St Peter's Church, Te Kopuru

Just outside of Dargaville is this wee church. St Peter's Church in Te Kopuru stands alongside the main street through town. A meeting was held in 1864 in the Auckland Diocesan by Bishop Selwyn a discussion came up about the districts outside of town. 

A committee was appointed which mapped out all of the country's distrcits and a Rev. F. Gould was put in charge of the Kaipara region. To start off with he visited the area quarterly with the services being held outdoors or in folks houses. 

In 1873 a dicussion was held by the employees at the local sawmill to talk about matters affecting the community including the possibility of erecting a building to be used as the local church on Sundays and a meeting room during the week.

Photo taken by James Richardson

A gentleman who lived in the town donated the timber along with 200 volumes of books to the library. The men who worked at the sawmill also built the church outside of their daily working hours and it was built near the post office overlooking the wharf. Rev Gould moved to Paparoa who was then succeeded by Rev Baker in 1873 and then Rev Hitchcock in 1882. 

St Peter's is still being used today. Information taken from the Te Kopuru Community Page.

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