Autumn at The Stone Store

We were out and about this morning enjoying the fresh Autumn air, not too hot not too cold and I felt this shot expressed what an awesome view this is of the Kerikeri Stone Store, St James Church and the Kemp Mission House.

This is the location where missionaries James Kemp, Francis Hall and John Butler lived, taught and preached as well as farmed and gardened. According to Maori historians, Ngati Miru, the people who first lived in this area were attacked and driven away by a war party of Ngapuhi.

I hope you enjoy your weekend :-)

It's a gardener's day

Photo taken near the Stone Store and Kemp Mission House in Kerikeri on a typical Spring day.

Winter always likes to throw out one last cold blast and that is exactly what we have coming today. Hopefully it's over and done with quickly so we can get on with warmer weather.

Linking up with Skywatch Friday.

The Kerikeri Mission House

Welcome to New Zealand's oldest surviving heritage building. The Kerikeri mission house was finished in 1822 as part of the mission station by the Church Missionary Society.

Samuel Marsden established the Anglican mission to NZ with lay preachers who lived in the Bay of Islands under the protection of Hongi Hika, the chief of the local Ngapuhi tribe. In 1819 Marsden purchased the land from the tribe and using Maori plus European labour instructed Reverend John Butler to erect the buildings under shelter of the Ngapuhi tribe or the local Kororipo Pa. They were interrupted by the Ngapuhi campaign under the Musket Wars.

The house is made mostly of Kauri. John Butler was sacked in 1823, then  George Clarke occupied the house until the early 1830s when the Ngapuhi had abandoned the Kororipo Pa but the mission station by that time didn't need any protection.  The house was then lived in by James and Charlotte Kemp in 1832 and later purchased by the Kemps and stayed in their family for 142 years until it was donated to the NZ Historic Places Trust.

Linking up with Skywatch Friday.