It was a beautiful day. The church is set back from the road. The church is actually in the middle of the cemetery. The trees in the front hide the church a bit. I think it helps. The church is actually on a very busy street, just passed where Papanui Road turns to Harewood Road. The original church was built in 1851 but this structure was built in about 1874.

You follow the walkway around the east side of the church. In fact the walkway turns but if you walk forward, the Rowntree grave is directly in front, almost to the next walkway.

When I found this grave a couple of days ago you couldn’t even tell any of the words on it the lichen had grown so thick. I had scraped it off with a credit card some, but you can still see it needed cleaning. Robertson’s told me I could use a wire brush in the rough sides of the stone, but hot water and soap was what I needed to use on the front. It did take a while and the letters are painted in the cut grooves. I was kind of taking the white paint off as I washed, but if I didn’t scrub kind of hard you couldn’t see the words anyway because of the lichen growing in the groves.

You can read it much better now. There was a gardener who I spoke to afterwards…Julian…he is a retired school teacher (47 years in elementary school, and I thought Howd’s 33 years was pretty impressive.) He volunteers to keep up the cemetery. His grandfather was also buried here and he goes to this church. There are also bells that ring in the tower. I am going to try to get in to see them. Church is held on Sunday morning at 8:00 a.m. and 10:00. and we are going to try to go to a meeting. I am playing the organ for the Cashmere Ward at 9:30 a.m. and as the elderly Maori man said, “We haven’t heard the organ play in this church for several years.” I feel a real pressure to be there to play.