Country Churches of NZ 6. Our Lady of the Assumption, Motukaraka, Northland

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.

OUR LADY OF THE ASSUMPTION, MOTUKARAKA

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
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