The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a large inner city church, erected in 1880 to 1881 to serve an extensive parish in the western part of Auckland. Its associated hall was originally constructed in 1885 as a temporary church to replace the city's first Anglican place of worship - St Paul's - and was moved from Eden Crescent to the site for use as a hall in 1898. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre replaced a building of the same name, which had been erected as a mortuary chapel in the Anglican section of the Symonds Street Cemetery in 1865. After a substantial parish extending northwards to Helensville was constituted in 1870 - encompassing Auckland's main prison and hospital on the fringes of the colonial settlement - the building was used as a parish church. Initially enlarged for the purpose, the structure proved insufficient for an increasing congregation as Grafton and its neighbouring area developed rapidly during the economic boom of the 1870s from a rural backwater to a prosperous inner suburb. Its location in Auckland's main cemetery, which accommodated the dead of many faiths, may also have been seen as increasingly unsuitable. In August 1879, the current site was purchased by the Anglican authorities on a ridge-top location, close to major commercial buildings at the junction of Symonds Street and Khyber Pass Road, and in an area of large opulent dwellings. Part of the reason given for not locating the new church beside Symonds Street - then one of Auckland's major routes to the south - was to avoid traffic noise. The site appears to have earlier been used as farmland. Edward Mahoney and Son had previously been asked to submit plans for a new church in January of the same year. Mahoney's was a prominent architectural practice that had made a name for itself in church design in Auckland, notably but not exclusively for the Catholic authorities. A construction tender by John James was accepted on 23 October 1880. Less than a year before, James had built St Stephen's Presbyterian Church, Ponsonby - a smaller timber church in the Gothic Revival Style, also to the design of Edward Mahoney and Son. The corner stone for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was laid by Bishop William Cowie (1831-1902) on 9 November 1880. Cowie had been appointed the first Bishop of Auckland at a consecration service in Westminster Abbey, London, in 1869, and was responsible for a considerable wave of church building until his death in 1902. During construction work the building was lengthened by 4.25 metres (14 feet) to accommodate 680 adults, giving a completed length of 39.9 metres (131 feet) and a width of 16.7 metres (55 feet). The Church was formally opened for worship on 29 June 1881. To avoid cost, the seating from old St Sepulchre's was transferred to the new building, as was the old bell. Four stained glass windows were also transferred, commemorating important parishioners and benefactors. These are considered to be the earliest surviving examples of stained glass from Anglican churches in colonial Auckland. In 1903 the previous St Sepulchre's was sold and relocated for use as a Baptist Church. It survives as the Girl Guide Hall at 132 Grange Road Mt Eden. Construction of the new church cost over ₤ 3000 , and it was to be several years before the parish of Holy Sepulchre could afford an organ (1896), church hall (1898), or parsonage (1920). Apart from the windows transferred from the earlier church, commemorative stained glass was introduced elsewhere between 1883 and 1890 through individual donations. Other significant donations included the church's distinctive pulpit, carved with representations of New Zealand flora, which is considered to have been given by the architect Hector Pierce in memory of his father G.P. Pierce. Pierce, senior, was the general manager of the New Zealand Insurance Company for 30 years and a prominent parishioner. He is further commemorated (with his wife) in a stained glass window in the sanctuary. Several pohutukawa trees and other plants were grown to the north of the church, beautifying its grounds, and are likely to have been planted soon after the church's construction. The first incumbent of the new church was the Reverend Benjamin Dudley, who had been secretary to Bishop George Augustus Selwyn - New Zealand's first Anglican Bishop - from 1865 to 1867, and also served as secretary and treasurer to the Melanesian Mission, based in Auckland. Dudley was vicar to the earlier Church of the Holy Sepulchre during its use as a parish church, and was made an Archdeacon in 1883. The lack of a hall on the site in which to conduct Sunday school and church social events was remedied in March 1898. At a cost of ₤105, the vestry purchased the building used by St Paul's parish as a temporary church and school in Eden Crescent. The structure had been erected in 1885 as a result of the demolition of the St Paul's Church in Emily Place - Auckland's premier Anglican church - and was used for worship until the opening of its permanent replacement on Lower Symonds Street in 1896 (St Paul's Church (Anglican), NZHPT Registration # 650, Category I). The temporary building was moved and re-erected to the south the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1898 under the supervision of Messrs Langley and Son, where its transepts were extended for classrooms, and a small lean-to kitchen and bathroom were added on either side. The remodelled structure was formally opened in July 1898 by Bishop Cowie. The Sunday School soon had 325 children with 30 teachers, and the building also provided