Church St & Sophia St
CNR Elizabeth & SOPHIA St
LN:328 C:2
1880-1910
Architect WB Armson & Successors
The first Anglican service conducted by a clergyman Bishop Henry John Chitty Harper was held in 1858 a year before the immigrant ship Strathallan arrived with Revd George Foster. The land for the first church was donated by the Rhodes Brothers, and the building was designed by Lieutenant Belfield Woolcombe. The wooden church with a shingle roof became the first church in South Canterbury.
The foundation stone of the present building was laid on 9 September 1880 by the Very Revd Henry Jacobs, Dean of Christchurch. The building was designed by the Christchurch architect W. B. Armson, in close consultation with Archdeacon Harper. The building is in the Early English style, with the tower being the later Decorated Gothic style, and inspired by Magdalen College, Oxford. The material is Timaru bluestone (Dolerite stone) with Oamaru limestone dressings, and Welsh slate.
The tower was added in 1910. This was architect W B Armson’s last ecclesiastical commission. This is one of very few examples of the English Gothic Revival in the Southern Hemisphere. Of particular significance is the three light war memorial windows set in the south wall to commemorate the fallen of the two world wars. The porch at the western entrance was added in 1961 to match the existing masonry. Significant elements are Gothic window details, Oamaru stone detailsing, Medevil English styled spire.
Much of the wood carving inside was by F G Gurnsey of Christchurch.
Can you find? The Rose window, nick named “angels on bicycles” and faces on the tower?
St Mary's Church, Timaru, Eastern Elevation 1908 by Fergusson Ltd. In Website Hocken Snapshop. hocken.recollect.co.nz/24185
A mechanical print of St Mary's Church, Timaru, by Smith & Anthony Ltd of Christchurch, circa 1910. Includes a representation of the Sophia Street frontage, and an inset floor plan. South Canterbury Museum CN: 2014/063.02
St Mary's Church, Timaru, New Zealand, 1912, Timaru, by Muir & Moodie studio. Purchased 1998 with New Zealand Lottery Grants Board funds. Te Papa (PS.002215)
"We have now made a successful start in regard to our parish buildings. The vicarage is complete, a well designed structure in brick; close by it a spacious School Church, with room for five hundred, to be used as a Church until the completion of the nave of St. Mary's. Liberal subscriptions have come in, and a design for the new church accepted, but not without much opposition. I was anxious to take advantage of the general enthusiasm shown by Church people, and to get their consent to a plan of the best possible style and material, and of sufficient size to provide for an increasing population, which need not be completed at once. In Westland I came across a young English architect, W. G. Armson, who built some wooden churches for me, now in Christchurch, where he has established a good business. The Vestry agreed to my proposal to employ him and, after some time, during which I had many consultations with him, he completed a very fine design in Early English style, of which the Nave, with accommodation for seven hundred, would suffice for some time to come. In Timaru we have, close at hand, quarries of a purple grey dolerite, excellent for the main fabric, very hard, but taking a fine finish when hammered, and, at Oamaru, within fifty miles, a granular limestone, of creamy colour, easily worked, for the interior." - Archdeacon Harper December 10th, 1881 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Letters_from_New_Zealand,_1857-1911/Letter_14
The ten nave columns are of Aberdeen pink granite and along with the corbels, and bosses were carved by the Godfrey Bros, of Dunedin whose work is also in the Cathedral of St. Joseph, Dunedin.
The red granite used for the 19 inches in diameter columns is from quarries around Peterhead, Aberdeenshire. The monolithic columns were carved from a single piece of granite. They feature Oamaru stone capitals with blue stone mouled bases. These were paid for (gifted) by Mrs Luxmoore, in memory of her late husband. Granite was a used for headstones and the Sofia St, Benvenue monument.
Peterhead has been used across the world for famous buildings and statues. The granite in this area was formed over 400 million years ago from molten rock molten magma cooled slowly allowing the large crystals to grow. These hard crystals give the granite its strength. The coastal fringe between Boddam and Cruden Bay. Aberdeen Peterhead granite from Stirling Hill and local quarries can be also be found at architect George Alexander Troup'sDunedin Railway Station (1906) used for the stone for the pillars on the Anzac Avenue facade.
in the original fountains of Trafalgar Square, the pedestal for Duke of Wellington's Statue at Buckingham Palace, The Foreign Office and the British Museum and the pillars of Blackfriars and Southwark Bridges in London. The skills of the workers who produced the monumental stone were also exported round the world. Men went to Australia to dress the stonework for Sydney Harbour Bridge, to Cape Town, South Africa and Vermont, USA. Many granite workers from this area settled in these distant places. - boddam.org.uk/stirlinghill
Timaru Herald, 28 August 1895, Page 2: Mr S. McBride (ell-known builder and monumental mason) has shown us a new shape of tombstone, a massive rustic cross, with twining ivy and a heavy base, in red Peterhead granite, a specimen of which he has just imported. He has also received some American marble slabs, nicely finished. The duty on such things is 25 per cent. It ought to be 250. The Timaru stone is more suitable for funeral purposes than any granite or marble, and something ought to be done to check the waste of New Zealand products sent Home every year in exchange for tombstones. New Zealanders ought to be patriotic enough to prefer the local stone for their last ornament, and to encourage local industry instead of the steam machinery of other countries.
Another fun fact... the recipe for Timaru's famous May's Pies (boiled pastry mutton pie) comes from Peterhead! Alex May came from Scotland and set up the business in 1914, his father was a baker.
The smaller mottled wall columns in the chancel and transept are of New South Wales marble.
Saint Mary's Anglican Church, Timaru, with crowds of people and a motor car out the front. The Press (Newspaper) :Negatives. Ref: 1/1-008664-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/29947796
Barton, Cranleigh Harper, 1890-1975 :St. Mary's Timaru. [ca 1950?]. Barton, Cranleigh Harper 1890-1975 :[Scenes from Geraldine to Oamaru] [ca 1950?]. Ref: A-227-337. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22801241
1900 Timaru township and harbour. The Press (Newspaper) :Negatives. Ref: 1/1-008710-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/29947970
Saint Marys Church with tennis courts in the foreground Tiaki IRN692739_RN11-008729-G-PA-Group-00103ThePress-1907