St Andrews Memorial Church

St Andrews Anglican Memorial Church at Maheno, c1986 and in 2010. See also the Maheno memorial cenotaph.

The Anglican Church of St Andrews was built with funds made available to the community by Cyril Nichols, brother of Colonel Joseph Cowie Nichols, of Kuriheka fame. The church was designed by Christchurch architect Richard Harmon (1896-1953) from drawings made by Cecil Wood (1878-1947).

It is built from locally quarried rock mainly from the Bedding Hill (bassalt and volcanically altered sandstone) quarry about 10km away to the South, a quarry from which a number of local buildings and walls etc have been built.

The West window is a memorial to the two sons, a brother and a cousin of Colonel Nichols who were killed in the First World War, and the east window was gifted by Cecil Teschemaker, in memory of his parents who were very early settlers of the district. Both are superb little windows.

The church is outstanding for its oregon timberwork, oak joinery, limestone carvings, exterior modeling and its hand-made tile roof. It has an organ tucked away in the bell tower, which is very unusual and pieces of masonry from a number of the world famous cathedrals in England, as a link to the old country.