Cathedral could be closed by Christmas without quake cash

Saturday, 1 June 2024

St Peter's Cathedral needs urgent repair to bring it up to earthquake standard.

Kirikiriroa’s best-known cathedral is facing the spectre of permanent closure by year’s end if $22 million needed to strengthen the earthquake-prone building is not found.

As well as being the city’s most impressive place of worship, St Peter's Cathedral is home to the impressive organ employed at the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana at St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

It also has by far the best acoustics currently available in Hamilton, making it an ideal venue for choral and classical music concerts.

But such events - along with the frequent weddings and innumerable congregations - in the 108-year-old building could come to an end by Christmas if substantial progress is not made towards meeting regulatory safety requirements.

Will the community come to the rescue of Hamilton’s cathedral? Sam Edwards, the spokesman for a group raising funds for the quake-prone building hopes so.

The urgency came in the form of an official earthquake strengthening notice issued by the Hamilton City Council, which motivated the church parish to form a fundraising committee to get the ball rolling in the form of a launch event on May 25.

Spokesman for the group, Sam Edwards, said he hoped the $22 million figure for strengthening would be “small change” compared to the other recent and ongoing projects, such as the $80m Waikato Regional Theatre just up Victoria St, or the $90m plus Pā centre at Waikato University.

Built in 1915 and 1916 during World War I, St Peter’s Cathedral has been deemed a quake risk, and is in need of urgent reinforcing.

However he wanted to assure Hamiltonians the cathedral would not fall victim to the demolition crews that have marked the final chapter for many of the city’s best-loved buildings.

“The problem is that we have failed the test [of earthquake proofing] … In the first instance the cathedral would be closed by Christmas and would remain closed - but it would remain here because it has a heritage listing. We can’t pull it down.

Rather than holding any major fundraising events or projects, the committee would be taking a grassroots approach to collecting the required money.

“The committee is currently looking for major donors. The funding necessary will come out of the private world - there’s nothing coming from Government. Nothing coming even from the diocese, because the diocese is pretty poor.

The money needed to keep the Cathedral open would be coming from private donors, rather than taxpayers, Sam Edwards said.

“However, we also need the support of the community, because what people give, no matter how big it is, helps them be involved in the process - and that’s really important.”

Meanwhile the Cathedral Vestry, under the leadership of Dean Julian Perkins, had been making plans - including commissioning architectural and engineering tests and working drawings - to meet the requirements in a series of staged developments over the next two decades.

A big part of the solution would be the construction of two new additional sections of the building, which would effectively act as a brace for much of the superstructure on the northern and western sides.

The fate of St Peter’s counterpart in Christchurch, the ChristChurch Cathedral, in the 2011 earthquake will likely be on the minds of the church parish.

The strengthening work would also be accompanied by the addition of a steeple, that would be in keeping with the original designs of the building.

The cathedral and the hill on which it stands, known as Pukerangiora, are steeped in history and significance. It is believed to have never been the site of a pā due to it’s status as a sacred site for the people of Tainui waka, who moved to and lived in the area from about 1224 to 1824.

By 1864, however, settlers from the British Empire had started to arrive. Land confiscations began occurring throughout the region now known as Waikato. The militia moved in and skirmishes turned into war.

Locally, the watershed battle for Orakau Pa, in Kihikihi, ended with the British taking control. Shortly afterwards the 4th Waikato regiment moved to establish a redoubt on the summit of Pukerangiora

It was there that Lieutenant Colonel William Moule - the man who named Hamilton after Captain John Fane Charles Hamilton - delivered the first Waikato Anglican service on a table covered with a horse rug and a mess table cloth.

In 1867 the first Anglican church was built on Anglesea St near the base of Pukerangiora, but burned down before it was completed. A second followed in 1871 but was deemed too small and was sold to the Waikato Times in 1875.

A third church - the first St Peter’s - was built in 1876 at the base of the hill where the cathedral now stands, but the kahikatea rotted and it was condemned.

In 1900 a building fund was set up for a new St Peter’s church to be constructed at the top of the hill, and by 1914 a design in brick was ready, at the estimated cost of £10,000.

Because of World War I, costs escalated and it was finally decided to build in the newer but cheaper ferro concrete materials.

In 1915 the foundation stone was laid, and the church erected on the site of the redoubt, carefully retaining the remaining military earthworks underneath.

The church was, in a way, “a direct descendant of the Māori who used this hilltop, Pukerangiora, as a place where they came to pray and to communicate with each other,” Edwards said.

The cathedral is one of two in the city, the other being the Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary, across the river in Hamilton East. St Peter’s is now home to a large number of cultural taonga, including the Donald Barriball Memorial Chamber Organ that was used in the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, and subsequently gifted to the church by the Musica Sacra Trust in 2020.

The cathedral was “extraordinarily well endowed acoustically. We use it a lot for concerts.

“It’s a community unit - not just a church.”