St James' Anglican Church is an heritage-listed

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

located in

Kerikeri Kerikeri () is the largest town in Northland, New Zealand. It is a tourist destination north of Auckland and north of the northern region's largest city, Whangarei. It is sometimes called the Cradle of the Nation, as it was the site of th ...

, on the

North Island The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-largest ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. The historic church building was built in 1878. The

congregation A congregation is a large gathering of people, often for the purpose of worship. Congregation may also refer to: *Church (congregation), a Christian organization meeting in a particular place for worship *Congregation (Roman Curia), an administra ...

forms part of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa in the Diocese of Auckland, currently operated as a mission of St Paul's Church, Whangaroa. The church was listed as a Category 1 building on the Heritage New Zealand register on 6 June 1985.

History

The first chapel was started in November 1823 and opened some six months later, but this was not built on the site of the present church. The second chapel, which was started some time early in 1829, was by tradition built on the site chosen by the redoubtable Hongi Hika, then the paramount chief of the Ngāpuhi. When the Mission Station was disbanded in 1848 this chapel fell into disrepair with the result that a new church was built on the same site in 1878. An extract form the ''Church Gazette'' reads: "A remarkable neat little church was opened at Kerikeri on December 5th 1878. The services were conducted by Archdeacon Clarke and the Rev H P Tua." The entire cost of the building was

NZ£ The pound (symbol £, £NZ. for distinction) was the currency of New Zealand from 1840 until 1967, when it was replaced by the New Zealand dollar. Like the pound sterling, it was subdivided into 20 shillings (abbreviation s or /) each of 12 pen ...

235: a small debt of NZ£10 was all that was owed. The building was made of Kauri weather boards (boards and battens) and a shingle roof, and foundations of

pūriri ''Vitex lucens'', or pūriri, is an evergreen tree endemic to New Zealand. History Pūriri was first collected (by Europeans) at Tolaga Bay by Banks and Solander during Cook's first visit in 1769. The plant was excellently described by Solan ...

piles on stone blocks. William Cook and Son of Waimate North, who had built the church of St John the Baptist in 1871, were also the builders of St James.

Dedication

The church is dedicated to St James the Greater of Compostela. Tradition has it that after his martyrdom in AD 42, the body of St James was placed in a boat without sail or rudder which drifted onto the Spanish coast. His shrine at Compostela became a famous place of pilgrimage and still is today.

References

External links

Official website
Churches completed in 1878 19th-century Anglican church buildings in New Zealand Far North District Bay of Islands 1870s churches in New Zealand 1823 establishments in New Zealand Religious buildings and structures in the Northland Region Gothic Revival church buildings in New Zealand Wooden churches in New Zealand {{NewZealand-church-stub