Keeping the faith

WORDS: MATT PHILP

Up and down the country, our historic churches are under threat. And while some communities are finding innovative ways to retain them, heritage losses are also mounting

If you want a snapshot of the perilous state of New Zealand’s historic churches, you only have to consult crowdsourcing site Givealittle.

“Our church is seriously in need of support from all who care about her,” implores the Givealittle page for the 144-year-old St Clement’s Church in the Far North, citing a repair estimate of $350,000.

Another page, for the 1906 St Paul’s Church in the Waipara district, outlines a $2 million quake-repair project to save that local landmark. In Hokitika, meanwhile, the friends of the town’s neoclassical St Mary’s Church recently ran a Givealittle campaign to raise funds for a second engineering opinion on a $7.12 million quake-strengthening estimate. The list goes on.

In Autumn 2012, Heritage New Zealand magazine ran an article called ‘Saving grace’, which pointed to dwindling congregations and ageing buildings with a growing maintenance load as among the reasons for churches being sold off or demolished. The late Stewart Harvey, then chair of the New Zealand Historic Cemeteries Conservation Trust, described it as a quietly unfolding New Zealand tragedy.

1 The RA Lawsondesigned Presbyterian church at Kakanui is being renovated by its new owners.

2 Despite a dwindling congregation in recent years, the final service at the Kakanui church was standing room only.

IMAGERY: MIKE HEYDON

“Quite a lot of these little country churches that are part of our history are being lost forever,” he said.

“They are sold off as holiday homes and sometimes moved off site, and the big tragedy of it is that everything inside the church goes – the pews, the plaques on the wall, the church furniture...”

Since then we’ve seen the advent of Givealittle and other crowdfunding sites, and some successful campaigns to restore high-profile churches. On the other hand, the challenges have also mounted, with the advent of more onerous earthquake-related standards and insurance companies’ growing reluctance to cover heritage buildings. The buildings and parishioners haven’t got any younger either.

Faced with all this, church authorities are increasingly making hard-nosed decisions to rationalise their property portfolios. The Catholic Archdiocese of Wellington, for example, last year announced the closure of two churches in rural Marlborough following a review of Mass numbers and other factors.

It’s a curate’s egg, in other words, with both wins and losses. But there are certainly signs that, rather than leaving it to congregants or divine intervention, some communities are stepping up to save their landmark

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churches, which are often the finest examples of built heritage in smaller towns and have meaning beyond their religious roles.

Bill Edwards, Area Manager Northland for Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, says he is seeing diverse approaches to the problem.

“One approach involves doing up a church and it continuing as a place of worship. A good example of that would be St Gabriel’s in Pawarenga.

“In some churches where the congregations have disappeared, they’ve been repurposed. An example there would be in Rawene, where we’ve been involved with the National Heritage Preservation Incentive Fund for a church that has been repurposed as an artists’ retreat.

“There’s a Catholic church called St Xavier’s that has been moved near Russell and has been repurposed as a place of celebration for marriages and so on. It’s still associated with ceremony and significance, just not in a religious framework.”

Bill also gives the example of the circa 1860 St James’ Church at McLeod Bay, Whangārei Heads. When the Presbyterian Church signalled it wanted to sell St James’, locals formed a trust and raised $40,000 to buy the land and building. It has subsequently been turned into a multi-denominational place of worship, and is available to the public for marriages, funerals and other ceremonies.

At Te Kōpuru, near Dargaville, the Category 2-listed 1902 Anglican St Peter’s Church was recently restored using $162,000 from the Provincial Growth Fund. The Chair of St Peter’s Church, Viv Biddles, says the alternative of raising the sum required locally in a community such as hers wasn’t realistic.

“I put a quiz on once a year and we have the odd potluck dinner in the hall, but if you make $1,500 from a fundraiser, you’re doing really well,” she says, adding that the restoration of the church “has given our community a lot of pride and mana”.

Another success story is St David’s Memorial Church, on Khyber Pass Road in Auckland (see ‘Art and minds’, Heritage New Zealand magazine, Winter 2020). Built in 1927 as a memorial to World War I soldiers, the church was put up for sale earlier this year by the Presbyterian Church Property Trustees, which cited as the reason declining attendance and the prohibitive cost of some required earthquake strengthening.

After an initial national campaign raised $1 million by selling bronze quatrefoils gifted by artist Max Gimblett, subsequent fundraising efforts from the sale

1 Viv Biddles (right) and Kaye Welch, who spent considerable time organising the funding required for the restoration of St Peter’s Church at

Te Kōpuru, near Dargaville.

IMAGE: JESS BURGES

2 A structural engineer’s report has put the cost of repairing St Clement’s

Church in the Far North at $350,000.

IMAGE: LENNOX GOODHUE

WIKITERA

3 The newly restored interior of St Peter’s Church.

IMAGE: JESS BURGES

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2 of commemorative pins designed by jewellery artist Warwick Freeman and through donations, community charity The Friends of St David’s Trust is now in the process of purchasing the church (from the successful buyer of the wider St David’s site) and intends to restore the church and repurpose it as a music centre.

Paul Baragwanath, the group’s founder, says St David’s needn’t have been threatened at all, and that church organisations are being too hasty in quitting their buildings. They need to think more creatively about repurposing them for ongoing roles, he says, lamenting the loss of such “sacred spaces” to private development.

