A FESTIVE favourite has returned to its Pleasant Hill home, albeit not on the pinnacle of Warrnambool’s famed Silver Ball.
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The Fletcher Jones Christmas cross has been transplanted to the Pleasant Hill Gardens after a request from the factory site’s new owner Dean Montgomery.
Warrnambool City Council had the illuminated cross in storage for four years, with a replica cross adorning the top of the Uniting Church in Koroit Street.
The original illuminated cross, a galvanised iron structure with fluorescent lights, was first affixed to the Fletcher Jones silver ball water tower in the late 1960s.
The cross was commissioned by Sir Fletcher Jones, who was a dedicated member of the Methodist Church, a subject he wrote about in his autobiography Not By Myself.
“Dominating the eastern end of our building is our water tower,” Sir Fletcher wrote in 1976.
“Every December it is surmounted by a large illuminated cross. We like to think that it might help the thousands of summer visitors to Warrnambool to remember that Christ still has a place in Christmas festivities.”
After the original cross was irreparably damaged in the late 1980s, a lighter aluminium cross was made as a replacement and hoisted to the top of the silver ball until 2010.
The deteriorating condition of the silver ball meant Warrnambool City Council relocated the cross to the Aitkens Road water tower, although it was swiftly removed due to a complaint over religious advertising on public property.
Another cross was erected atop the Uniting Church tower in time for Christmas 2011, with Sir Fletcher’s late son David Jones suggesting at the time that his father would have approved of the new home.