St Patrick’s Church fire in Napier: The return of the kauri cross that fell 40 metres as it burned

Also present was Alan Rhodes, who, wondering if salvageable items might fall into the wrong hands – despite being Anglican and not from the church – the next morning grabbed the 6-7 pieces of kauri from where the cross landed, and stored them in his Marewa garage.

He told Hawke’s Bay Today he had mentioned them over the years, but “no one seemed interested”.

The St Patrick’s Church cross, which fell almost 40 metres in the collapse of the spire in the 1981 fire, and rested in broken pieces in a Napier man’s Marewa garage for 44 years until its restoration and return to the church. Photo / Doug Laing

That was until it reached the ears of parishioner Lynda Manglesen, who was baptised in the old church.

Noting that Wednesday was the anniversary of the opening of the old church on November 19, 1894, she said it meant a lot to her and her family, and she knew she had to do something when Rhodes told her: “I’ve got the cross in my garage, in pieces.”

The restored St Patrick’s Church cross and Alan Rhodes, who had its broken pieces in his Marewa garage for 44 years. Photo / Doug Laing

She marvelled how parishioner John Briggs and nephew Jamie Beale, a Hastings fireman, had the 2m-tall cross back together “in just three days”, setting in train plans to mark its return to the church.

Rhodes recalled he was digging a ditch on the sunny afternoon when his wife told him “they’d just burnt down St Pat’s Church”.

He headed for town, but found the length of Munroe St closed off as the fleet of fire trucks with flashing lights lined the streets as crews fought the fire.

Wife Tina’s choice of words may have reflected the assumption many leapt to, that it was another act in the turmoil of the 1981 Springbok Tour, with a nation split for and against a tour by a rugby team from South Africa, a republic torn by racist apartheid politics and upheaval.

The St Patrick’s Church fire at its height, as viewed from Munroe St. Photo / Fire & Emergency

It was, indeed, arson, but actually the work of an idle 15-year-old sitting with a friend wiling away the afternoon in a nearby cafe and thinking of something to do.

A hearing in the Children and Young Persons’ Court 11 months later would hear how the boy crossed the road, entered the church, and put a match to the bottom of the curtains in the confessional.

Discarding his box of matches into the pews, he returned to the cafe, told his mate what he’d done and sat and waited.

There was no sign of a fire taking hold, and, as a hearing in the Children and Young Persons’ Court was told in July the next year, he went back, recovered the matches, tried again, and again retired to the cafe.

Thinking again nothing was happening, the boys walked past the church and were halfway to Latham St when they heard the first of the fire engines.

Career firefighters with over 300 years’ service between them were at Wednesday’s blessing of the restored St Patrick’s Church cross from left Bill Beale, Mike Hurley, Peter Draper. Brent Single, Dennis Bristow. Dennis O’Leary (still serving) and Noel Brock. Photo / Doug Laing.

The fire was first reported at 3.46pm, as firefighters and the rest of the nation were watching the telecast from Christchurch of the first of the three tests between the Springboks and the All Blacks, and monitoring news reports of protest action on streets around the park and throughout the country.

Peter Draper, now retired, was on the first truck out of the station in Taradale Rd and recalled: “As we approached, we could see it was pretty well involved.”

After helping set up the first hoses, which would ultimately stretch up to two blocks away as the crews struggled with low water pressure, Draper would be playing the hose from atop the “aerial” ladder as the spire toppled into the street.

Brent Single, who has also been compiling history ahead of the Napier Fire Brigade’s 150 years commemoration next year, recalls there were multiple calls, sparks and smoking leading to confusion as to whether there may also have been other fires.

At the Hastings station, firefighters missed the last 20 minutes of the rugby when leaping to the call of duty after Napier station control room operator Trevor Billington rang Hastings operator Garry Woolhouse and said, apparently without embellishment: “Can you send me everything you’ve got? Our church is on fire.”

Among the firefighters who crossed the bridges to Napier was Dennis O’Leary, currently a Senior Station Officer intending to stretch his record Hastings stint to 50 years in 2026.

“I drove the first truck from Hastings,” he said. “We could see the smoke on the way.”

“When we arrived, there was very little water, we were struggling to maintain the pressure,” he said. “I remember seeing the tower collapse, and hearing the bell crash to the ground.”

“But, it was beyond saving when we first got there,” he said.

The tarmac of Station St beside the church had ignited, as had the front of a building across the road.

The bell was smashed, not reparable, but other items were salvaged by locals, including a broken wooden shamrock now held by the Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust and ornate lead window plates, probably imported from England and, as the gathering was told, probably now in Pahiatua.

The gathering at St Patrick’s Church in Napier on Wednesday as the catholic parish celebrated the return of the cross which fell to the ground when its 36.5 metres spire collapsed in the 1981 fire. Photo / Fire & Emergency

The charging of the teenager put to rest rumours that the fire was in any way linked to opposition to the tour, which opponents saw as supporting the apartheid regime in South Africa.

The catholic church in both countries expressed opposition, in New Zealand the Catholic Bishops Conference condemning it as against Christian principles and the good of New Zealand.

Mengelsen said it was at least the third fire at the church, and there’ve been others since.

St Patrick’s Church as it stood from 1894 to 1981, including through the Hawke’s Bay Earthquake of 1931.

The father of the offender told a judge the following year he wanted the court to punish the boy, who was thus convicted and placed in the care of the Department of Social Welfare.

Years later, a man went to the church and told the priest he had been that boy and of how, having served his penance, he took up an apprenticeship and turned his life around.

It’s understood that confession did not take place in the confessional.

Father Brian said the cross would stand in the church lobby as a “welcoming”, but can be moved and could be repositioned.

Doug Laing has been a reporter more than 50 years, more than 40 of them in Hawke’s Bay at the Central Hawke’s Bay Press in Waipukurau, the Daily Telegraph in Napier, and since 1999 at Hawke’s Bay Today, in Napier and Hastings.