Chapel for girls’ school

Press, 7 March 1984, Page 5

Chapel for girls’ school

Seventy-five years of education at St Margaret’s College will be celebrated in April, 1985, and to mark the occasion an anniversary building project will be launched on March 18 this year. The Governor-General, Sir David Beattie, will lay the foundation stone for a chapel at the school, and the Bishop of Christchurch, the Rt Rev. Maurice Goodall, and the college’s chaplain, the Rev. Carole Graham, will lead a service to mark the beginning of building. The chapel, which will be able to seat the planned school roll of 500, and a separate small theatre, will

provide a focus for next year’s celebrations. The school’s board, old girls’ assocation, and parents have begun fund-raising for the two buildings, expected to cost a total of 1450,000. The chapel would be the school’s first and would form an important focal point in the church school, said the principal, Miss Cynthia Blair yesterday. “I think that we should always be aware that St Margaret’s is a church school,” she. said. The college, founded in 1910 on the initiative of Bishop Julius and run by the Kilburn Sisters, has shifted three times — from Armagh

Street to Cranmer Square, and to its present site in Winchester Street in 1959.

Each time the building of a school chapel was suggested it was deferred in favour of classrooms and other school buildings. The school has had to make do with a small baorders’ chapel, converted from a stable and seating only 60. This chapel will eventually become a museum of the school’s history. The new chapel, designed by Warren and Mahoney, will feature a circular shape, with slightly tiered flooring so that all seats are within 15 metres of the central sanctuary. The

circle is broken into two fan segments. A central 15m light well will illuminate the sanctuary. The chapel will be near the Papanui Road end of the school site, and the theatre behind the administration block

The theatre, which will have tiered bench seating, will be able to seat 80 to 90. It would provide a valuable extension to the school’s English department, Miss Blair said.

The pupils at the school were very interested in the building project and were represented on the committee, Miss Blair said. The school had a roll of 450.