St Martin of Tours Catholic Church in Muskerry has been the scene of untold milestones.

Next month, it has one of its own – the 140^th anniversary of its blessing and consecration. 

Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Parish, Elmore, is celebrating with a mass and a shared picnic lunch in the church grounds.

Chair of the 140^th celebration organising committee, Maurie Sharkey, has extended the invitation to all past and present parishioners, their families and friends. 

Mass starts at 10.30am on August 28.

Mr Sharkey said there had already been a lot of interest. 

“It’s a special church,” he said. 

“Muskerry has a real connection to people. You run into people all over Victoria and it does ring a bell.”

Countless brides have walked down the aisle of the bluestone church to meet their dapper groom.

The staircase leading up to the Gothic church, perched atop the hill and surrounded by paddocks, has been featured in innumerable wedding albums. 

Mr Sharkey’s family has been among those to celebrate marriages, baptisms and confirmations at the church.

But his connection to St Martin’s dates back to its origins. 

His great grandfather, Thomas Sharkey, was among the original guarantors and committee members who built it. 

St Martin’s is evidence of the devotion of the area’s early settlers, who financed and built the church themselves. 

The project cost £1563 and was paid off by October 1879, just over four years after the foundation stone was laid by the then bishop of the Sandhurst Diocese, Reverend Martin Crane. 

Mr Sharkey said the church’s founders quarried the stone from the nearby Forest Creek.

“A lot of them camped in tents around here while it was being built,” he said. 

The original guarantors and committee members included Thos. Bourke, Bartley Burke, James Cahill, Thomas Carmody, Daniel English, Patrick Hallinan, Edmond Kennedy, James McKeone, John O’Dwyer, Michael Purcell, Francis Whitney and Andrew O’Keefe.

Mr Sharkey said many of those names were still prominent in the area.

“They had hearts like lions – the vision and commitment to building the church was amazing,” he said.

The land was donated by James Cahill. St Martin of Tours Catholic Church was blessed and consecrated on August 20, 1876.