Bishopscourt, Auckland.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVI, Issue II, 12 January 1901, Page 73

Bishopscourt, Auckland.

THE PICTURESQUE RESIDENCE OF THE NEW ZEALAND PRIMATE. Bishopscourt stands on the highest point of the suburb of Parnell, at an elevation of about two hundred feet above the sea. The grounds, about four acres, were purchased by Bishop (1. A. Selwyn, in 1842, at one of the first Government land sales. The house was built in 1863. Attached to

the house is the Cathedral Library, containing several thousand volumes, chiefly theological. The nucleus of the Library was formed of works presented to Bishop Selwyn by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and by his Eton and Cambridge friends. Mr. Gladstone, Lord Selborne. and others. The house contains a pretty Chapel, in which interesting meetings have been held, not only by the Bishops of the Diocese, but by Bishops Patteson and J. R. Selwyn, of Melanesia. The public rooms of Bishopscourt

are rich in memorials of the past. Among these are the cabin table of the Mission vessel, Southern Cross, on which Bishop Patteson was on September 20. 1871. the day on which he was massacred at Ntikapu, in the Solo mon Islands. In the corridor of Bishopscourt there are several interesting mementoes of Bishop Cowie's former life, in India and elsewhere. Among these is a large dish, ornamented with the crown of the King of Gude, rescued by the Bishop, when he was a Chaplain of Lord Clyde's army, at the siege of Lucknow in 1858. The

plate was picked up on the floor of one of the drawing-rooms of the king’s palace, when soldiers were smashing everything they could not carry off. There are also Afghan swords, which the Bishop obtained on the field of battle, when the heights of Laloo were stormed and taken by Il.M.'s 101st Regiment, in the Umbevla campaign of 1863. Attached to the Library is a tower with a spire, both of which are greatly in need of extensive repairs. As they were erected by Bishop Selwyn. the people of Auckland, not only members of the Church of England, would be sorry to see them fall into ruin, and subscriptions are invited to be sent to the Rev. G. Mac Murray for the purpose of carrying out the necessary re storation. The tower contains a peal of beautiful bells, that were in the London Exhibition of 1862.