Sunday 12 November 2017

St Mary's on the Hill Anglican Parish


Just a short distance out of South Auckland in this quaint quiet area near the Bombay Hills is this wee church, St Mary on the Hill Anglican Parish.  According to the website a small wooden church was originally built was built around the 1860s but was destroyed by a fire in the 1867 so worship services were held around the area in different places including the local school.


But as the population grew so did the need for a church. In 1890 Francis Pyne arrived from England and bought 700 acres of land for his benefactor Harriet Johnston who came to NZ about a year later. A large home was built for her in which she lived in until she died in 1916. In 1899 she offered to pay for the Anglican Church to be built in an imposing Gothic revival and the wages of the resident clergyman and the church of St Mary on the Hill was consecrated by Bishop Cowie in 1901.

Linking up with Our World Tuesday :-)

13 comments:

Bill said...

What a lovely gift to the community to pay for building the church and the wages of the cleryman. The wee church is beautiful.

PerthDailyPhoto said...

It is a lovely looking wee church Amy, did you have a peek inside?

Amy said...

no sadly it was all closed up, I think from memory we visited the day after boxing day so over the Christmas holidays.

Lydia C. Lee said...

Cute!

Fun60 said...

That bright roof makes it stand out from the crowd. Pity it was closed when you were there.

Photo Cache said...

The architecture is charming.

Worth a Thousand Words

Joyful said...

It's a lovely little church.

William Kendall said...

A pretty church! It would not be out of the way here.

eileeninmd said...

What a pretty church! Lovely photos. Happy Monday, enjoy your new week!

Murthy K v v s said...

So peaceful..!

mick said...

I really like the architecture of that church. Great photos.

Andy said...

I always seem to favour these small churches over the mammoth ones. They seem to a bit more personal.

Lady Fi said...

What a delightful church.

Westport News

  This has been one of the early buildings in Westport from the 1870s that is still being used for the local newspaper, so much old Victoria...