By Roselyn Fauth
We joined our friends yesterday to hear their parents sing in the St Mary’s Choir. Gosh, they were good. At times, I felt their music was incredibly moving. It’s clear they put in many hours of practice, and you could really feel their passion. There’s something very special about singing together. I also really love singing carols at this time of year.
The choir sings every Sunday morning throughout the year except in January, and also offers concerts and other special events. They also lead the Choral Evensong held the first Sunday of the month at 5pm. There is a junior choir as well, taught by Catherine Anderson. They meet once a week and join the congregation for one service per month as well as performing for any other events that the church holds. They welcome new members to the choir with no auditions to join, just a willingness to learn and have fun.
My mind drifted off, wondering about the history of Timaru’s St Mary’s Anglican Church, imagining all the people who designed, supported, built, and maintained the building over the years.
St Marys Hall and the Wreck Monument, Right: Detail in the artwork - Photo Sharleyne Diamond 2025.
I feel for William Armson, the architect who designed it. He died before the church was completed and never got to see it come together. Many say it is a stunning example of Gothic Revival architecture and Armson’s best work. The building is a Category 1 Heritage Building, so its of national significance as well as local.
There’s an interesting photo of Stafford Street before the devastating fire of 1868 destroyed three-quarters of the CBD. The photo includes the first Anglican church, which was built of wood and dedicated in April 1861, the first in South Canterbury.
- The foundation stone for the current stone church was laid in 1880.
- The church was designed in the Gothic Revival style, incorporating local bluestone and Oamaru limestone, with Welsh slate roofing.
- The nave was completed in 1886, with the chancel, tower, and vestries finished later, in 1909 to 1910.
- Architect William Armson, Archdeacon Henry W. Harper, and carver Frederick George Gurnsey were pivotal in its design and creation. The intricate wooden carvings inside are stunning.
- A beautiful rose window faces the altar and is one of 35 stained glass windows inside.
- There are many plaques that recognise families who donated to the church to enable these to be purchased.
- The distinctive tower was inspired by Magdalen College, Oxford.
A few days ago, I received a thesis written about families who left Oxford to move to Canterbury in the 1850s. It has helped me learn about why people left, and why Anglican churches are such an important part of Canterbury’s history.
https://researcharchive.lincoln.ac.nz/handle/10182/15039
I’m looking forward to reading this thesis over the holidays and learning from the author Lindley Turnbull... and sharing my history hunt with you over the summer.
I had learned a little about the creation of the Anglican faith when I was doing a deep dive into our rose gardens here. The Tudors, the fights for the throne, and then the right to divorce… there is so much to learn through Timaru’s Anglican Church. Churches have and still are a social and cultural anchor for a particular community finding its feet in a new land. They provided something steady and recognisable from their old to their new home.
St Mary's Retrolens survey photo from 1856 show St Mary's neighbourhood at the time from above.
Many of the people who will have filled these pews at St Mary’s were not university graduates or landed elites, and were part of families who were shaped by effort rather than entitlement. They were like many Oxford-connected families who first settled in Christchurch or Lyttelton, then later moved to Timaru as the town developed.
I don't have a background in faith, so I don't really connect to the spiritual side of churches. And while I know that we usually don't talk about politics, finance or faith in public for good reasons... I can see how the church was and is more than the religion.
This Christmas, a visit to St Mary's has reminded me about the importance of looking after others, contributing to the community, caring, supporting charitable causes, serving on committees, and taking part in the public life of the town.
St Marys Church, Timaru, circa 1909, Timaru, by William Ferrier. Te Papa (O.051437)
Yesterday's service included a story about a snake, which inspired some history hunting this morning. It got me thinking about what matters to me. Sometimes I feel the focus of Christmas can be sentimentalised, commercialised. Christmas can also be a moment to remind us that what matters most... to reflect, be aware of how we choose to live, and what we value, and how we look after one another.
Christmas will be many things to many people. I would love to know what it means to you, what your traditions are, and what feels like Christmas to you.
Yesterday, our kitchen filled with the scent of speculoos spices. That smell took me straight back to parcels from the Netherlands, sent when our family couldn’t be with us but wanted us to know they were thinking of us. The treats inside were a way to stay connected. We were so excited to receive their gift that connected us across two sides of the world. The speculoos smell gives me a hit of nostalgia, the memories flood in, and feel more connected to those past and present.
For me, Christmas is about those connections and the memories. Carols playing on the stereo, followed by the familiar frenzy of house cleaning fo festive visitors. There is something grounding about these small rituals for me.
