132 | St Oswalds Church: T&D Construction T T Kelly Deks Landmark church lovingly restored St Oswald’s Memorial Church was built in 1927 by local farmers Charles and Jessie Murray. COMMUNITY The restoration of earthquake-damaged St Oswald’s Memorial Church at Wharanui is set to return a well-loved facility to the local community and honour two much-loved sons – one the son of the church’s original builder and the other of a current trustee and driver of the repair and restoration project. St Oswald’s Memorial Church was built in 1927 by local farmers Charles and Jessie Murray. Seeing the need for a local centre for fellowship within this growing community, the couple built the church in memory of their son Hector, who had contracted tuberculosis and died three years earlier aged 19 while convalescing in Switzerland. For nearly 100 years, St Oswald’s Memorial Church has been a notable roadside landmark, centrally located between Blenheim and Kaikōura, and a natural stopping point for travellers on State Highway 1. Substantial damage from the 7.8 magnitude Kaikōura earthquake of 2016 rendered the church inaccessible, and the Anglican diocese, declining to restore it, returned the church to Charles’ and Jessie’s great-grandson, Leicester Murray, who formed the St Oswald’s Memorial Trust to drive the repair of this important historic building. “Our first challenge was actually to ascertain whether the building was in fact repairable,” Leicester says. “We engaged Structex engineering consultants from Christchurch, who had a lot of experience with un-reinforced stone structures, and they prepared a report, which found the building was repairable. Structex was then further engaged to come up with a repair strategy, which took a lot of time and a lot of thought from their behalf, but they did it.” The first step was to realign the stone walls of the church, and the development of this strategy, as well as a Plan B and Plan C, took six years of planning. Leicester says the actual realignment on site took 45 minutes, undertaken by Blenheim’s T&D Construction and overseen by Structex. “It went like clockwork,” Leicester says. Once the building was square, it was scaffolded and wrapped, a process which, as well as securing and weatherproofing the building, allowed for the T&D Construction team to carry on with their work without the distraction of passing vehicles that were all expressing their appreciation of the project with toots and hollers. Leicester was working on this project alongside his wife Laura and son Wilson, but in 2022, Wilson was tragically killed in a motor vehicle accident on his way back to Canterbury University from Wharanui. “ Wilson really believed in this project and felt St Oswald’s was a part of him,” Leicester says. “We believed we needed to honour the intention in which it was built. When we lost Wilson, it drove that home even more. We could understand what drove Charles and Jessie to build St Oswald’s.” With the building now realigned, reroofed, and earthquake strengthened, the scaffolding and wrap are down and from the outside, the repair looks complete. However, with the amount of glue and compound in the walls, it is necessary to let the structure dry out as much as possible before continuing with the internal restoration. This will start after summer. The church has 11 stained-glass windows, and two of these have gone to Christchurch for repair. One window installed in memory of Rewi and Jean Murray, is full of the flora and fauna of the area. Another installed in memory of a local child features St Francis of Assisi depicted with animals and birds. Now under the ownership of the St Oswald’s Memorial Trust, the church will be interdenominational, with services and events approved under the trust’s discretion. Leicester says any application for use of the church will be seen favourably.
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