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.

Near derelict and deserted, its dark nave a dump for old mattresses, St Patrick’s now stands like a forlorn folly among tall pines.
 
It was de-consecrated around 1998, but its origin is unclear. It dates at least from 1882 for it appears in an apparently accurate watercolour painting of Macraes township dated January 1883.

It was built of plaster-rendered local schist with Oamaru stone facings and is, apart from its decay, unaltered from its original state. One wonders what its fate will be now that it and its auriferous land are owned by a gold mining 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. MARTIN’S, DUNTROON

 
Despite it being late spring, the inside of St Martin’s, Duntroon was cold as charity, its fabric stark and undecorated. Outside was much warmer, the Oamaru stone butter-toned and paint-box friendly.

The church, named after one similar in Duntroon, Scotland, was financed by a bequest from Emily Campbell according to the wish of her late husband, Robert, an early settler.
Thomas Cane was the architect and John Menzies, of Maheno, the mason builder. It was consecrated in 1901.

There’s something oddly personal here: my grandmother was a Campbell, and her husband, Robert, was a stonemason. No connexion of course, the world is full of Campbells - and masons - but the clan’s coat of arms on one side of the church door is, for me, strangely meaningful.

© 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 intimate little church of St Paul’s, Port Levy, in one of those delightful indented bays of Banks Peninsula, has a special place in my heart. Many years ago some friends and I had a memorable ’sketching picnic’ in its churchyard. One of them, a good friend and a talented artist, died just a few days before I re-visited Port Levy and so this sketch is in his honour.

St Paul’s was designed and built by Joseph Maddison, a Christchurch architect best known for his work on the 1906 New Zealand International Exhibition.

Rather less severe than his usual structures, it was opened in 1888 to a congregation of whom 100 had travelled across Lyttelton Harbour especially for the occasion.

© 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 had intended to illustrate another Mangaweka church but St Patrick’s came as an agreeable and superior alternative.

The church was built in 1899. Its first priest was a Frenchman, Father Lacroix, who had earlier served at St Joseph’s, Jerusalem.

Mangaweka was an important railway construction town around the end of the nineteenth century with a disproportionate population of Roman Catholics, especially Irish gangers whose toughened souls no doubt needed substantial weekly purification.

Sadly, the names of its architect and builder are mysteries to me but I wouldn’t be surprised if the ghostly figure of Frederick de Jersey Clere was lurking.

© 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 John’s, Omata, southwest of New Plymouth, was built by T B Penwarden in 1875 to the plans of George Robinson.

A gale flattened it in 1894 but it was put together again in its original form. Today it stands, sadly alone, on a tiny elevated triangle at a fork of two roads almost invisible behind a hedge of boxthorn and English holly.

It was impossible to do a satisfactory painting of the building, so I settled for Robinson’s handsome 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.

By the time I reached St Francis’s church the early autumn rain had crossed the Rimutaka ranges and had reached Kahutara, just south of Featherston.

I was pleased enough to shelter briefly in the unusually square nave whose wooden walls exuded the musky smell of linseed oil.

Built in 1882 at Morrison’s Bush, the church was moved to its present site - donated by John Bidwill - in 1961 and dedicated for the joint use of Anglicans, Methodists and Presbyterians. At £400 the move cost twice as much as the original building - there’s inflation.

© DON DONOVAN
 
donovan@ihug.co.nz