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 have always loved the country around Geraldine, and Pleasant Valley - so well named - is some of the best of it.

St Anne’s, with its lichen-stoned graveyard is the archetypal New Zealand country church. Its interior is tiny and intimate with a ‘primitive-style’ east window.

The church was built in 1863 by John Huffey (a Methodist) and WilliamYoung, to the design of Lieutenant Belfield Woollcombe of Timaru.

Pleasant Valley was native bush then but its timber was largely worked out by 1885, leaving a shrunken congregation and a church in a sorry state. Its history since then has been one of successive disrepair, despair and repair but thankfully it has survived and is now protected by the Historic Places Trust. The Trust rates it as the most important of the early churches in the local area because it is the only example left of pit-sawn or adzed timber and cob construction.

© 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.

Not far along the road from St. James’s (86) but built much later, in 1935, is the Presbyterian St David’s Union Church.

As with St James’s, it was detail that caught my eye - this time the central bell tower, which seems to shrug into the roof giving the whole structure a fortress-like stability.

Its windows and embellishments are refreshingly Art Deco, reminiscent of some cinemas built in that era.

Designed by Cecil Wood (whose more traditional work can be seen in some of the Christ’s College buildings) and built by Wadey & Efford for £1300, it supplanted an 1885 church.

© 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.

While the huge cross in the west wall seemed to me a bit ‘over the top’, the porch and apse of All Saints, Foxton, reminded me of St Thomas’s at Sanson. It, like St Thomas’s, is a nicely proportioned building and was designed by the same architect, Charles Tringham. (A chancel enlargement of 1899 is the work of de Jersey Clere.)

It was built in 1876 on land purchased from Maori for 100 gold sovereigns by Capt Francis Robinson, the first European to take up residence in the area.

The original shingle roofs were replaced in 1908, and the baptistery was added in 1967. Inside there are lots of memorial stained-glass windows of the saints, and a reredos, which I think is unusual for a New Zealand country church.

© DON DONOVAN  

donovan@ihug.co.nz

‘Impossibly simple; board and batten inside and out! The structure, despite it being hedged in by ripened maize howled and moaned at the west wind from the coast. The otherwise dark, stark interior glows with amber light from the east window…’ (SKETCHBOOK NOTE)

Built in 1862, after two earlier makeshifts had collapsed, Wheriko whare karakia at Parewanui near Bulls, was the inspiration of the ubiquitous Reverend Richard Taylor, who brought Christianity to the local Ngati Apa (among others) in the 1850s.

For £75 it was constructed by Fred O’Donnell of hand-dressed, pit-sawn totara and set on totara piles - but not for long. Erosion by the Rangitikei River forced its removal to the present site before the 1897 flood that would have washed it out to sea to join the original village.

Richard Taylor consecrated Wheriko church on Christmas Day 1862.

© 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.

Farther up the Whanganui valley from Upokongaro is the famous church of St Joseph, Jerusalem.
 
It was a long drive in heavy showers, but the sun broke through as I arrived. Striking the moist surfaces, it enriched all colours making the church look shamelessly gaudy.

The classic view is of the steeple with the mother and child sculpture in its niche but I opted to paint it from the rear to show its full shape.
 
It was built in 1892, the year in which Mother Mary Joseph Aubert’s Order of the Daughters of Our Lady of Compassion was founded. She, with fellow nuns, served the Hiruharama* Maori community as teachers, preachers and nurses from 1883 on.

Jerusalem later became famed as James K. Baxter’s atypical commune. He died and was buried there in 1972.

*Hiruharama is the Maori pronunciation of Jerusalem.

© DON DONOVAN
 
donovan@ihug.co.nz

I had intended to pass through Wanganui as it is too much of a city. But the sight of St Peter’s in its lollipop colours had me lusting for my paint box.

Inside, a pop group’s drum kit glittered appropriately out of place among the brass plaques, flags, memorials and stained glass that adorn its serious old timbers. One can only conclude that inside and outside fresh tunes are being played on old fiddles.

Built in 1866, it’s the oldest building still in use in Wanganui, although it wasn’t always on this site, having been moved here bit by bit by horse and cart in 1921 at which time its name was changed from Christ Church to St Peter’s.

© DON DONOVAN
  
donovan@ihug.co.nz

Nukumaru’s Tutahi Church has a modest appeal that belies its important history.

It’s on the site of Ngati Ruanui leader Titokowaru’s fortified pa, Tauranga-Ika, which he abandoned in 1869 to the colonial constabulary towards the end of the Taranaki land wars.

Enmity set aside, the local people, Ngarauru, built the church in 1883 as a symbol of their commitment to Christianity and to mark a bonding of Maori and European.

Tutahi, meaning ’stands as one’, is a multi-denominational church.

© DON DONOVAN
 
donovan@ihug.co.nz

St Alban’s at Taueru on the Masterton to Riversdale road came as a welcome sight, being so different from most other country churches and promising to add variety to my collection.

It was built in 1905 to a design inspired by A. P. Whatman, which he based on St Alban’s Abbey in Hertfordshire. Inside, the rimu walls sensitively enhance the finely proportioned baptistery, nave, choir and polygonal sanctuary.

© DON DONOVAN 
 
donovan@ihug.co.nz

‘Wide open and welcoming. Inside a high, dark, cool nave with a faded, once stained-glass window at east. Walls carry photographs of Maori battalion and a panoramic photograph of the Lambeth Conference of 1948, 200-300 clergy with Bishop Bennett, Bishop of Aotearoa, highlighted.

‘Three children arrive; the oldest tells me that they sometimes sleep in the church. She says I look like her grandfather. In the hall nearby a thudding haka rehearsal is going on. A woman comes out (to check on the stranger with the children) and tells me there’s going to be a haka competition next week.

‘The church, especially the be!fry, is tired-looking but well used which is probably better than being well maintained and rarely used. It’s a bit like an old, friendly sofa’

(From my Notebook 25/3/01)

© DON DONOVAN   

donovan@ihug.co.nz

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