Historic St Michael’sChurch to be restored

• Date: 24 June 2021
• Published date: 24 June 2021
• Author: Peter de Graaf
• Publication title: Northern Advocate, The (Whangarei, New Zealand)

St Michael’s Church, which celebrated its 150th birthday this year, was built by Māori on the site of the Battle of Ōhaeawai — a crushing defeat of British forces during the 1845-46 Northern War.

The stone wall around the graveyard, at Ngāwhā, just east of Kaikohe, traces the perimeter of the fighting pā of Ngāti Rangi chief Pene Taui.

Funding for the restoration will come from a Provincial Growth Fund grant announced by former Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones in August last year.

The $1.7 million grant will also pay for restoration of nearby Ngāwhā School — closed in the late 1970s but now used as a community centre — and for a walkway between the two with panels in te reo and English detailing the battle.

The school was built near the site of the British encampment.

St Michael’s, a category 1 heritage building, was blessed yesterday ahead of the restoration by Kaikohe-based Henwood Construction.

Owner Terry Henwood expected the job of replacing the roof and restoring and repainting inside and out would take about eight weeks.

A small bell tower, which was not part of the original church, will be removed.

Despite the site’s bloody history, the church was built as an act of thanks.

Chanel Clarke, curator of Te Rau Aroha, the new museum at Waitangi Treaty Grounds, said the story behind the church began in 1863 when a group of high-ranking young Māori travelled to London with a Wesleyan lay preacher.

The group’s relationship with the preacher soured and they ended up stranded in England.

English philanthropist Dorothea Wheale — known as Mihiwira in Māori — came to their rescue by raising money for their return passage. Once home the group wanted to show their gratitude so, at Wheale’s suggestion, they built St Michael’s Church, Clarke said. A second church, off Mangakahia Rd, burned down not long after it was built. St Michael’s was built on the site of Ōhaeawai Pā where the...