St John's Church, East Tamaki

Built in 1860, this is an old church, for New Zealand. It sits on a lonely hill in South Auckland, but  recently industrial buildings have come close. When it was an isolated church,  Black Magic rituals were practiced. In 1965 it was burnt after a Black Mass but has since been restored. The  flood-lighting, as in the picture, probably deters witches and such from attending here again. The dog and I have wandered  at night and heard no chains rattling, or howling, by demon or beast. There is some "moaning", which we diagnosed as coming from cows behind the stone walls. The church sits in farm-land called "Hampton Park". Rev Gideon Smales wanted to make it a grand English Estate and had 8 kilometers of walls built from volcanic scoria, which abounds here. The stone mason who built the church was also responsible for the farm walls. Auckland is built on a major volcanic field. Currently "inactive" volcanoes, but the most recent, called Rangitoto, is the biggest of them and only about 800 years old. Scoria had to be cleared from the fields and building a church seemed a good way to get rid of the rocks. Hampton Park is now a bit of a mess, but there is a scheme to restore it as a park one day. The surrounding factories and the nearest centre, Otara, would be improved by a park for people to stroll in. There is a natural amphitheatre in the lava rocks, which might be appropriate for "rock concerts", if it were cleaned up a bit, as nobody lives near here.

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John Wattie Stereo Photography