodates large no. of people on Sunday prayers.
History
Rev. Antony Watson Brough (1861-1934) came to Coimbatore from Australia in 1894 and served there for two years. He came to Erode in 1897 and constructed around twenty churches. It was planned to build the church in 1930 and was dedicated in 1933 by Rt. Rev. Azariah and was named as Brough Memorial Church. It is learnt that the foundation depth is equal to the height of the wall above the ground. The church was built with lime mortar ground with egg. The walls were plastered with ground lime mortar with egg. The stones were brought from Karur. The windows were made and brought from Karur. It is said that the Church was constructed in the Indo-Saracenic style in order to attract the Muslims in Erode. In is the front, there is one inscription in Tamil and Arabic as “Only God”.
Details on the Structure of the Church
It is made of stone pillars, arches, plinth stones in doors and windows, steps and brick and mortar. The size of the church is around 30X20 meters. The height is about 8 meters. It has got the main area and the side areas. The ceiling is made of concrete and the weathering course is with lime mortar and covered with roofing square tiles and pointed with cement. The walls are plastered and painted. The frontage has two minarets which are made of stone and brick structures.
Details of the Pillars
The stone pillars are around 2.5 meters and the height is 2.3 meters. The pillars and arches are made of granite stones carved out as square pedestals and hexagonal structure in the middle and with support structures in the top to support the arches. The pillars are constructed as pedestal, stem and the upper support head. It is fortunately not painted as the front three arches are painted brown. Fortunately the arches are not painted with enamel, but associated with lime and strainers. There are five arches with ten pillars, two in the altar and three in the entrance. Two pillars are embedded into the wall near the entrance; ten pillars in the middle are also supporting the arches.