What happens to historic churches?
Historic churches abound in the Waikato. Built to serve a wide range of faiths and denominations, they range in style from colonial Gothic Revival to Post-Modernist.
The post-war Modernism of the Hamilton New Zealand Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints is currently available for all to see as the church holds an open house to mark the completion of a lengthy seismic strengthening and renovation programme.
Elsewhere around the district regular services often provide an opportunity to visit churches that are still in use.
An early 1970s Modernist church that is no longer in use can be viewed from the public domain. Kihikihi’s Church of St John the Baptist was sold in 1994 after a little over 20 years in use. It was the third church to serve the local Catholic congregation; the first in use by January 1875 and the second built in 1880.
Of course Catholicism was present in the district well before the mid-1870s, with missionaries stationed in the area by the mid-1840s.
Whereas the mission station at Rangiaowhia represented the foundational period of Catholicism in the Waikato, church building activity in settlements such as Kihikihi was in response to the increasing numbers of adherents who came to live in the district after the Waikato Wars.
The building programme at St John’s illustrates the growth and development of the sometime parish over the years. After a church was built at the corner of Rolleston and Short Sts on land gifted by Mary and William Corboy in 1880, a presbytery followed four years later.
Such was the progress of the congregation that the church was substantially enlarged by Father Luck in 1888. The parish of Kihikihi was in existence during three periods: 1884-1909, 1916-34 and 1959-89. When the Rev Father Lynch moved from Kihikihi to Te Awamutu in 1913 the Kihikihi presbytery became redundant and was subsequently sold.
A new presbytery was built in 1959 to house the priests of the third, and final, phase.
In 1971 the timber Gothic Revival church that had stood for almost a century was demolished. It was replaced by a concrete block building, which was opened on November 27 of the same year.
The architect was B M Gleeson and the new church was positioned slightly to the east of the earlier building. In contrast to its Gothic Revival style predecessor, Gleeson’s church has a square footprint and a single, low-pitched gabled roof, which is obscured by a flared parapet.
A pyramidal roof form at the south-east corner and a monopitch bell tower flanking the main entry at the north-west corner evoke the form and ecclesiastical purpose of the earlier building.
Bernard (Bernie) Gleeson (1932-2008) was educated in Upper Hutt and then studied architecture at the University of Auckland in the mid-1950s.
He became an Associate of the NZ Institute of Architects in July 1958 and, after having worked briefly for Rigby-Mullan in Auckland, arrived in Hamilton in the same year to join Doug Angus’s office.
In 1964 Gleeson set up on his own account; his residential designs are particularly well-known in Hamilton’s architectural circles.
St John’s was sold by the diocese five years after the Catholic congregations of Kihikihi and Te Awamutu had merged on the Te Awamutu site.
Having stood for many years on the periphery of the town, the former church now stands within a residential environment.
On the opposite side of Short St the former Otway and Williams honey refinery (c.1935) also serves as a reminder of the historic development of a rural settlement that is now also subject to the new medium density rules that are prompting plan changes to the Waipa, Waikato and Hamilton district plans.