The small country church of Sacred Heart, Hyde, opened in 1894. The now tiny settlement of Hyde was founded during the gold rushes of the early 1860s. Miners poured into the district, and a thriving town developed to cater for their needs. Once the rush was over some of the miners, many of whom were Irish, remained in the district to take up farming and other businesses. Catholic priests visited Hyde from the early 1860s, and in 1864 locals salvaged materials from a damaged building to erect Hyde's first Catholic church. By the 1880s this building had become inadequate, and services took place in the parlour of the Commercial Hotel, run by staunch Catholic John Laverty, and the school. In 1889, Hyde became part of the Palmerston parish and the priest, Father Donnelly, started a campaign to build a new Catholic church in Hyde, completed under the guidance of his successor, Father O'Donnell. The church obtained a section on the corner of Woburn and Eton Streets, previously owned by Naseby Warden Henry Robinson (they secured the two adjoining sections some years later). They employed well-known Catholic Church architect F.W. Petre to design the building, and he produced a simple yet graceful church in his characteristic Gothic Revival style. The original plans show a larger building with spire: perhaps the cost of such grandeur was beyond the means of the small rural community, for when tenders were first called for in 1892, none were accepted. A simpler plan resulted in a successful tender of ₤630 from Strath Taieri locals Kinney and Coatsworth, who reportedly subcontracted the building work to James Robertson and James Milne. Some of the more specialized work was carried out in Dunedin, such as the belfry, constructed in Oamaru stone by Robert Kay of Roslyn. Petre selected local schist - a common material in Central Otago, where timber was scarce. The building, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, opened to acclaim on Pentecost Sunday, 13 May 1894. Through the years, the Sacred Heart Church has served as a spiritual centre for the Catholics who formed a significant proportion of Hyde residents. It has never had a resident priest, but has been served by visiting clergy from Palmerston, Ranfurly, Dunedin and Mosgiel. For its first half century, the Hyde district formed part of the Palmerston parish, but in 1953 it was moved to the Ranfurly parish, where it still remains. From the 1980s, mass was held fortnightly at Hyde. At the time of writing, the church is used just once a year, at Christmas. The most notable change to the original building came late in the twentieth century (possibly in the 1970s) when the church was plastered inside and out to protect it from weather damage. The added weight of the plaster required some strengthening of the foundations. Apart from this, Sacred Heart Church remains much as it did on opening - a simple yet elegant country church which stands as a testimony to the spirituality of the Catholics of Hyde through the years.