“When a church changes from being a civic space to being a private dwelling or office space, that’s a major loss for society,” he remarks.

“It’s important to have these spaces where human beings can connect and be uplifted and sustained. You can’t underestimate the importance of it for a healthy society.”

There’s something of that thinking in Anna Miles’ and Michael Simpson’s approach to the little 152-year-old church they own in Kakanui – albeit on a humbler scale.

The RA Lawson-designed church featured in the ‘Saving grace’ story as one at risk of closing, being beset by rot and with a tiny congregation unable to pay for repairs. It limped on until Anna and Michael, owners of a horse-breeding operation at nearby Waimate and lovers of heritage, bought it in 2019.

They didn’t have any firm plan, according to Michael. “We just thought we could save it, so we should try. The building needs life in it. We hope that if we restore it and don’t carve it up, we’ll secure its future to be used for things like weddings, or gigs and exhibitions, or if the church wants to hold a service. It’s keeping all the options open.”

They’ve been doing the restoration work themselves at weekends and in other spare moments, initially focused on fixing the roof to keep out rain and birds and tackling areas of rot. New weatherboards will go on this summer.

“When we’re there we open the big double doors at the front and make it welcoming for people to come in,” says Anna, who adds that they plan to nominate the building for heritage listing.

“We’ve talked to so many people who’ve shared their ties with the building, and through that we’ve realised how important the church is to them – we’re just the stewards of it for the moment.” The rescue at Kakanui is a good news story, as are the others mentioned previously. But there are at least as many losses in the ledger – churches sold or bowled to the dismay not only of congregants but often of their communities.

In some cases church owners are being challenged on their calls. In Dunedin, for example, the announcement in 2019 of parish plans to demolish the nearly 100-year-old Highgate Presbyterian Church sparked a petition from residents, an appeal by parishioners and the commissioning by campaigners of a new seismic assessment of the building.

1 New weatherboards are about to go on at Kakanui.

2 New owners of the

Kakanui church Anna Miles and Michael Simpson:

“We just thought we could save it, so we should try.”

3 The roof of the church has been bird- and weatherproofed ahead of a larger restoration.

IMAGERY: MIKE HEYDON

There’s certainly an argument to be made that in some cases owners are being too hasty. But that only goes so far. In ‘Saving grace’, the then assembly executive secretary of the Presbyterian Church pointed out that Dunedin’s magnificent First Church was arguably of national significance, certainly of huge historic significance to Dunedin, yet the cost of its upkeep was falling entirely on the shoulders of a small congregation. Some high-profile churches, such as Auckland’s St Matthew-in-the-City, have generated income by hiring out spaces for corporate events, but that’s not an option for everyone.

Funding church restoration and seismic strengthening is a major challenge, says Gavin Holley, General Manager of the Church Property Trustees (CPT), the body that manages the assets of the Anglican Diocese of Christchurch.

After the Canterbury earthquakes, the CPT repaired and in many cases restored 34 earthquake-damaged, heritage-listed churches and halls, supported by funding sources such as the Christchurch Earthquake Heritage Buildings Trust and Christchurch City Council heritage funding.

“We also remain incredibly grateful to the Lottery Environment and Heritage Committee, without which we would not have been able to undertake the postquake work we have,” he says.

However, apart from the various quake-recovery funds, which have now closed, no new funding avenues of any significance have arisen since 2012. Meanwhile, seismic strengthening deadlines are looming, says Gavin, adding that under current rules the CPT can’t access government funding for that work.

“The biggest challenge, however, is that earthquake [natural disaster] insurance is unaffordable for all but a few of our churches.”

In Wellington, where 25 Catholic churches have been deemed earthquake risks, the prominently located 1908 St Gerard’s Church and Monastery in Mt Victoria closed its doors this year after the owners failed to raise the estimated $10 million to get it strengthened.

Felicity Wong, Chair of Historic Places Wellington, says there’s been some talk recently that the iconic building above Oriental Parade could be turned into a hotel. While that’s certainly better than losing it, it’s not ideal.

“What we have to grapple with is how we repurpose buildings that were built by the public for [public] purposes,” says Felicity, who believes public money should be used in the case of St Gerard’s.

That doesn’t go for all threatened churches, however.

“I think it’s a question of focusing on the ones that are really iconic, putting our eggs in fewer baskets, and then trying to broaden out the usage,” she says.

“That means collaboration between the religious orders and communities, so we can find modern, vital purposes beyond the religious constraints of these buildings.”

WORDS AND IMAGE: MARTIN SLIVA

Touching base

My friends live in an old Norwegian house on Rakiura/Stewart Island. On one of my trips to Rakiura, I rented a kayak to explore the history of Kaipipi Shipyard (often referred to as ‘the Whalers’ Base’) at Paterson Inlet.

Founded in 1923, the Kaipipi Shipyard was a repair base for Norway's Rosshavet (Ross Sea) Whaling Company, while also providing a base for the whalers who operated in the Antarctic waters.

TECHNICAL DATA

Camera: Sony Alpha A55V Exposure: 1/50sec at f/11 Focal Length: 12mm (x1.5) Lens: Sigma 10–20mm F3.5