rooms for the Church Club and gymnastics club. Both the church and hall saw modifications in ensuing years. The hall was relocated from its position fronting Burleigh Street to its current site in 1919, allowing an adjacent vicarage to be constructed to the south. Alterations to the hall at this time included the addition of a basement containing a new kitchen and bathroom facilities, an additional room on the building's east side, and a raised stage in the hall's southern end. The earlier transepts also appear to have been heavily modified, with the removal of gables on one side and their conversion to an arcaded aisle on the other. This work was the responsibility of architect Noel Bamford. Alterations to the church in the 1920s included the provision of a robing room in the west end of the nave. In 1938 a large altar 'of the type ... used in England in the mediaeval period' was introduced (but has since been replaced). A vestry on the south side of the chancel was extended and transformed into a Lady Chapel in the same year by architect Charles Towle, 'the mediaeval effect - increased by the painting of the roof timbers in gold, silver, blue, green and red'. Seating accommodation consists of '18 oaken chairs'. The prominent nature of the church was to prove a problem in the Second World War (1938-1945), when its steeple had to be dulled so that it was less visible to potential enemies approaching the Waitemata Harbour. The church and hall remained a centre for community activity, with the hall being used for dances for young people through the war and into the 1960s. As outlying districts acquired churches of their own and the character of the immediate neighbourhood became commercial rather residential, however, parish life declined. The parish's last vicar was appointed in 1957. In 1963 the Auckland City Mission took over the church, which then became the headquarters of the Holy Sepulchre Mission District. In August 1969, Bishop E. Gowing, assisted by the Anglican Maori Missioner the Reverend Kingi Ihaka (1921-1993), later Sir Kingi Ihaka, dedicated the church as the Auckland Anglican Maori Mission. This reflected a major movement of Maori from rural to urban centres during the 1950s and 1960s, particularly to inner suburban housing vacated by wealthier residents. The church hall subsequently became Tatai Hono Marae (this place where all meet as one), reflecting its function as a meeting place for peoples of different iwi affiliation and origins. Ihaka, who served as Anglican Maori Missioner from the church until 1976, was later made Archdeacon of Tai Tokerau and from 1981 to 1984 was vicar general of the bishopric of Aotearoa. He also trained Maori choirs and cultural groups, and contributed to a conference in 1989 which established the principle of 'partnership' between Maori and Pakeha in the Anglican Church. In 1990 the ownership of the Church, hall and vicarage was transferred to the Maori arm of the Auckland Diocese, Te Komiti Tumuaki. The hall, a resource used by the church and also by the broader community, has provided a venue for many cultural productions including in 2003, plays by the Koanga Maori Theatre Company. Arranged around the walls and on the underside of the ridge-piece of the interior are 20 printed panels that were designed in 1973 by silk screen artist Matthew Chote. A kitchen has been relocated from the basement and now occupies the building's east side. The court room scenes from New Zealand's first Maori language full length feature film 'Maori Merchant of Venice', were filmed in the church in 2001. The church is currently the home of the choir 'Musica Sacra' and has also been made available as a place of worship for a number of other groups. The Fijian Methodist Church has worshipped there for the past 17 years. Since 2001 the Korean Calvary Church (Presbyterian) from St David's Church - on the opposite side of Khyber Pass Road - has held weekly services in the church and a charismatic Sanctuary Church also worships there. The hall continues to be used as a religious marae.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre and its associated hall are located in Grafton, an inner suburb to the southeast of Auckland city centre. The buildings sit on the crest of a large ridge looking out over the city centre to the north, and towards the suburbs of Eden Terrace and Mt Eden to the south. The structures occupy part of a 4730m² rectangular site at the junction of Burleigh Street and Khyber Pass Road - a major arterial route between Newton and Newmarket with nearby access to the Southern Motorway. The size and ridge-top location of the church, in particular, makes it a prominent landmark in the inner city. The site is orientated with its main axis north-south, with Khyber Pass Road bounding it to the north. The church is orientated east-west and is set some distance back from the main road frontage. Two large pohutukawa lie at the northern end of the site, with a large open space currently occupied by a car park and lawn between the trees and the church. The hall lies to the south of the church, near the eastern boundary of the site. Areas outside the proposed registration but within the same legal title include another open space to the west of the hall, bounded by a low retaining wall, and a two-storey timber parsonage at the southern end of the property. These elements, and the church and hall, lie within the Upper Symonds Street Historic Area (NZHPT Registration # 7367). The historic area also incorporates a building associated with the church immediately to the east of the site, at 73 Khyber Pass Road, and numerous