St Stephen's Chapel, Auckland


The St Stephen's Chapel and its churchyard were registered on 1 September 1983 by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust as a Category I historic place with registration number 22. Designed by Frederick Thatcher, the chapel replaced an earlier one that had been built in 1844 by Sampson Kempthorne, which had collapsed in July 1845. Thatcher's chapel was opened in early 1857. The chapel is unique in that it was almost certainly built specifically as the place of signing of the constitution of the United Church of England and Ireland in New Zealand, and its floor plan is a Greek Cross as a symbol of the establishment of the church, whilst all other churches built for Bishop Selwyn use the traditional Latin cruciform plan.

Notable burials