Donovan’s World

St Thomas’s, Meeanee - St Mary’s Anglican neighbour - was consecrated on 26 May 1887 by the Bishop of Waiapu.

Its plans were by Clere & Clere, Wellington. The architects were Cooper & Finch of Napier. It was built for £344 on land given by a local coach proprietor, George Rymer, whose old stables are still in Meeanee.

© DON DONOVAN  

donovan@ihug.co.nz

Two churches in Meeanee (an Indian name bestowed by settlers who had served in the military at the time of the Indian Mutiny) asked to be illustrated; St Thomas’s (see separate blog) and St. Mary’s.

St Mary’s (’old St Mary’s’) was, in fact, deconsecrated in 1972, its Roman Catholic parishioners having built a new St Mary’s in Greenmeadows.
 
The first part of old St Mary’s was built in 1863 with additions in 1874, ‘75 and ‘92.

In February 1871, Mother Aubert (of Jerusalem fame) came here and set up a dispensary from which records show that she treated 1353 patients in 1873.

As I sat in the shade of an avenue of mature trees and sketched its symmetrical shape, I thought how satisfactory it was that in 1981 the deconsecrated church should have been taken over, rescued and subsequently cared for by the Taradale Pottery Group.

© DON DONOVAN
 
donovan@ihug.co.nz

My painting gives no clue to how small a section Christ Church, occupies, it is only slightly bigger than the building. Yet it is a fine church, built in 1894, and a credit to its architect, Robert Lamb of Napier.
 
It has special significance for me because a man I knew many years ago in England, the Reverend Baden Powell Herbert Ball, must have worshipped here.
 
In 1926, at the request of the Diocese of Waiapu, the Church Army in England sent Captain B P H Ball to help in ministering to men and their families in public works camps around Poverty Bay. He spent most of his time at the Tuai power project and Christ Church would have been the nearest established Anglican church to his ministry. (He was succeeded, incidentally, by Harry Squires of Wellington City Mission fame.)

© DON DONOVAN  

donovan@ihug.co.nz

ST JOHN THE EVANGELIST, TE KARAKA and
 
ST PAUL’S, MOTU

I made a long detour in search of two churches on the road between Gisborne and Opotiki.

The first was St John the Evangelist at Te Karaka, a small town that has been cast aside by re-alignment of the highway. The church is unexceptional except for its nicely proportioned belfry.

Well beyond Te Karaka I took the road that turns north at Matawai and followed the course of the Motu River until, well into the slopes of the Raukumara Ranges, I found St Paul’s, a four-square handsome church picturesquely placed against a forest backdrop.

It was built about 1922 by ‘The Fisher Boys’ and painted by local men. It was the first of a number of churches in this book to have been designed by the notable architect, Frederick de Jersey Clere. The son of an Anglican clergyman, he was born in Lancashire in 1856. He came to New Zealand in 1877 and in 1883 was appointed Diocesan Architect of the Anglican Church. Pre-eminent in church design, he died in 1952.

© DON DONOVAN
 
donovan@ihug.co.nz

Matawhero Presbyterian Church has such a rich history that I could sense old spirits as I sat painting in the small, still churchyard.

It was built as a schoolroom in 1865, reputedly by Captain G E Read. Before the Presbyterians took it over in 1872, it had served also as an Anglican church and a hospital during the Hau Hau battles of 1868.

It was the centre of an army encampment in March 1870 and was the only building in the area to survive the Poverty Bay massacre by Te Kooti and his followers in the early hours of 10 November 1868.

Transeptal porches were added in 1880 and a rear porch in 1901 when the kauri shingle roof was replaced with iron. The bell tower was erected and the bell hung in 1904.

© DON DONOVAN   

donovan@ihug.co.nz

I wrote and illustrated Country Churches of New Zealand. It was published in 2002 by New Holland, Publishers and is still on sale in bookshops. The publishers have kindly agreed to me re-publishing some of the book’s images and descriptions in this blog.

Wharfless Waipiro Bay was once a thriving community with a buoyant economy based on farming whose produce - meat, fleeces, etc - were taken by lighters to anchored ships.
St Abraham’s, which the Historic Places Trust lists as a memorial church, has three honours boards and was built six years after the end of World War 1. It is substantial but severe in plain brick and tile with raw brick for a nave.

None of the mullion-type lattice windows are coloured or stained. A large bell lies on the floor by the north door.

© DON DONOVAN
 
donovan@ihug.co.nz

I wrote and illustrated Country Churches of New Zealand. It was published in 2002 by New Holland, Publishers and is still on sale in bookshops. The publishers have kindly agreed to me re-publishing some of the book’s images and descriptions in this blog.

I especially liked the way somebody has picked out the detail of the west gable in Disneyland colours. Otherwise St Andrew’s, Tolaga Bay, built in 1913, is an unassuming Anglican church standing in a row of ordinary houses.

Through the magic of artist’s licence I have omitted an ugly concrete power pole that stands in front of the church, placed there by an insensitive electricity company.

© DON DONOVAN   

donovan@ihug.co.nz

I wrote and illustrated Country Churches of New Zealand. It was published in 2002 by New Holland, Publishers and is still on sale in bookshops. The publishers have kindly agreed to me re-publishing some of the book’s images and descriptions in this blog.

St Matthew’s lies eastwards from Ruatoria at the end of a winding road the last part of which fords and re-fords a small stream.

The isolated church sits on hills behind the beach, its east window looking out over a glittering sea. On the still, bright day of my pilgrimage it rose up proudly from a bed of dry summer grasses.

It’s at its best at a distance, for close up it shows its age - one of its wooden buttresses had fallen away completely on the north side. It was locked; heaven only knows why. Churches were once sanctuaries…

© DON DONOVAN 
 
donovan@ihug.co.nz

I wrote and illustrated Country Churches of New Zealand. It was published in 2002 by New Holland, Publishers and is still on sale in bookshops. The publishers have kindly agreed to me re-publishing some of the book’s images and descriptions in this blog.

 
The angel points at St John’s, Rangitukia, as if to say, ‘Care for that church.’

I certainly found it in need of repair. A simple structure, built in 1900, the inside was lined with tired particle board but its ceiling is original white wood and rafters. The windows all have striking colour panels: vivid reds, duck egg blues, pale peach, orange, light blue, acid lemon-green and dark blue - Mondrian rectangles!

A local couple told me that the community was about to have a meeting to decide whether to keep it and do it up or demolish and replace it - I hope they have saved it.

I was intrigued by an eroded tombstone that lies half hidden in bushes beside the sanctuary. It honours a ‘missionary’ who started his New Zealand ministry in Nelson Province but who was sent to the East Coast in 1847 only to die in harness a year later.
The stone was commissioned by his widow and sent from England to the colony where it disappeared, only to turn up in an Auckland garden 50 years later. Thereafter it found its way to Rangitukia.

© DON DONOVAN

donovan@ihug.co.nz

A little to the west of Raukokore, near Waihau Bay, an old, de-consecrated Roman Catholic church is notorious for having been raided by the police and found to house a large cache of cannabis. News of this event appeared in the New Zealand Herald under the headline: ‘Holy smoke - what a bumper haul’.

© DON DONOVAN
  
donovan@ihug.co.nz