St Michael's is the successor to the first church in Nelson province, and was probably the first memorial church in New Zealand. The current building was constructed in 1866, replacing an earlier small country church built in 1843. The 1866 building was designed by explorer and surveyor Thomas Brunner as a memorial to Captain F. H. Blundell. Blundell was an early Wairau valley runholder who died in 1865 and was buried in the churchyard. The original roof shingles have been replaced by corrugated iron but there has been little other alteration.
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Photograph by Jock Phillips
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