I am really looking forward to spending time with family and friends, and sharing Christmas with my husband, our two girls and 60 Fauths. For those of you who have lost family and friends this year, I am thinking of you, and send you all my love.
When we look at historic churches, it is easy to focus on stone, timber, windows and dates. But buildings like St Mary’s Anglican Church in Timaru were never just about architecture. They were about people. About belonging. About carrying familiar ways of living into an unfamiliar place.
Thank you to the St Mary’s Parish Parish Administrator Sharleyne Diamond for sharing resources with me, and Archdeacon of South Canterbury Ben Randall, for giving me a tour through the building a few years ago when I first started learning about the building and its history.
Merry Christmas everyone x
Saint Marys Church with tennis courts in the foreground Tiaki IRN692739 RN11 008729 G PA Group 00103ThePress 1907 nlnzimage
Here's a letter by Archdeacon Harperin 1881...
"We have now made a successful start in regard to our parish buildings. The vicarage is complete, a well designed structure in brick; close by it a spacious School Church, with room for five hundred, to be used as a Church until the completion of the nave of St. Mary's. Liberal subscriptions have come in, and a design for the new church accepted, but not without much opposition. I was anxious to take advantage of the general enthusiasm shown by Church people, and to get their consent to a plan of the best possible style and material, and of sufficient size to provide for an increasing population, which need not be completed at once. In Westland I came across a young English architect, W. G. Armson, who built some wooden churches for me, now in Christchurch, where he has established a good business. The Vestry agreed to my proposal to employ him and, after some time, during which I had many consultations with him, he completed a very fine design in Early English style, of which the Nave, with accommodation for seven hundred, would suffice for some time to come. In Timaru we have, close at hand, quarries of a purple grey dolerite, excellent for the main fabric, very hard, but taking a fine finish when hammered, and, at Oamaru, within fifty miles, a granular limestone, of creamy colour, easily worked, for the interior." - Archdeacon Harper December 10th, 1881
Saint Mary's Anglican Church, Timaru, with crowds of people and a motor car out the front. The Press (Newspaper) :Negatives. Ref: 1/1-008664-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/29947796
The first St Mary's School Room on Bank Street (about where the red cross hall is), was completed in MArch 1879, wooden and plaster building was designed by architect Francis Wilson, From Post Office Tower looking south Timaru circa 1904 Dunedin by Muir and Moodie Te Papa C014394. Its replacement was built beside the church and opened 7 September 1929. Opened in 1929, it carries a foundation stone proudly dated 25 November 1928 — something interestingly that the neighbouring church can't be found. With its Gothic battlements, oriel window, and carved cross, the hall is a beauty in its own right, even if it can be overshadowed by its big sister, St Mary’s Church.
Inside St Mary's during a gunea pig show - Photo Roselyn Fauth 2025. St Mary’s Hall, been the lively heart of the Anglican community and a close companion to neighbouring St Mary’s Church. Designed in the Collegiate Gothic style by the renowned local architects Turnbull & Rule, the hall was constructed in reinforced concrete with elegant plaster detailing. Its castellated parapet, central oriel window, and graceful arched entrance give it the look of a medieval college – a style chosen to reflect its role in education and fellowship.
St Marys Hall up on the hill on the left the church on the right 2021 Photo By Roselyn Fauth
Edinburgh Portrait Gallery, St Mary's Church, Timaru (1871). Hocken Digital Collections, accessed 10/09/2025, https://hocken.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/52118
St Mary's Anglican Church, Timaru 1894 - Photo by William Ferrier. The New Zealand Graphic and Ladies Journal, 30 June 1894, p.616. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections NZG-18940630-0616-01. No known copyright restrictions
Timaru, 1902, Timaru, by Melvin Vaniman. Purchased 2024. Te Papa (O.051719)
Timaru. From the album Scenes of New Zealand, circa 1880, Timaru, by Messrs. F. Bradley & Co. Te Papa (O.042400)
St Mary's Church, Timaru, New Zealand, 1912, Timaru, by Muir & Moodie. Purchased 1998 with New Zealand Lottery Grants Board funds. Te Papa (PS.002215)
Sources
https://www.pressreader.com/new-zealand/the-timaru-herald/20161126/281797103597660
https://www.heritage.org.nz/list-details/328/St%20Mary's%20Church%20(Anglican)
Book, 2010. John Button, Love and Faithfulness – Stories of St Mary’s Timaru 1860-2010