St Patrick’s Cathedral and the East Melbourne precinct within which it is located is a place of considerable cultural heritage significance. As well as accommodating the ‘mother church’ of the Catholic faith in Victoria, a masterpiece of the Gothic Revival, the precinct was the site of the first Catholic grammar school in Victoria and the location of the Bishop’s Palace (until the 1960s).
Since the 1970s, it has also been a centre of administration, and home of the Catholic archives. Built form at the precinct, and the activities that have occurred there, have variously been an expression of missional objectives and Catholic identity over time. From a heritage perspective a priority is to ensure that the precinct’s role and identity as a centre of Catholicism in Melbourne and Victoria is maintained.
