FASCINATING stories about St Mary's Catholic Church, an enduring symbol of Ipswich, will be told during guided tours tomorrow.

The Helidon sandstone building itself is impressive.

Completed in 1904 on the site of two former churches, St Mary's houses stunning stained glass windows, a decorative bagasse ceiling and an altar frieze sculpted by Daphne Mayo.

Tour guide and historian John Kane said the annual tours each lasted about half-an-hour and ran between noon and 4pm.

“The church is big and it's beautiful,” he said.

“A lot of people come to visit because their grandparents have been baptised or married in the church.

“I wrote a book just on the church itself and we have one on the history of the parish.”

The interior of the church has been extensively refurbished, with both the stained-glass windows and the life-size Stations of the Cross cleaned and restored.

Tour guide Michelle Wood said one window depicted Father Andrew Horan, who raised funds to build the church, travelling in his horse-drawn buggy.

“His tomb is in the corner of the church,” she said.

“Father Horan was very good at getting money out of people.”

Subjects on other windows include Saint Mary MacKillop – who built a school at Redbank Plains – and the first Mercy nun and Christian brother to arrive in Ipswich.

St Mary's precinct on Elizabeth St includes the presbytery designed by Andrea Stombuco and completed in 1876, the primary school, parish hall and convent.