St Mary's Cathedral Church
| St Mary's Cathedral Church | |
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St Mary's as seen from the north
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| Coordinates: 36°51′36″S 174°47′00″E / 36.8601°S 174.7833°E | |
| Location | Parnell, Auckland |
| Country | New Zealand |
| Denomination | Anglican |
| Website | www |
| History | |
| Consecrated | 1888 (nave) 1898 (church) |
| Architecture | |
| Heritage designation | Category I |
| Designated | 26 November 1981 |
| Architect(s) | Benjamin Mountfort |
| Architectural type | Gothic Revival style |
| Completed | 1898 |
| Administration | |
| Diocese | Anglican Diocese of Auckland |
St Mary's Cathedral Church, also known as St Mary's Church, is the former Cathedral Church of the Anglican Diocese of Auckland. Located in Parnell, it replaced the earlier Old St Mary's. This wooden Gothic Revival church was designed by the prominent Christchurch architect Benjamin Mountfort and completed in 1897. The building served as the Cathedral Church and principal Anglican church of Auckland until 1973 when the Chancel of Holy Trinity Cathedral, for which the foundation stone was laid in 1957, came into use. In 1982, St Mary's Church was moved across Parnell Road to its present site beside the Cathedral.
Old St Mary's, as it came to be known, was replaced by a large wooden church, for which the Foundation Stone was laid in 1886. At more than 50 metres long, it is the largest wooden Gothic church in the world. Its English born architect Benjamin Mountfort had become one of New Zealand's most eminent architects, responsible for many of the Gothic Revival buildings in Christchurch. St Mary's is the most impressive of his wooden church designs.
The original intention had been to build the church in stone, but the plan had been rejected as too expensive. Mountfort seems to have ignored the perishable and limited qualities of wood, and built a vast church worthy of the finest stone. St Mary's covers an area of 9,000 square feet (840 m2) and has architectural features normally associated only with the great medieval cathedrals of Europe.
Bishop William Cowie instigated the decision to make St Mary's the Cathedral Church during 1887, and the first part of the church, consisting of the Chancel and three bays of the Nave was consecrated and used from 1888.
The church was completed to its present state by the addition of the four final bays and consecrated in 1898. It was Mountfort's final large scale work.
Externally the most noticeable architectural features of the long rectangular building are the numerous gables of the mostly single story structure. The gables, often placed above lancet shaped windows, serve to accentuate the Gothic motifs. This is particularly evident on the exterior of the altar tribune where three tall narrow windows rise up into the gables themselves, the tribune itself is three sided, the wooden construction making the traditional Romanesque curve in stone impossible.
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Wikipedia