Country Churches of NZ 132. St. Paul's and St. John's, Arrowtown, Central Otago

I wrote and illustrated Country Churches of New Zealand. It was published in 2002 by New Holland, Publishers and is still on sale in bookshops. The publishers have kindly agreed to me re-publishing some of the book’s images and descriptions in this blog.

ST. PAUL'S & ST. JOHN'S, ARROWTOWN

Despite a continuous tourist onslaught, Arrowtown, unlike Queenstown, is unspoilt.
Two uniquely paintable churches survive enhanced from its gold town origins. The first, St. Paul's, is a plain porch and nave Anglican affair in timber built in 1871, just nine years after the first gold was found in the Arrow River.

Stained-glass memorial windows were added in 1973 and 1992 apart from which the pretty church is unchanged from the day it opened.

Across Berkshire Street is the Presbyterian St John's. This is the note I made in my sketchbook: 'Superb! Framed between enormous wellingtonias and mellowly glowing from sunlight reflected off the forecourt. If there were nothing else in Arrowtown those wellingtonias, planted around 1880, would be worth coming to see; and they allowed me to render a special emphasis of contrast to the intriguing 1873 stone church. The stones of St. John's were dressed and laid by Chinese miners and its timbers came from near Glenorchy at the alpine end of Lake Wakatipu.'

© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz
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