Donovan’s World

There’s nothing special about St. Luke’s at Ngahere on the Grey River, but its fresh, bright restoration which was still in progress offered me the opportunity to use some of the colours from the ‘hundreds-and-thousands’ end of my paint box.

It was built to plans given by Ralph Tyler of Greymouth and it has a twin in the Rai Valley.

The foundation stone was laid by the Bishop of Nelson, Rt. Reverend P. W. Stephens D. D. on 21 September 1952.

© 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.

At first glance it looked little more than an overgrown garden shed and hardly worth painting, but the neat stone wall and history tipped the scales.

St. Alban the Martyr was pre-fabricated in England and sent by Captain F.G. Dalgety, owner of the local Hawkdun Station, to St Bathans complete with furniture, matting, bibles, and prayer books.

It replaced earlier Union churches: one built in 1865 and blown down the next day, and the second subsequently rendered roofless!
 
St. Alban’s was erected in 1883 but it took over 100 years to consecrate it as an Anglican church to be shared with Presbyterians.

© DON DONOVAN
 
donovan@ihug.co.nz

I haven’t seen anything else like this on my travels: a quaint, semi-detached porch with its own steep pyramidal roof which is more interesting in shape than the church itself. It gives access to St George’s, Naseby, built in 1875.

While plain and simple, the church, like its porch, is most unusual. Its construction is neither of stone nor timber but a unique mud brick called ‘Jacob’s Mixture’, which is more clay than cement. It was dreamed up by Mr W. Jacob who not only built the church - for £761 - but also made its furniture.

© 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

While not de-consecrated it is closed and only used once a year at Christmas when there’s a candle-lit service - there being no electricity connected.

Built in 1894 by J. Milne and Robertson & Sons of Middlemarch it was (after 1969) plaster weatherproofed inside and out and now looks rather uninteresting except for its magnificent bell-cote which is as Victorian as the Crystal Palace.

© 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.

© DON DONOVAN
  
donovan@ihug.co.nz

On a perfect day in March 2001, St Alban’s, Waingaro, lay in a pool of sunlight standing out from the gloom of the forest that almost completely surrounds it.

In a somewhat remote clearing north of Waingaro Springs it gathers to itself just a few graves strung along the crest of a knoll that ends, against the pines, with a large grey marble stone topped with a horizontal cross - the tragic grave of a four year-old girl.

St Alban’s, named after the first English martyr, was designed by Reverend H.B.Wingfield and was dedicated on 6 November 1907.

© DON DONOVAN
  
donovan@ihug.co.nz

Aperahama is the Maori rendering of Abraham. Architect Marsden Clarke, whose family played an important part in the spread of Anglican Christianity in the north, designed Aperahama Church, Kaikohe. It was built in 1885 and is said to be named after a churchman of high repute who died in the year before the church was opened and is buried in its grounds.

At the start of the twenty-first century I found a church in sore need of restoration. But, like so many churchyards in predominantly Maori areas, its tombstones, often quite elaborate, were decked in flowers, spinners and memorabilia giving a paradoxical life to the memory of the dead.

© DON DONOVAN  

donovan@ihug.co.nz

Modesty characterises the 1884 Methodist Church at Omanaia. Sharing a hill with a school, which is superbly maintained for just thirty pupils, the church is sadly neglected: paint flaking, timbers distressed. But it is obviously well used, especially so in December 2000 when I visited. The lobby and nave were full of floral tributes, posters, texts, and wreaths for a local person who had recently died. In the cemetery one grave stood out: that of a boy of 14. It was a love-adorned toy land of mementos, bordered by the cut-out shapes of red Ferraris.

Quite a few Methodist churches were built around the Hokianga at the end of the nineteenth century. At this one a spiritual dimension was apparently added which took it beyond Methodism. The whys and wherefores of that defeat me but I am sure they would have had little effect upon the simple charm of the church itself, comfortably shabby in its golden summer grasses.

Doing a bit of research, after I had visited, I learned that the church and burial ground were ‘out of bounds for visitors’. I was brought up to believe that churches are open to all and may even be sanctuaries for souls of any denomination; to me that makes more sense than exclusion!

© DON DONOVAN   
donovan@ihug.co.nz

Of all the many churches of the northern Hokianga district the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Assumption, Motukaraka is the most prominent. From the busier southern side of the harbour you see it beckoning across the water like a gleaming spire of many-towered Camelot.

Built in 1910 by H. A. Williams of nearby Kohukohu, it is thought to have been designed by Thomas Mahoney, architect of so many Catholic churches, convents and schools in the Auckland diocese. Its grandness speaks of the spirited! competition for souls that took place among different Christian denominations in the north. It even has a copy of a 1678 Bartolomé Murillo painting of the Immaculate Conception above the altar (the original hangs in the Louvre, Paris).

A caretaker told me that a man who once fell from the spire and bounced off a shoulder of the tower, hit the ground but was unharmed. Of such miracles are legends made.

© DON DONOVAN   
donovan@ihug.co.nz