RUSSELL CHURCH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22350, 22 February 1936, Page 17

RUSSELL CHURCH

Sir, —If words of mine have offended the chairman of the Russell Church centenary committee, 1 am sorry, and withdraw them unreservedly in the best parliamentary fashion, although he has ignored the qualification 1 attached to one of them. At the same time I feel that a person who derides the restored Waitangi Residency as having " tho external appearance of a cheap, tawdry, second-rate modern bungalow," and as "New Zealand's greatest disappointment," has little right to complain of other people's language as immoderate. Apparently ho is disappointed because tho two eminent architects who restored the house did not produce an old English moated grange. Such condemnation of their work must put the writer completely out in the controversy over the Church in tho estimation of all who have any knowledge of and regard for architecture, the craft of building, or Now Zealand history. As one who has twice examined the Church, I am quite convinced that the chairman paints a much exaggerated picture of the changes that have been made in the fabric. The building may have been unlined in its first few years and may have had a pulpit, but what of that? A careful study of drawings and photographs of tho other old missionary churches at Waimate, Kaita»ia and Tauranga leaves no doubt that tho large windows of the Russell Church, which are almost identical with theirs, date from the very early days. The root was raised in the 'eighties and box-buttresses were added then or later, but that is no argument against restoring or preserving the building intact. If the interior were refurnished more or less in the original style it would still bo perfectly useable for worship, except by people with fixed and arbitrary ideas about what a church should look like. But it seems that the ghosts of tho old missionaries must on no account be encouraged to walk again. The chairman's letter makes one more convinced than ever that the custody of the Church should be vested without delay in the Waitangi Trust Board or somo other body. Histobious.