He attended a funeral a week before it was permanently closed due to earthquake damage in 2011. His daughter was also married at the church. Parishioners have been worshipping in the congregation’s Kerry Hall with plans for a new church to be built on the site and part of the tennis court next to it.
Esther Ashby-Coventry/Stuff
Workers prepare the ground for more heavy machinery on Wednesday for the demolition of St Mary s Church in Pleasant Point. The Historic Place Category 2 heritage building, opened in 1889 and the original church building cost £750. The tower, clock and church bells were added later.
Father Graeme Blackburn had been drinking before he died from a blunt force head injury when his motorbike collided head-on with another vehicle and his helmet came off.
JOHN BISSET/Stuff
Pleasant Point’s St Mary s Church is to be demolished by the end of the year. It is hoped the new church will be built on the neighbouring tennis courts.
Just when the earthquake damaged St Mary’s Church, in Pleasant Point, will be demolished is up in the air as the Catholic Diocese takes control, but it is expected to be gone by the end of 2021. Catholic Diocese of Christchurch property and facilities co-ordinator Mary Curtis said no decision had been made on when the church would be bowled but ‘’it would definitely be by the end of the year’’.
CHRIS SKELTON
Catholic Diocese of Christchurch archivist Triona Doocey goes through some of the relics unearthed during demolition of the Catholic cathedral.
Demolition workers at Christchurch’s Catholic cathedral have unearthed ancient holy relics and bones stored in two Greggs coffee jars that have remained undisturbed beneath the historic building for more than 40 years. The holy relics, which include bones purportedly from saints and apostles of Jesus, were placed in coffee jars, put in a metal container and then buried beneath an inch of concrete in the cathedral in April 1975. The relics were purchased in the 19th century by Bishop John Grimes, Christchurch’s first Catholic bishop, during his travels in Europe to raise money for a new cathedral.
But two bronze angels – in round panels set at each end of the altar in the Holy Souls Chapel and dating back to when the cathedral was first opened in 1905 – were found to have gone missing from the site when the altar was removed last month. “Obviously at some point over the 10 years someone thought that they’d pop in and take the bronze angels,” said Doocey.
She intends to publicise the loss on social media: “I’m hoping someone will go ‘So-and-so has those in their room’.”
The decision was made to demolish the heritage-listed Basilica in 2019, with the then bishop Paul Martin citing the multi-million-dollar expense and danger of restoration. Demolition finally got under way in October last year, with an archaeologist on site to support in the retrieval of sacred or surprising objects.