Can someone tell me about New Norcia, Australia?

Question

Can someone tell me about New Norcia, Australia?

Answer 1

They like to chuck another shrimp on the barbie.

Answer 2

theres allot of rabid Kangaroos there so I'd watch urself mate

Answer 3

New Norcia

Extraordinary and unusual Spanish-influenced religious settlement in the middle of the dry wheatbelt.

In the vast wheatbelt of Western Australia, which seems to cover just about all the fertile land in the south western corner of the state, the towns are all disarmingly similar. A bulk loading facility, a railway line, a pub, a farm machinery yard and a few houses. Part of the interest of New Norcia is the incongruity of the place. These styles of architecture, fresh from Spain and imported into Central and South America, don't belong in the bush and have no heritage in this area. They sit oddly amongst the gum trees and the dry grasses of the wheatlands.  Located 132 km from Perth, New Norcia is a combination of a monastery, two schools, a church, and a number of tourist attractions. It is, by any measure, one of the architectural wonders of Western Australia.

The history of New Norcia is fascinating. In 1835 the government of Spain dissolved all religious communities in the country. Among those who were exiled were Dom Rosendo Salvado and Dom Joseph Serra who had been Benedictine monks in Compostela. They both applied for foreign missions and were attached to the newly appointed Bishop of Perth, Dr John Brady. In January 1846 Brady and 27 missionaries arrived in Fremantle. In February of that same year Salvado and Serra, accompanied by a French monk Dom Leander Fontaine, an English monk Dom Denis Tootel and an Irish catechist set out towards a farmhouse which was located 130 km north of Perth. Shortly after their arrival in the area they established their mission to the local Aborigines beside a spring about 8 km north of the present site of New Norcia.

The early settlement was fraught with disasters. The order ran out of money, Dom Tootel returned to England, the Aborigines ransacked the settlement, life was unbelievably hard, and there seemed to be very little success in converting the local inhabitants to Christianity.

In 1847 the settlement was moved to the banks of the Moore River and named New Norcia after Norcia, Italy, the birthplace of the order's founder, St Benedict. Slowly relations between the missionaries and the local Aborigines improved and the Aborigines set up camp in the area of the mission.

By 1848 the mission had more than 1000 acres of land and both sheep and cattle were being grazed. A decade later the mission was separated from the control of Perth. The mission grew in importance in the 1860s and 1870s as the monks established a series of wells in the area and horses were bred and silk produced. In 1867 it became an Abbey and the remarkable Dom Rosendo Salvado, who by this time had learnt the language of the local Aborigines and was writing important anthropological pieces about the language and culture of the indigenous inhabitants, was appointed Abbot.

The great change in the mission (and this resulted in the mission as it exists today) occurred around the turn of the century when Dom Rosendo Salvado retired to be replaced by the energetic Dom Fulgentius Torres who, with a degree in Science from the University of Barcelona, was responsible for much of the design and supervision of the new buildings.

It was Torres who decided that a proper monastic enclosure was needed, that St Gertrude's College should be built - it was completed in 1908, that St Ildephonsus' College should be established - it was opened in 1913. Torres was also instrumental in establishing the mission as a centre of ecclesiastical art and culture in Western Australia. The library holds a great number of rare books with one volume dating back to 1508.

Part of the appeal of New Norcia is that it is, in many ways, a living museum. It has remained fundamentally unchanged for most of this century.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/Western-Austr...

This process began with the arrival from Spain in 1901 of Salvado's successor, Bishop Fulgentius Torres (1861 - 1914). Finding the mission in decline, he sold some its land to raise development funds. He personally designed and supervised the building of St Gertrude's Ladies College in 1908 and St Ildephonsus College for boys in 1913, staffing the former with Josephite Sisters and the later with Marist Brothers. In his fourteen years as Abbot, he carried out significant improvements throughout the town. Torres paid particular attention to the interior decoration of the town's buildings, bringing the Spanish woodcarver Juan (John) Casellas and the monk-artist Fr Lesmes Lopez to New Norcia to create many fine works that are now part of its rich artistic heritage.  The direction set for New Norcia by Torres was continued during the leadership of Dom Anselm Catalan, from 1916 to 1950. He added to the fabric of the town with the building of the Hostel - now the Hotel - and greatly encouraged the work of Dom Stephen Moreno, New Norcia's talented composer of religious music.

Change 1951 - 2000  

Despite the social upheavals of two world wars, New Norcia had become a stable and orderly, but perhaps inward looking, religious settlement by the 1950's. However, from then until the 1990s it underwent considerable change.

Change occurred first within the monastery. In an effort to attract more Australians, the monastic lifestyle was adapted to better suit local conditions. The reforms of the Second Vatican council in the late 1960's further simplified and clarified both monastic life and worship. However, the number of monks at New Norcia continued gradually to decline.  Outside the monastery walls, the changes were even more dramatic. The number of parishes staffed by the monastery was reduced to just the parish of New Norcia, the Aboriginal schools closed in the 1970's and formal secondary education ceased with the closure of New Norcia Catholic College in 1991.

However, since the early 1980's, hospitality at New Norcia has flourished and diversified. The Museum and Art Gallery annually attracts thousands of visitors and also offers guided tours of the town each day. In addition to the Hotel, the Monastery Guesthouse provides accommodation for those seeking an experience of quiet and refreshment. The former college buildings are now used for school camps and adult workshops and conventions. In 1996 the monks established an Education Centre to further interpret the site for visiting students. New Norcia's traditional crafts of self-sufficiency, bread making and olive oil production have also been revived.

http://www.newnorcia.wa.edu.au/monastery...

The New Norcia Museum (formerly Garrido Hall) on the Great Northern Highway has a remarkable collection of art treasures: pictures by Spanish and Italian old masters (including Titian and Raphael), jewelry, antiquities, valuable manuscripts and books.  Among other 19th C.  relics are a flour mill of 1879, an apiary and a blacksmith's forge.

http://www.planetware.com/australia/new-...