The Great Adventure: Day Three: Kerikeri Harbour

On the way back to the place we had rented outside Kerikeri we stopped at the harbour at Kerikeri to see the Stone Store which is the oldest surviving stone building in New Zealand. Built between 1832 and 1836, its walls are made of basalt lava from the bed of the Kerikeri River. The arches, quoins and keystones were made of imported Sydney sandstone, which was much easier to dress than Kerikeri basalt.

 

   

Kemp House (immediately above) and the Stone Store are the only survivors from the Church Missionary Society's second Anglican mission to New Zealand, founded in 1819 on land granted to the Reverend Samuel Marsden by the powerful Nga Puhi chief, Hongi Hika. Kemp House is the oldest surviving European building in New Zealand.  Kemp House was built by the Reverend John Gare Butler in 1821-22 as a mission house. From 1824-31 the house was occupied by the lay missionary George Clarke and from mid-1832 by blacksmith and lay missionary lames Kemp and his family. The mission was closed in 1848, but the Kemps stayed on, eventually buying the house from the CMS. Their descendants lived there until 1974 when Ernest Kemp presented the house and its contents to the New Zealand Historic Places Trust.

 

  

  

One for CJ

 

 Jumping into water seems to be a major passtime in New Zealand - see Leaps of Faith on this blog and Pauline's resent, and spectacular, posting Te Arai. This was pretty tame stuff but is just part of what the kids do on their way home from school!