late nineteenth and early twentieth-century structures to the west on Khyber Pass Road, Symonds Street, and their adjacent streets. Although most of the buildings in the historic area are commercial in function, some are ecclesiastical, including the Baptist City Mission Church on Burleigh Street, St David's Presbyterian Church on Khyber Pass Road, and St Benedict's Catholic Church and Presbytery, on the corner of Alex Evans Street and St Benedicts Street. The Church The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a large kauri timber building of cruciform plan with a tall steeple and steeply pitched roof. Designed in the Gothic Revival style, the building is made up of a nave with side aisles, transepts, apse, and tower. The tower, located at the northwest corner of the building, supports a prominent spire that is nearly 40 m (130 feet) tall. The church is viewed visually as a series of shorter elements clustered around the double-height space of the nave and transepts. The church has six entrances, including a main doorway at the base of the tower. Other entrances are located at the building's southwest corner and in the eastern side of each transept. A small vestry near the eastern end of the building is accessed separately. The church fenestration mostly consists of lancet windows arranged singly or in pairs. The western elevation of the nave has three lancet windows, with a rose window centrally placed in its gable end. Internally, the church incorporates a lofty nave, transepts and sanctuary, and is largely match-lined with kauri. The main roof incorporates decorated king-post trusses with exposed sarking above the rafters. The aisles are separated from the nave by a Gothic-arched colonnade, decorated with quatrefoil fretwork. The western end of the building incorporates two entrance porches - including the main porch at the base of the northwest tower - and a Sunday school room. A stone font is centrally located near the western end of the nave, while a half-height screen delineates a music equipment room in the north aisle. Pews are set out in the eastern half of the aisles and in the nave. At least two different types of pews are evident, the simplest design of which may have come from the earlier Church of the Holy Sepulchre (1865) in Symonds Street cemetery. There are no pews in the transepts. In the northern side of the chancel, an organ gallery accommodates a rare Brindley & Foster pipe organ, modified in 1913 by Norman & Beard. A Lady Chapel, furnished with an altar table and 18 oak, rush-bottomed chairs, is located on the south side of the chancel. Apart from an earlier lancet window in its east wall, this space represents a departure from the Gothic Revival style of the rest of the building, being an International Modernist interpretation of Tudor forms. The south wall of the Chapel has three rectangular leadlight casement windows. Patterns painted on the Chapel's rafters and a pelmet are part of its 1930s design. Another notable element in the chancel is a pulpit commemorating George Patrick Pierce, a founder of the parish who died in 1891. This features representations of New Zealand flora: ponga fern trunks and fronds; clematis; and nikau palms that extend upwards to form a canopy. The pulpit is located next to a raised choir, above which are four lights from the earlier Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Symonds Street cemetery. The high altar in the sanctuary is lit by seven tall windows, six of which are stained glass memorial windows depicting scenes in the life of Christ. In the north transept is the three-light Dudley Memorial Window. The Hall Designed in a simple Gothic Revival style, the hall is a single-storey timber structure with a basement and a gabled roof. It is broadly rectangular in plan, and comprises a large central room (formerly a nave when used as a temporary church), a kitchen lean-to along the east side of the building, and an aisled extension on the building's west side. Toilet facilities are accommodated in the basement area. A concrete block lean-to, containing a urinal, has been added at the southwestern corner of the building. There is a small lounge addition and concrete deck at the north end of the building. The hall exterior is clad with horizontal ship-lap weatherboards, incorporating few decorative features other than lancet windows. Its northern and southern elevations have a triple lancet window high in each gable. There are several lancet windows in the west wall of the aisle. Internally, the hall roof is supported by trusses with collar ties, curved timber bracing with steel tie rods, and cross bracing. The trusses are of braced king-post type, with roof sarking exposed above the rafters. Screen prints using traditional Maori patterns adorn the upper parts of the main walls and the underside of the ridge-piece. Part of the kitchen lean-to has a board and batten ceiling containing decorative vents. Its timber lining has been covered by plain sheet panels up to picture-rail height. A store/pantry is located off the southern end of the kitchen. Earlier windows from the nave have been re-used in the east wall of the kitchen addition - their old positions are still evident in the tongue and groove panelling on the east internal wall of the hall. Three skeletal-style timber Gothic arches on either side of the hall separate the main space from the west aisle and kitchen respectively. At the south end of the hall is a stage with a storeroom on either side. The walls of the main body of the hall have ply or Gibraltar board panelling up to a 2.4m high dado, above which is timber lining.