Christ Church

Christ Church is New Zealand's oldest surviving church, built in 1836 in what was then the settlement of Kororareka. The small white timber building stands on a hill above The Strand, its exterior walls still marked by musket ball holes from the fighting of 1845 — the most vivid physical reminder of the colonial conflicts that shaped New Zealand's early history.

The interior is simple and well-preserved. A small graveyard surrounds the church, with headstones for European settlers, whalers, and missionaries from the 1830s onward. The church is still used for regular services. Free to enter outside services; the churchyard is always open. Allow at least 20 minutes to read the headstones and absorb the churchyard's history.

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A story
The musket ball holes in Christ Church's walls date from 1845, when Hone Heke — a Māori chief who had been one of the first signatories of the Treaty of Waitangi — led an attack on the British garrison at Russell and famously chopped down the British flagpole on Flagstaff Hill for the first of four times. The church survived; the flagpole did not.

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