Heritage

Nurses’ Memorial Chapel

cover imageThe architectural heritage of Christchurch. 7

Published by Planning Policy Unit, Christchurch City Council, 1990

The Christchurch Hospital Nurses’ Memorial Chapel was built during 1927 and 1928 and is located on the Christchurch Hospital site fronting Riccarton Avenue. Although twice threatened with demolition, the building’s future has been secured.

The chapel is of vital cultural importance:

  • as far as can be ascertained, the only purpose-built, hospital chapel which commemorates nurses who died in the Great War, in the world,
  • New Zealand’s only memorial chapel to women who died in any war or the 1918 influenza epidemic,
  • New Zealand’s first hospital chapel,
  • a repository of memorials to local, national and internationally known medical men and women,
  • an architecturally significant building with a late Gothic Revival structure and Arts & Crafts Movement-inspired interior that incorporates significant works of art, including stained glass windows by Veronica Whall.

Contents

  • The need for a hospital chapel
  • The Marquette disaster
  • The influenza epidemic
  • Moves to build the Memorial Chapel
  • The architect (John Goddard Collins)
  • The chapel’s life
  • The stained glass windows

View Nurses’ Memorial Chapel [4.4Mb PDF]

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