Future of quake-damaged Marlborough church on shaky ground

February 19, 2018

St Oswald's Anglican Church has been offered to descendants of those who built it in the 1920s, but the cost of repairs is ungodly.

There are fears for the fate of a little church in Marlborough built in the 1920s if funds can't be found to repair damage done to it by the Kaikoura earthquake.

TVNZ1's Seven Sharp visited St Oswald's Anglican Church beside State Highway 1 in the hamlet of Wharanui between Seddon to Clarence, where the stone church's future is on shakey ground.

The door has been closed at St Oswald's since the November 2016 quake as it's now considered dangerous.

And with the Anglican Church deeming it not viable to repair, the church has been offered to the descendants of the farming couple who had it built back in the 1920s.

But the cost of repairs, likely to be well into six figures, could be described as "ungodly".

"I would love to see it rebuilt. But of course we can't do that as a diocese. We don't have the resource to do that," said Richard Ellena, Bishop of Nelson. 

That leaves Leicester Murray and his extended family staring down the financial reality while at the same time trying to honour the intent of his great grand parents Charles and Jessie Murray who erected the church in memory of a deceased son. 

Leicester Murray said the fate of the church if the family doesn't step in weighs heavy on his shoulders.

A Givealittle page has been set up to help restore St Oswald's to its former glory.


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