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.
ST. DUNSTAN'S, CLYDE, CENTRAL OTAGO
I like the simple symmetry of St. Dunstan's Catholic Church at Clyde, and somehow the unassuming wire gate that guards the narrow, rose-lined path adds to its appeal.
The schist stones are sandier than those of St. James's' Roxburgh (see 123) and mimic the surrounding hills.
Dunstan was Clyde's first name. Its oldest buildings date from the aftermath of a huge storm in 1863 that destroyed the canvas town and the earlier Catholic church that had grown in this rich roughhouse of a goldfield.
This St. Dunstan's, with its Marseilles-tiled roof, was designed by Francis William Petre (see also 117, St Patrick's, Lawrence) and built by Thomas Wilkinson and stonemason John Holloway. It was opened on Sunday 18 October 1903, by which time Clyde was thoroughly respectable.
© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz
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