Cultural Significance

This historic place was registered under the Historic Places Act 1993. The following text is from the original Historic Place Assessment Under Section 23 Criteria report considered by the NZHPT Board at the time of registration. Cultural: Material submitted indicates that the buildings has a significant social and cultural value. The Church is still used regularly for services and meetings. Spiritual: This church has been a focus of Maori Anglican spirituality since 1885.

Physical Significance

This historic place was registered under the Historic Places Act 1993. The following text is from the original Historic Place Assessment Under Section 23 Criteria report considered by the NZHPT Board at the time of registration. Architectural: This is a simple and well-proportioned timber Gothic country church. It has almost no exterior decoration but preserves a fine interior which has valuable Maori decorative features.

Detail Of Assessed Criteria

This historic place was registered under the Historic Places Act 1993. The following text is from the original Historic Place Assessment Under Section 23 Criteria report considered by the NZHPT Board at the time of registration. (g) The technical accomplishment or value, or design of the place: DATE: 1885 ARCIDTECT: Unknown STYLE CODE: 97 DESIGN: Victorian Country Church, Timber Gothic This pleasant country church was built in 1885 and, from the outside, looks like a typical timber Gothic building, preserving the clean lines and good proportions of the style. There are almost no decorative features on the exterior except for arched mouldings over the door and windows. This indicates a strict economy of design, as does the relatively small number of windows. The plan is simple: a basic gabled rectangle, with a smaller gabled sanctuary at the east end, and two gabled 'transepts' which are, in fact, the entry porch at one end and a small side room at the other. The church is framed in timber and clad in rusticated weatherboards with a corrugated iron roof. The west end of the church is capped by a fine belfry in shingled totara. INTERIOR: The interior is impressive, with fine tongue-and-groove panelling and, most notably, good curved-frame scissor trusses. A notable (and rare) feature of the interior are the passages from the Maori Bible which are incised in Medieval lettering at the springing line of arches and along the top of the walls. The windows themselves have the usual Gothic style arch, and there are two stained glass windows at the west end of the church. COMPARATIVE: A comparative survey of country churches in the Hawkes Bay area shows quite a variation in the same generic type. The following churches, for instance, are all Category II and illustrate the persistence of the style from the 1860s to the 1920s. St Matthew's Church in Tuparoa was built in 1887-88 and is very similar in design to the Waipatu church. St Andrew's in Tolaga Bay is also Category II and is designed as a variation of the same basic type. St Mary's, Tokomaru Bay (1863), St Mary's church, Tikitiki (1924-26); St Paul's, Queen Street, Gisborne; St Mathias, Waima Road, Gisborne; and St Mary's, Matawai, are also variations of the same type, and demonstrate that, comparatively, St Matthew's in Waipatu, with its rich heritage as a Maori church, is a good candidate for classification. A Category II is recommended.