In a country churchyard

Press, 10 January 1987, Page 17

In a country churchyard

The Victorian Church of the most Holy Trinity in Lyttelton, designed by George Mallinson, is the oldest stone church in the Anglican dicoese of Christchurch. It is Lyttelton’s second Anglican church'. The foundation stone from the first was laid on the site of the second when the latter building began in 1859. Under it, a parchment 7 inscribed in Latin, a copy of the “Lyttleton Times,” and British coins from Queen Victoria’s reign, were placed in a flask. The church builder, Edward Morey, used Sumner red volcanic rock and white sandstone from Quail Island to construct the low walls in the form of a cross. Most of the decorative work inside the church was completed by the Rev. Canon Coates in 1895. His murals are copies of scenes from the life of Christ by William Hole.

There are many reminders inside the church of its association with the arrival of the first Canterbury pilgrims, including a large Bible and four prayer books given to the pilgrims before they set sail from England in 1859. Other settler links include four parchment tables of the Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, two chairs, the bell, two communion sets, and the alms box. Before they left England many of the settlers gathered in Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral to take part in Holy Communion celebrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Clergymen accompanied the mainly Anglican settlers during their three-month voyage on board the Charlotte Jane, Randolph, Sir George Seymour, and Cressy that arrived at Lyttelton in December, 1859. In the loft of a warehouse on Lyttelton’s

Norwich Quay the settlers attended their first communion service, sitting on planks and coils of rope among barrels of sugar and flour. The service was conducted by the Rev. Henry Jacobs, who later became Dean of Christchurch. The bishop' of New Zealand, Bishop George Augustus Selwyn, tried to reach

Lyttelton from further north in time for the settlers’ arrival but was delayed a few weeks. When he arrived in the New Year he baptised four of the settlers’ children in the warehouse loft while a temporary church was prepared in the immigration barracks. Lyttelton, named after the chairman of the Canterbury Association, Lord Lyttelton, was a village of about 399 people when the 792 pHgrims arrived. The Canterbury Association was able to provide only some of the funds for the first Anglican church in Lyttelton. The rest came from voluntary subscription, including £199 from an early Lyttelton settler, John Robert Godley. He laid the foundation stone in 1852 for the brick and timber

church designed by Benjamin Mountfort and built by Isaac Luck. As the green native timber framework shrank, the prevailing winds loosened the bricks and the church became a hazard to the congregation seated inside. In 1853, this church was abandoned and it was not until four years later that moves began to build the second! church, con-, secrated by Bishop John Chitty Harper in 1899. Lyttelton was divided into two parishes, West and East Lyttelton, in 1885, and j stayed that way for 53 years, i Restoration of the Holy Trinity Church began in 1979 and was finished five years later, in time for the 125th anniversary of the pilgrims’ arrival.

By

TESSA WARD