Photoprint for Sale: Lake Dunstan and Cromwell, Central Otago, New Zealand

This is an original photoprint from my personal collection

Size of image is 30cm x 46cm (12" x 18").

Price is $NZ 50.00 inc. urban p. and p. in NZ.

Please contact me at donovan@ihug.co.nz or 09 4159 701.

© DON DONOVAN. donovan@ihug.co.nz 
www. don-donovan.blogspot.co.nz

New Zealand Odyssey: Two Buildings in Old Cromwell - Before the Flooding

'New Zealand Odyssey', published in 1989 by Heinemann, was authored by me, Don Donovan (who did the text and illustrations) and Euan Sarginson, who did the photography and design. In this series of blog posts, I will publish some of my drawings.

In the late 1980s, when I painted these two buildings, they stood on the old main street of Cromwell and had done so since the beginnings of the town back in the gold mining days of the late nineteenth century. The street then sloped downwards to where the Clutha and Kawarau rivers met at 'the junction' before flowing swiftly though the Cromwell Gorge below.

The buildings still stand although since the Clutha Dam was filled and Lake Dunstan formed - after 1993 - their inclined highway became a traffic-less back street that disappears under water - a fate the buildings just escaped. 

The upper illustration is of the Masonic Lodge; the lower, a simple schist structure, is Hanson's Cottage, variously owned by a brewer, watchmaker and 'toothpuller'.

© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz
.

Country Churches of NZ 129. Church of Mary Immaculate and The Irish Martyrs, Cromwell, Central Otago

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.

CHURCH OF MARY IMMACULATE AND THE IRISH MARTYRS, CROMWELL

Like the Curate's Egg parts of Cromwell are interesting; other parts, like the old main road, disappear into newly formed Lake Dunstan, victims of the Clyde Dam hydroelectric project of 1992.

From the lookout above the town at the northern end of Cromwell Gorge the pink tiled roof of the handsome Church of Mary Immaculate and the Irish Martyrs is very distinctive among those higher buildings that survived.

It has the longest name of all the churches in this book and I can add little more than to quote from the board outside the church: '...The foundation stone ... was laid on March 17th 1908 ... The church was built by Patrick Thomas and the stonemason was William Gair ... cost £2400. The church was blessed and opened by Bishop Verdon on April 18th 1909. Father Hunt gave the church its unusual title to gain the support of the many Catholic Irish miners in Cromwell at that time...'

© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz
.