HISTORIC HALL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 105, 6 May 1939, Page 10

HISTORIC HALL.

BUILT IN YEAR 1877. NOW MISSION BAY CHURCH. DEDICATION SERVICE HELD. Another long and useful life fa - assured for a building that is already well known in Auckland —the old Wesley Hall, which used to adjoin the Pitt Street Methodist Church. Taken down, piecemeal, it was removed in sections to Mission .Bay. The old hall has now been rebuilt, and as Wesley Church, and the first- church in that district, it was . officially opened at a special service this afternoon. An address was given by the presi--dent of the Methodist Conference, the Rev. A. Mc-Bean, in which he referred to the continuous progress of the work of the Church throughout New Zealand, and the Church facilities which would now be provided in the Mission Bay district. The resident minister, the Rev. W.'R. Laws, presided, and other prominent representatives of the Church present were the Rev. F. Copeland, chairman of the Auckland district, the Rev. A. C. Nelson, V.A., president of the Auckland Ministers' Association, the Rev. W. Walker, and Mr. J. W. Shackleford, who represented the Pitt Street Church trustees, and conveyed the congratulations of the mother Church. After tlia dedication service in the church those present went to the Sunday school, where congratulatory sages from different parts of New Zealand were read, and afternoon tea was served. The Wesley Hall was built in 1877 at the corner of Pitt Street and Karangahape Road, and beside it was the old parsonage. When the trustees' decided to erect a block of shops on the site, the hall was moved back to the site in Pitt Street which it occupied for many years, taking an important part in the progress of the Methodist Church. The decision to move it to Mission Bay followed the need of more accommodation at Pitt Street, and the want of a suitable building to house a growing congregation at Mission Bav7 and adjacent areas. Services had previously been held in a temporary building until the trustees secured the present site of the new church in Patterson Avenue »w ich is on nigh land overlooking the middle of the bay. °