In the nineteenth century, Caversham was the largest of the nine boroughs surrounding Dunedin. Caversham had strong local industries – including a brewery, gasworks, and a quarry. In addition, the immigration barracks and the Caversham Industrial School were located there. Faith was an important element in community life. There were an estimated 1,300 Presbyterians in Caversham. Worship in Caversham began at a ‘Union Church’ where Christian denominations worshipped together, but by the close of the 1860s, Caversham Presbyterians found they had sufficient numbers to form their own church. Within Dunedin’s Presbyterian administration, Caversham was under the charge of St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, and with St Andrew’s, Caversham’s Presbyterians had their first discussions about ‘pulpit supply’. The St Andrew’s congregation presented Caversham with their old church, as they had built a new church. The First Church presbytery provided funds for the church to be dismantled and re-erected on a site on Ranfurly Street in Caversham. Caversham became a sanctioned charge in 1874, and in February 1875 Reverend J. N. Russell became the first Minister. Caversham was a busy suburb with some special demands for pastoral care – the Caversham Benevolent Institution and the Caversham Industrial School were located in the suburb. After five years, Rev Russell retired due to ill health and was replaced by Reverend J. Murdoch Frazer. By November 1881, the Caversham congregation were looking at a new site and building. A sketch plan was submitted to the meeting, proposing a cruciform church, with a tower and spire, to seat 500 people and to be built of bluestone with whitestone facings. The building committee planned to call for tenders when they had collected £750. On 27 January 1882, fire destroyed the first Caversham Presbyterian Church, and many of its early records. The building committee had already entered into a contract for a stone church at the cost of £2,500, with an additional £500 for fittings. Architect Thomas Bedford Cameron advertised for tenders on 3 May 1882. David Calder was the contractor. The foundation stone was laid on 21 October 1882, with full Masonic ceremony. Reverend Frazer said that this was ‘a building worthy of the name, the house of God.’ Such beautiful buildings were, Frazer said, ‘an influence for good’ through their beauty, and said much about the character of the people ‘noble people, noble buildings’ nowhere more true than in ‘our churches and chapels.’ To travellers approaching a village, the ‘spire pointing heavenwards is an assurance of safety, so is the reality thus symbolised an assurance of safety to us.’ Caversham Presbyterian Church opened on 19 August 1883. The building committee released a statement to the Otago Daily Times: the church was 80 feet (24.38 metres) in length, including the vestibule, and 40 feet wide (12.19 metres). The height of the ceiling from the floor to the flat ceiling was 28 feet (8.53 metres). The external walls were built of bluestone from the Water of Leith quarries, with all angles, buttresses, windows, and doorjambs built of white Oamaru stone. The tower and spire stand 75 feet high (22.86 metres), and were built of Oamaru stone. The roof was covered with ‘Countess slates’. The walls were pointed with cement. The internal walls and ceilings were plastered. On the ceiling, two ‘large sunlights’ of ’30 burners each’ supplied the light, along with three large ‘centre flowers’. ‘The eight principals stand some 9in [22.86 centimetres] below the level of the plastered ceiling, and perforated, forming each space between into sunk panels’ which lighten the appearance of the ceiling. The choir platform had space for twenty people, being 16 feet by 10 feet (4.87 by 3.04 metres), and raised 2 feet 6 inches (75 centimetres) above the church floor, with seats all round and a reading desk. All seats were built of white pine. Over the front entrance was a gallery finished with ‘ornamental cast-iron railing’. The gallery is fitted with pews with seating for 100. The paper reported that ‘[t]he external appearance of the church presents a neat and handsome structure, and is situated in a central and commanding position in the borough. At the front of the building there is a neat iron railing.’ Ten years later, a new hall, designed by James Louis Salmond, and built by Morrison and McKechnie, was opened on a site next to the church. By 1913, the hall was stretched to capacity. Another hall was built on east of the church. Mrs David Baxter donated £250 towards the cost, and asked that the hall be a memorial to her late husband. The hall was known as the Baxter Hall. Jubilee celebrations saw an appeal for a new hall. T.K. Sidey (later Sir Thomas) promised £1,000 for the hall. The new hall was opened in 1930 as the Sidey-Dutton Hall, built at a cost of £5,000. Electric light was installed in the church in 1916. In the 1920s, the white pine in the interior was borer ridden, and much was replaced. In 1937, the toilet and brick boiler house at the rear of the church was built. A choir assembly area was built in 1959 – in 1998, this was partitioned into the minister’s office and study. In 1951, the current pipe organ, a memorial to those who served in the Second World War, was installed, taking up the entre left side of the chancel. The organ blower house was built at the same time. In 1993, due to problems with erosion of the Oamaru stone, the Oamaru stone buttress elements were replaced with white concrete. Caversham Presbyterian Church has several significant memorial windows. In 1923, Mrs Anderson donated a window in memory of her nephew Lieutenant Boyes, killed at Armentieres in France in 1916. The lesson on the window is ‘Be thou faithful even unto Death and I will give thee a Crown of Life.’ Lieutenant Boyes had been secretary of the Caversham Sunday School. The Coombs Window, dedicated to Elizabeth Coombes (nee Boyes) was unveiled on 1 September 1946. The Simmons Window was installed near the pew where Mrs Violet Simmons sat every Sunday until her death in March 1946. The window was made by J. Brock and erected in 1946. The Margaret Window, a memorial to Christina Margaret Sullivan (daughter of then-minister Reverend C.M. Sullivan) who with two friends died during their attempt to cross the Copland Pass in April 1948, as installed in August of that year. The window was made by J. Brock and unveiled by Dunedin mayor Sir Donald Cameron. The Sullivan Window is a memorial to Reverend C.M. Sullivan, minister to the parish from 1935 until 1955, but involved with the church and community until his death in 1965. The window, made by I. Miller, was unveiled on 26 May 1968. The Iona Window, that replaced the original rose window, was installed in ‘thankfulness for and as a memorial to’ the men and women of the parish who served in the Second World War. The window features the St Martins Cross which stands by the west door of the abbey on the Isle of Iona. The Iona Window was installed in 1946, coinciding with the completion of the restoration work by the Iona community. The Dutton window, installed in the apse on 25 August 1946, depicts the Good Shepherd, and was provided by the Dutton Family Memorial Fund. The Duttons had been associated with the church since 1888, with Reverend Daniel Dutton the minister from 1888 until his retirement in 1920. The Dutton window was designed by J. Brock. In 2012, Presbyterians in southern Dunedin’s Coastal Unity Parish, decided to merge the St Clair and Caversham congregations into one centred around the Caversham church site, and the potential costs of earthquake strengthening raised the question of the future of the church building. In 2014, Caversham Presbyterian Church remains the centre for Presbyterian worship in Caversham and South Dunedin.