St Luke's Vicarage - Tautahi Rua Koiwi

An unlikely but actually well matched pair of bedfellows on urban Kilmore street are the Urupa (burial site) of a great 18th century Ngai Tahu chief, and a dilapidated 19th century Anglican Vicarage, both protected by Heritage New Zealand and with a history intertwined and significant to the entire region.

Te Potiki Tautahi was an early Ngai Tahu settler in the Christchurch/Banks Peninsula area, some 100 years before the arrival of Pakeha, and long after the ancient Waitaha had left, and Ngati Mamoe had been chased away. His hapu (sub-tribe) lived mainly on the peninsula and he was the leader of food gathering expeditions to the Christchurch swamplands. Their base was on the Otakaro (Avon) river in a spot which came to be known as Tautahi Pa. When Te Potiki Tautahi died on one of these trips, he was buried at the spot, not far from the Pa, creating a kaika/ururpa/koiwi resting place right here.

Following his interment, the Maori name for the entire area was shortened from his name, gradually, until it became 'Otautahi', the title still the official alternative to "Christchurch" today. Tautahi Pa continued throughout the 18th and 19th Century to accommodate travelling Maori and around 1850 became "The Bricks", an early trading post between Maori and Pakeha, that site being on modern day Oxford Terrace near the fire station on Kilmore Street.

Whether or not the Anglican Pakeha knew this was a special place or not, they chose it for the build of the St Luke's Church in 1868. The two storey wooden vicarage was constructed right next to Tautahi's grave; apparently his bones were unearthed during the 1870s, but no one knows if they were reinstated. Regardless, the site is now wahi tapu (sacred), recognised for its undeniable connection to the nearby pa, the early interface between Maori and Pakeha, the birthplace of modern Christchurch.

When St Luke's of the Evangelist was built, it was a milestone in the life cycle of the Parish of Christchurch, the second Anglican Church in the fledgling British Settlement, after St Michaels and All Angels. The designer was Robert Speechly. When the 2011 earthquakes saw the end of St Luke's Church, the Christchurch City Council went in to bat for the vicarage, providing a heritage assessment which outlined the value of the 'Ecclesiologically-correct Gothic Revival with local adaptations' building, and another for the remaining Bell Tower and St Luke's site. Speechly's 'hood over the entrance' is said to be notable.

The reason St Luke's itself fell over in the 2011 earthquakes is that it was a 1908 masonry replacement for the original timber church. That design, also gothic revival, had been by Cyril Mountfort, son of prolific Christchurch architect, Benjamin Mountfort. Many creations by Mountfort senior and junior were amongst the fallen buildings, the Shaky Isles demonstrating their powers over a century too late for the lauded architects to make allowances.

So the plan to preserve the vicarage remains, with it in private ownership, Council having contributed to the expected $1m repair bill, with the intention of creating a family home.

For visitors to Otautahi, this multi-layered historical site is just over the river from the new Margaret Mahy playground and Memorial Park.

Image Credit: Luke's Church, Christchurch, New Zealand, 1900-1910, Christchurch, maker unknown. Gift of Patricia M. Mitchell, 1989. Te Papa