Patrick Comerford
Standing on a hill at the edge of Kampung Quop, 20 km from Kuching, Saint James’s Church has been virtually unchanged since it was built almost 160 years ago, in 1863-1865. It is one of the oldest church buildings in Sarawak, and although it is in need of much restoration and repair work, it is still part of life in the Bidayuh community it has served for many generations.
It is one of the many churches Father Jeffry Renos Nawie of Saint Augustine’s Church, Mambong, brought us to visit on whirlwind tours of over a dozen Anglican churches and chapels in his part of the Diocese of Kuching over the past few weeks.
The old church was built through the efforts of Father Frederic William Abe, the second SPG missionary priest to live in Quop. He came to Quop with the Anglican mission agency SPG (now USPG, the United Society Partners in the Gospel), and his vision for a new church may have been inspired by an earlier church at Banting, built of belian or ‘iron-wood’ for the first Iban community to become Anglican.
Quop may be Sarawak’s earliest organised village, thanks to the work of Anglican missionaries. The Quop mission was the first successful mission to reach out to the Bidayuh people after an earlier mission in Singai failed.
The Bidayuh heartland south of Kuching was originally called Kuap by its first settlers in the mid-1800s. They had migrated from old Siburan’s Gunung Sintah. Led by the warrior-chief Bai Mandai, they were in search of greener pastures and wanted to escape marauding pirates.
After a long trek through the rain forest and the jungle, Bai Mandai’s exhausted followers cooked up a colossal meal, ate and slept – but not before each of them simultaneously gave out a long, stretched-out yawn from complete utter fatigue. That is how Bai Mandai’s first hilltop settlement came to be called Kuap, which means ‘yawn’ in Bidayuh and Malay. Later missionaries spelt it as Quop.
The SPG mission in area was started about 1859 by the Revd William Chalmers (1833-1901), the first missionary to work amongst the Bidayuh or ‘Land Dayaks’ of Sarawak. His industry and energy enabled him to acquire and reduce the difficult Bidayuh language to writing, and to instruct many of the Quop people who offered themselves as catechumens.
Because of health problems, Chalmers moved to Victoria, Australia, in 1861, and later became Bishop of Goulburn (1892-1901). He was followed in his work among the Bidayuh in Quop by the Revd Frederic William Abe (1829-1876) and the Revd John Lewis Zehnder (1827-1892), who were sent to Borneo by SPG in 1861. Abe and Zehnder were German and Swiss born and had studied as Lutherans.
By 1863, the chiefs of Quop and Murdang had been baptised and within six years, the entire population of Quop had become Christian, with the exception of four elderly people.
Father Frederic William Abe initiated building a new church in Quop, one of a few churches of its kind built in Sarawak in the early years of Anglican mission work and the only one still standing.
Like many of the out-station forts built of belian during the Brooke Rajah, Saint James’s was a pre-fabricated church. Work on assembling the prefabricated parts of the church began in 1863. The walls, roof and truss were made in Kuching, 20 km away, under the supervision of the master carpenter, TA Stahl. The pieces were then shipped upriver along the Sarawak and Quop rivers. Villagers carried the heavy woodwork on their shoulders from the jetty at the Quop River through dense jungle to a small hill at the edge of the village, where the church was assembled on site.
The church was built in the Gothic style but is made entirely of belian – the local ‘iron wood’ that substitutes for stone. Yet it blends European and Asian styles and cultures. Even the one and only stained glass window is still intact with its belian mouldings.
The striking interior, which I caught only a tiny glimpse of, is a step back in time. The church measured 46 ft by 16 ft. A huge shell, the symbol of Saint James, served as the fount. Later, a font, cast from imported stone, was installed, and metal altar rails were put in place.
As the church was being put together, Bishop Francis McDougall wrote to a friend in England: ‘I am hard at work overseeing the construction of the church for Quop Hill … It is very pretty and all ironwood. I want three church bells of 100 cwt each. I hope you could persuade some good people to bring them. Bells, we must have.’
Two other churches were being built in Sarawak at the time, and the English banking heiress Angela Burdett-Coutts (1814-1906) donated the silver and nickel bell to the church in Quop. She was one of wealthiest women in 19th century England and a close friend of Sir James Brooke, the first White Rajah. Bishop McDougall consecrated Saint James’s Church, Quop, on 7 December 1865.
From Quop, SPG mission work expanded to Bunuk and Taee and later to Padawan and the Jagoi areas. When some of the older people returned to earlier religious traditions and rites in 1873, the young Christians refused to join them.
Meanwhile, Abe worked from in Kuching from 1874, and died there on 11 June 1876, while Zehnder moved in 1866 to work in Lundu and died there in 1892.
Saint James’s Church, Quop, was extended in 1890 with the addition of a north aisle. Belian frames holding glass panes were added to stream in the daylight. At the same time, the church’s entire porch was refurbished with belian.
The Revd FW Nicholls moved to Quop in 1893 and with the Revd Chung Ah Luk maintained the pastoral work in the large mission area with many villages are many. In Quop, it was said at the time, ‘the work is similar to that of a small English parish, all the people being Christians.’ There was a school and the Gospels, the liturgy and hymns were being translated into local languages.
