Thames

Reaching out

St George’s Anglican Church may be 150 years old, but its parishioners are determined to find new ways to keep the landmark location relevant to the Thames community

WORDS: NICOLA MARTIN • IMAGERY: AMANDA TRAYES

Pop your head in the door of St George’s Anglican Church on McKay Street in Thames on any day of the week and you may not always find the traditional church service underway.

Instead, you might see locals Steve Darwall or Paul Jennings climbing along scaffolding or up ladders within the church’s cavernous walls. The Revd Brendon Wilkinson, who joined the parish in 2017, might be there lending a hand alongside other congregation members.

With hammers, chisels and paintbrushes in hand, the group is dedicated to maintaining the Category 1 historic place.

The church celebrated 150 years in January, and while Revd Wilkinson is credited with transforming its relevance to the community, Paul, Steve and many other parishioners have connections to the building spanning multiple generations.

“My great-great-grandfather installed the windows in the apse and worked on the steeple. I’m the fifth of seven generations of our extended family to walk through these doors,” says Paul.

Steve says the church building is part of him.

“My family has always been involved. My dad was baptised here, and my grandmother attended church here from when she arrived in New Zealand from Australia in 1910,” he says.

The original St George’s was built in 1868, but the rapid influx of people during the Coromandel goldrush meant a new church was needed. The Gothic Revival-style building that cuts an imposing figure with its towering spire was built in 1871.

Back then the church held three services a day: an early service at 8am, a family service at 11am, and an evensong at 7pm, with up to 900 people attending each one.

Today attendance is much reduced and the total congregation numbers around 80. Services are held on Thursdays at 10am and Sundays at 9.30am, and Paul says the church has had to evolve to

remain connected to its wider community.

“It certainly is a challenge we’ve faced. Our congregation has become smaller, and we are getting older, but we are finding there is such a need within the community. A lot of our work now is outreach and helping to fill the socioeconomic gap,” he says.

“Revd Brendon has been key to making the church relevant for our community. People don’t really know how much work goes on, but he is doing a phenomenal amount of work.”

Revd Wilkinson chairs the local Homeless Working Group and is Chaplain for both the local Police and Thames Hospital. He also helps at the Supported Life Style Hauraki Trust, an organisation designed to aid people with disabilities, and works with a youth group connected to Thames High School.

In four years, he has also helped 42 families through their grief after loved ones have taken their own lives.

“The need in our area just keeps growing. It really is at epidemic level and the church is our vehicle to help address some of it. It’s so much more than just a building,” says Paul.

Along with the work done by Revd Wilkinson, a core group of women prepares large amounts of food on Sundays and Mondays, making dinners for people in need.

“At times we have fed up to 142 people, both on the church premises and by delivering food to those who are unable to come to the church hall. We provided around 500 food parcels in the local community for Christmas Day,” says Paul.

“Our church is a genuine sanctuary for families struggling to survive in the current economic and social climate.”

The event held to mark 150 years of the church was a paredback affair due to Covid-19 restrictions, but it too gave glimpses into how the church was evolving. The celebratory service on Waitangi Day, 6 February, was livestreamed so anyone from the wider community could attend, including the Bishop of Auckland in the Anglican Church, the Right Revd Ross Bay.

Streamed services can now also be found on the church’s Facebook page, and Paul says it’s another way they are trying to keep the church relevant for the community.

Revd Wilkinson and retired New Zealand Anglican bishop, the Right Revd Bruce Gilberd, were welcomed to the celebratory service with Scottish piping and a karanga (welcome chant), and the introductory parts of the service were conducted in te reo Māori (Revd Wilkinson is a fluent speaker of te reo Māori).

“While it has a predominantly elderly congregation, the church has certainly moved away from being ‘exclusive’ to being a more inclusive place for all, including seeing te reo Māori beginning to be integrated into all our services,” says Paul.

With its grand pointed archways, steeply pitched roof and intricate stained-glass windows, the building is both a blessing and a challenge, says Paul.

“Let’s just say there’s plenty of prayers that go on. It’s all kauri timber and we do face monumental challenges in maintaining it, but it is such an important part of our community and its history.”

Alongside general maintenance, the church has been earmarked for more serious structural maintenance, including earthquake strengthening when funding allows.

Robin Byron, Senior Conservation Architect for Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, says heritage buildings face challenges at the best of times, but for churches it can be more onerous as the work required often falls on the shoulders of only a few people.

“Even if we do not regularly attend church, we expect these familiar landmark buildings to continue to be a part of our communities and play their role in some of the most significant occasions in our lives,” says Robin.

And this is why Steve, Paul and others continue to dedicate hours to maintaining St George’s.

“It’s a beautiful building and it’s always been here, and we LOCATION

Thames is Hauraki-Coromandel's largest town and is situated 115km southeast of Auckland.

don’t want to see it deteriorate,” says Steve, a semi-retired builder whose most recent job was working on the window frames.

“It’s fiddly work. I’d say we spent 40 to 50 hours on each window, chiselling away at the rotten pieces and machining new pieces to fit. You don’t want to replace stuff that you don’t need to, to keep the context of what’s been built. It’s definitely a labour of love.”

heritage.org.nz/the-list/ details/0721