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. MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS, STANWAY
St Michael and All Angels typifies the honest wooden churches of the Rangitikei country. Frederick de Jersey Clere himself wrote: ’I made no attempt to copy a stone building but used my ideas of what a wooden building should be.'Started in January 1895 and finished by early April (no such plagues as Resource Management Acts in those days) it was designed to serve a community not only much larger than eventuated but also more devout; at its first service on 14 April nobody attended!
It's one of my favourites from this collection; I think because of its proportions and that steep, heaven-bent roof.
'Good at a distance across dried grasses dancing on a dull, windy day. Locked. In the graveyard new tombstones all neatly lined up on concrete strips like a lawn cemetery - so unnecessary. Behind them are the few old stones and a lonely angel. Cabbage trees rattle in the screen of native shrubbery: flax, macrocarpa, lemonwoods, manuka...'
(SKETCHBOOK NOTE 27/3/01)
© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz
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