The silver candlesticks were designed by the silversmith Omar Ramsden (1873-1939), one of England’s leading designers and makers of silverware, and are used in the new church. A painting by the English artist Emma Irlam Briggs (1867-1950) still hangs in the old church building.
Over the years, the village grew up around the church, and a graveyard was laid out below the church. Baroness Burdett-Coutts owned a house in Kampong Quop and land and a plantation in the area. She wandered deep in the jungle and it is said that whenever she got lost she relied on the toll of the church bell for the Angelus, ringing at 6 am, 12 noon and 6 pm, to find her way home.
Bishop Francis Septimus Hollis (1884-1955), who went to Sarawak with SPG in 1916, was the Priest-in-Charge of the mission of Saint James, Quop, in 1923–1928. Later he was the Principal of Saint Thomas’s School, Kuching (1928-1938), Archdeacon of Sarawak (1934-1938), and was consecrated Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak (1938-1948).
Hollis was interned by the Japanese at Batu Lintang camp near Kuching from 1942 to 1945, and this period of internment seriously undermined his health. He resigned in 1948 and was an Assistant Bishop of Leicester until he died in 1955.
Bishop Peter Howes (1911-2003), who spent who spent 44 years with SPG in Borneo, was the Priest-in-Charge of Quop in 1940-1950. During those 10 years he was interned by the Japanese at Batu Lintang in 1941-1945. He translated the New Testament from Greek into Bidayuh. Later he was the first Warden of the House of the Epiphany Theological School, Kuching (1952-1956), its principal (1971-1976), and Assistant Bishop of Kuching (1976-1981).
The parts of Saint James’s Church that are built of belian survived in all weathers. But those parts made of softer wood succumbed to old age, termites and water damage. A second, bigger church was built beside the old Saint James was built in 1986 and consecrated in 1987. The bell donated by Angela Burdett-Coutts was moved to the turret of the new church and is still in use today. Some items, including a silver tray and two chalices, were stolen from the church in 1990s.
The parish community has grown to 3,000 members and serves 10 outstation churches, chapels and worship centres. The Revd Handi Ipoh retired as Vicar two months ago (20 September 2024).
The old church and a nearby split rock are the two landmarks in Quop. Batu Tipire is a geological phenomenon known in English as the ‘Split Rock of Kampong Quop’. It has a distinct fissure in the middle, as if it was neatly sliced into two parts by someone with a knife.
Tradition says the stone was not actually sliced but is a heavenly couple – with the male on the and his female companion on the right. It is 17 ft high and 18 ft across, and both boulders tilt about 20 degrees to the right.
According to local lore, after Bai Mandin and his followers established a settlement on Quop Hill, one of his descendants, Bai Rimau, strayed away deep into the jungle. As he realised he was lost, a torrent of hujan panas (hot rain) poured out of the skies. In tribal lore, this is seen as an unfavourable moment when bad spirits come out to cause mischief. Bai Rimau hurriedly sought shelter and ended up face to face with the two huge boulders. He took shelter under the concave underside of Batu Tipire’s right half.
When he found his way home, Bai Rimau dreamt that night that the friendly guardian spirits (penunggu) of Batu Tipire wanted him to establish a new settlement near their abode. In the months that followed, two disasters struck Quop, when a cholera outbreak was followed by a smallpox epidemic. Taking this as a bad omen, Bai Rimau led his remaining followers to the site near Batu Tipire, where they set up their first longhouse from which Kampong Quop came to be.
With the arrival of the SPG missionaries and Christianity, the people of Quop stopped revering the guardian spirits of Batu Tipire. But strange happenings were experienced in the village. During funeral processions, the pallbearers carrying the corpse on a wooden bier felt the dead person became unusually heavier as they neared Batu Tipire. So much so, extra hands were needed to carry the body to the burial site.
Bishop Peter Howes, in his autobiography In a Fair Ground, records some of his experiences as a young priest at Saint James: ‘Sometimes at night, there were domestic echoes from the site, such as the clink of pots and pans, the chopping of wood, the sound of gongs and snatches of people in conversation. Each sound made a distinct impact, with a curious resonance as though reflected from a cave.
‘It was so clear, so normal that one felt certain that it must come from a house near the site, perhaps someone hosting a private party. Yet there was never a glimmer of a light to be seen and no sound of activity from the living, as one looked out from the mission house verandah.
‘When you asked the following morning if there had been a party in the village, the answer was always: “No, it was our grandparents you heard.” This was in every sense an alarming experience. It was a phenomenon to which a great many can bear witness.’
Sometimes, he recalled, when he heard sounds from the direction of Saint James’s Church, he would walk around the church with a torch only to find nothing.
The old church has been used recently for youth activities, a Sunday school and as a multi-purpose hall. Its woodwork, its tabernacle, the crafted decorative embellishments and one lone stained glass remain in place.
The original church is in need of restoration and a programme of continued maintenance, and restoration work is being carried out bit by bit, preserving and maintaining the church and replacing parts that are rotten or broken. The building has been gazetted since 2007, meaning any refurbishment work needs the approval of the Sarawak Museum Department.
The former Bishop of Kuching, Bishop Bolly Lapok, wrote some years ago: ‘Not many of our institutions have the vintage of Saint James Quop, and fewer still have such impact on the life of the community as to have given it a reputation which is synonymous with education and progress and a musical tradition that is the envy of all our parishes.’
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