RESTORATION GRANT FOR OLDEST CHURCH

Tu Tangata, Issue 10, 1 March 1983, Page 27

RESTORATION GRANT FOR OLDEST CHURCH

It was all smiles and cheers at the Rerekohu Area School at Te Araroa at the top of the East Cape when their Member of Parliament, Mr Duncan Mclntyre, presented the school with 151 books worth over S3OOO. The books had been entered for the New Zealand Book Awards, which covered poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and book production. After each annual award, the New Zealand Book Council selects a school to receive the books, particularly those establishing a library. Here schoolteacher Peter Ferguson and Duncan Mclntyre M.P. are surrounded by students after the presentation.

The oldest church in Poverty Bay, Matawhero Presbyterian Church, has received a SIOOO grant from the New Zealand Historic Places Trust. The grant will go towards restoration. Matawhero was built in 1866. Built as a schoolhouse, it was used variously for Anglican worship, a meeting place and as a hospital during the Hau Hau engagements in 1868. The building passed into the hands of the Presbyterian Church in 1872, when the Rev. George Morice visited the area and found people anxious to see the church established. He advanced the money himself for the purchase of the building, then known as the Matawhero Schoolroom, plus one acre of land around it.