St Luke's Church was an

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

located in

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

, New Zealand. The former church was built on one of the five sites set aside in the central city in the original survey of Christchurch for the Anglican church and the building was registered as a Category II historic place with the

New Zealand Historic Places Trust Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga (initially the National Historic Places Trust and then, from 1963 to 2014, the New Zealand Historic Places Trust; in ) is a Crown entity that advocates for the protection of ancestral sites and heritage bui ...

. Following sustained damage caused by the February

2011 Christchurch earthquake A major earthquake occurred in Christchurch on Tuesday 22 February 2011 at 12:51 p.m. New Zealand Daylight Time, local time (23:51 Coordinated Universal Time, UTC, 21 February). The () earthquake struck the Canterbury Region ...

, the building was demolished in July 2011.

History

The site bounded by Manchester, Lichfield and Peterborough Streets was one of five sites set aside by the

Canterbury Association The Canterbury Association was formed in 1848 in England by Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), members of parliament, Peerage of the United Kingdom, peers, and Anglicanism, Anglican church leaders, to establish a colony in New Zealand. The se ...

in the original survey of Christchurch, which was carried out during 1850. A church, the Chapel of Ease, was built on the site between 1858 and 1860. After St Michael and All Angels, it was the second Anglican church in Christchurch. The result was described as "ugly and barn-like". This first church had a frontage onto Peterborough Street, and it was extended in 1871 based on a design by

Benjamin Mountfort Benjamin Woolfield Mountfort (13 March 1825 – 15 March 1898) was an English emigrant to New Zealand, where he became one of the country's most prominent 19th-century architects. He was instrumental in shaping the city of Christchurch's uniqu ...

. The Chapel of Ease was demolished in 1908. St Luke's was designed by Cyril Mountfort, the son of Benjamin Mountfort, in

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...

style. St Luke's design is similar to two churches designed by Mountfort Senior in the 1880s; The Church of the Good Shepherd in Phillipstown (demolished in 2011) and St John's Cathedral in Napier (destroyed in the

1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake The 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake, also known as the Napier earthquake, occurred in New Zealand at 10:47am on 3 February, killing 256,The exact number of deaths varies according to different sources; the ''New Zealand Listener'' article cited be ...

). The foundation stone was laid by Bishop Julius on 3 September 1908. Construction took 13 months and the contract value was

NZ£ The pound (symbol £, £NZ. for distinction) was the currency of New Zealand from 1933 until 1967, when it was replaced by the New Zealand dollar. Prior to this, New Zealand used the pound sterling since the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. Like t ...

9,800. The church was consecrated on 17 October 1909 by Bishop Julius, and the sermon read by Archdeacon Averill. Of the series of eight stamps issued by

New Zealand Post NZ Post (), shortened from New Zealand Post, is a state-owned enterprise responsible for providing most postal services in New Zealand. The New Zealand Post Office, a government agency, provided postal, banking, and telecommunications servi ...

for Christmas 1995, the four highest denominations ($0.80 to $1.80) depicted scenes from the stained glass windows of St Luke's. The church was badly damaged in the February

deconsecrated Deconsecration, also referred to as decommissioning or ''secularization'' (a term also used for the external confiscation of church property), is the removal of a religious sanction and blessing from something that had been previously consec ...

, and demolished the following July. The church can be seen in Gerard Symth's video chronicle of the earthquakes, ''When A City Falls''. The congregation is still meeting, despite the earthquake damage, and counselling services continue. Services are currently held in the Mary Potter Community Centre, and at the central-city Knox presbyterian church, as well as weekday morning prayer on the St Luke's site but the rebuilding of a church on the site is uncertain.

Heritage registration

The church was registered by the

as a Category II heritage building with registration number 3353. The adjacent St Luke's Vicarage was registered on 15 February 1990 as a Category I heritage building with registration number 3132 and remains standing, under restoration as a residential dwelling.

History

Heritage registration

References

Further reading