Sidney Hirst, a Yorkshire-born carpenter, constructed the building, completing it in late 1853.

The timber church has significant technical interest in that the method of its original construction did not require nails.

In the 1950s, efforts to protect the church played a role in the establishment of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust.

[1] An arsonist destroyed about a third of the interior of the building in 1989, but it has since been restored from photos and architectural drawings.

This article about a church building or other Christian place of worship in New Zealand is a stub.