Donovan’s World

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 like the simple symmetry of St. Dunstan’s Catholic Church at Clyde, and somehow the unassuming wire gate that guards the narrow, rose-lined path adds to its appeal.

The schist stones are sandier than those of St. James’s’ Roxburgh (see 123) and mimic the surrounding hills.

Dunstan was Clyde’s first name. Its oldest buildings date from the aftermath of a huge storm in 1863 that destroyed the canvas town and the earlier Catholic church that had grown in this rich roughhouse of a goldfield.

This St. Dunstan’s, with its Marseilles-tiled roof, was designed by Francis William Petre (see also 117, St Patrick’s, Lawrence) and built by Thomas Wilkinson and stonemason John Holloway. It was opened on Sunday 18 October 1903, by which time Clyde was thoroughly respectable.

© 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 JAMES’S, ROXBURGH

Maori hunted moa in these parts long before prospectors found gold, before the soil and climate were found to produce superior peaches and apricots, or before the Clutha River was dammed for its power.

Somewhere in that bunched up history, Christianity came to the area that started life as Teviot.

In 1871 an Anglican building committee was formed and a site was offered. Tenders were let, the stone was quarried from a stone’s throw away, and St James’s was opened on 11 November 1872, having cost £881.

Its mellow stones - dressed and assembled by stonemason Peter Campbell - require watercolour washed over oil pastel for the right texture. It was a very satisfying subject to paint.

© DON DONOVAN  

donovan@ihug.co.nz

Winton is a proud little town conscious of its history, and its people are now keen to preserve surviving historic buildings.

They almost lost the picturesque 1876 church, Holy Trinity, but saved it just in time and it has been well maintained since its re-dedication on 20 December 1981.
 
Although there’s little space between its nave and the main street, it can claim to be on its original site. The architect was F. W. Burwell and the builders were Price and Shadrow.

© 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. Mary The Virgin has an extraordinary cross-brace supporting the gable quite unlike anything else in this collection, and I was much impressed by the detail of the side door (below).

McKenzie & Wilson of Invercargill were the architects for this ‘new’ church. It was built by a Mr Peterson on land donated in 1900 by a Mr Mills.

It replaced an 1862 St. Mary’s nearby in which the last service was held on 5 January 1902 and the first in the new church one week later. A centennial service was held here shortly after I visited.

© DON DONOVAN
  
donovan@ihug.co.nz

Apart from Bluff Harbour there’s nothing much between Greenhills Union Church and McMurdo Sound and when the biting south wind comes its old rusticated weatherboard timbers groan like a wooden ship, as they have no doubt groaned since 1886. But it’s sound and unaltered inside and out.

I’ve painted it twice before with great enthusiasm and despite its used appearance it looks better than I remember it.

A Roman Catholic, Mr. S. Sullivan, both gave the land and built the church. It was de-commissioned in March 2001 and handed over to The Greenhills Church Charitable Trust who, I hope, will continue to love it like an old teddy bear.

© 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 could hardly believe that Christ Church at Clifton, south of Invercargill, was built in 1887. It looks new, like a replica, as if it were no older than the adjacent modern suburban houses. But it is, in fact, the oldest remaining wooden church still operating on its original site in Invercargill.

Not so long ago it was in a sorry state and heading for dilapidation but the Historic Places Trust, particularly Maureen Fox and architect Mick Hesselin, rescued it. Over the next six years, until 1999, it was faithfully restored to the design of its original architects, McKenzie & Gilbertson.

It was then re-dedicated for the Cook Islands Christian Community to whom the tiny ex-Anglican church had been given in 1993.

© 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. Mary’s, Stirling (near Balclutha) is almost as original now as it was in 1869, with its pit-sawn heart totara boards and fancy bargeboards.

Simply Gothic, it was designed by William Ferguson ‘a farmer with some training in carpentry’ and stood on Inch Clutha Island until 1904 when it was dismantled, taken across the Clutha River to Stirling, and re-erected with a new iron roof.

In the mid-1960s this inscription was found above the altar: ‘This church was built in August 1869 on Inch Clutha by Robert McKinlay. Shifted to Stirling and rebuilt by John Agnew in January 1905…’

© DON DONOVAN
 
donovan@ihug.co.nz

Across the road from the burned-out ruin (see 116), St. Patrick’s, confident and with an air of prosperity, gleams whitely with aloof dignity and a front door as red as a cardinal’s hat.

Completed in 1892, its foundation stone was laid on St. Patrick’s Day 1891.

Its architect was Francis William Petre (who also designed the magnificent Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Christchurch). It replaced an earlier corrugated iron shed set up for the spiritual massage of the numerous Irish Catholic miners and fossickers who had flocked to Gabriel’s Gully for its gold.

© DON DONOVAN
 
donovan@ihug.co.nz

Forgive me this flight of fancy - I wasn’t at the burning of the old Presbyterian Church at Lawrence. But the shell from which the flames issue is as it was when I visited it.

It was another of R. A. Lawson’s designs, built in 1886 in one of the richest of New Zealand’s goldfields.

As for the fire: I can do no better than quote parts of a report from the Otago Daily Times of 1 October 1998:
‘… Lawrence police believe [the fire] that destroyed the historic Presbyterian Church [was] deliberately lit. The church, built in 1886 … has been used as a dwelling since a new church was built. The building was not demolished because it is protected by the Historic Places Trust. The Lawrence and Waitahuna Fire Brigades were called to the church at 4.15 am yesterday. They arrived to find the building well alight … The owner… was believed to be in Dunedin and police were trying to contact… A Ford Escort van, parked outside the house, was also on fire. The church and the car were both extensively damaged and a fire brigade spokesman… said he believed the church would have to be demolished.’

But it’s still there…*

* By 2008 the building had been restored and is now ‘luxury boutique accommodation, with a touch of the monastery’.

© 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.

Otakou is the more correct form of Otago. It means ‘place of red ochre’ and nothing could be more suggestive of that name than the Otakou Maori Memorial Methodist Church on the west slopes of Otago Peninsula.

The most amazing thing about this church, is that its carved bargeboards, lintels and posts are all moulded in concrete.

Designed by Miller & White of Dunedin, it was built in 1940 and replaced an 1865 weatherboard church on a site given by Ngai Tahu chief Taiaroa - a signatory to the Treaty of Waitangi - when he became a Christian in 1857. (It was also Te Matenga Taiaroa who sold land to Johnny Jones, some of which Jones gave for the site of St. John’s, Waikouaiti. See Country Churches 113.)

Beautifully maintained in impeccable surroundings, it is a tribute to the efficient management style of Ngai Tahu*.

*Ngai Tahu is the dominant Maori tribe of New Zealand’s South Island

© DON DONOVAN  

donovan@ihug.co.nz