He had come out from England in 1864 as the pupil of Robert Speechly who had been appointed by George Gilbert Scott to supervise the building of Christ Church Cathedral.

[4] However, problems with the construction of the building led to Crisp returning to Britain in 1871 and Frederick Strouts was appointed as supervising architect in June of that year.

[2] The only alteration to the church structure has been the removal of a tie-beam and secondary arch to give a better view of the east window in 1896.

The church was registered by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust as a Category I heritage building on 2 April 1985 with registration number 294.

[10] The wooden building survived three major earthquakes in 2010/11 almost unscathed and is the only Anglican church that remained in use in the central city.

"[12] The earthquake referred to was the one that hit Christchurch on 5 June 1869, with Julius von Haast giving some scientific commentary.

[16] In March 2011, a Lenten service at St Michael's and All Angels Church was attended by Victoria Matthews, Bishop of Christchurch, and Kevin Rudd, Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs.

A temporary replacement was an organ built from parts of instruments damaged during World War II bombing raids on Britain.