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St. Anthony's Chapel

The Convent of the Good Shepherd was built in 1883 at the corner of Dandenong Road and Castlebar Road next door to Chadstone (cottage), on land originally owned by speculator Patrick O’Farrell. O’Farrell, a solicitor, had purchased 55 acres of land in October 1855 from the Crown. One of his clients was the first Catholic Bishop of Melbourne, James Alipius Goold OSM, to whom O’Farrell sold the land in 1856 for £274.In 1881, in order to extend the work of the Convent at Abbotsford, Archbishop Goold invited the Sisters of the Good Shepherd to establish a convent and reformatory school on his land at Oakleigh (later known as Chadstone). In July 1881, Goold laid the foundation stone for the Convent, which was built with bricks made from clay quarried on the site and rendered with roughcast cement.The Convent of the Good Shepherd opened in December 1883, for the purpose of ‘training and educating poor and neglected children’. The Convent offered academic, domestic and commercial training for girls aged 11 to 13 who were deemed by the Children’s Court to be in need of care and it also provided care for older girls and women. The Convent was also remembered for the quality of its embroidery.The 19th Century complex of buildings included the Convent, Chapel, Reformatory School, Laundry and Priest’s Cottage. St Anthony’s Primary School, established for the children of the Parish in 1899, closed in 1979. The foundation stone for a new French Gothic Chapel, was laid by the Archbishop of Melbourne, His Grace the Most Rev. Dr. Daniel Mannix, in June 1930. The Chapel, with its graceful spire and clocktower, became a local landmark.In 1958 and 1963, parts of the Convent land were sold for development of the shopping centre. In 1984, 3.2 hectares of land, containing the Convent, Chapel and other buildings of the Good Shepherd complex, were sold. The following year, amidst much controversy, the buildings referred to as ‘a place of love, peace and shelter to countless numbers for over a century’, were demolished in order to extend the car park at Chadstone Shopping Centre

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