Removing a reredos
Maurice Shailer’s hard work in creating a decorative altarpiece almost 50 years ago will live on in a new church building.
Methodist churchgoers and passing Palmerstonians have been used to the sight of the soaring red-brick Wesley Methodist Church on Broadway for many years. But soon this heritage building will be gone, felled by demolition.
The church, formerly St Paul’s, has been closed for years because of earthquake vulnerability and the congregation now meets in its adjoining worship centre on the same site.
However, the old church has special memories for a large chunk of the local population and their forebears. So many memorable sermons, so many concerts and services, somany inspirational moments.
That includes the various artefacts now removed from the church and placed into storage. As well, all memorial items once housed there have been given back to the donors’ families.
Back in 1971, the original St Paul’s church was given a complete renovation. This included the installation of a reredos.
What’s a reredos? It’s usually described as a decorative screen or altarpiece, placed behind a church’s altar space, but facing the congregation.
In England and other parts of Europe these can often be tall, elaborate works of art, made of wood or stone, embellished with religious figures. Their purpose is, perhaps, to focus a congregation’s mind on sacred themes.
In 1972 Maurice Shailer, descendant of a prominent pioneer
Palmerston North family, built the church a special reredos. In keeping with the church’s historically straightforward faith path, hemade it from heart rimu salvaged from the old, no-longer-needed pews. ‘‘There are about 198 panels,’’ he explains, ‘‘with four inset carvings made by the minister of the time.’’ These carvings featured a dove, a wheatsheaf, and two others.
The reredos is a large, wide screen, in the warm colour of the old wood, and the many tiny panels it’s made of are deceptively simple and exact.
Shailer is the great-grandson of
George Shailer, a famous and prolific Palmerston North photographer. George Shailer’s portraits and other pictures are highlighted onmanawatu¯ Heritage, the pictorial website of the city library’s Ian Matheson archives and community archives.
Maurice Shailer has inherited the family’s talent for visualworks.
His other great-grandfather was an early Wesleyan minister, Reverend Keall, and his motherwas church secretary and in the women’s fellowship. Many of the Kealls and Shailers are related throughmarriage.
Maurice Shailer and his sister Jenny Olsson’s ancestor Sidney Shailerwas a baby when the church foundation stone was laid. ‘‘Some people called [the church] St Shailer’s, because there were so many of us,’’ he says, joking.
His labour on the reredos began in February 1972 and finally ended in June 1972, allowing for some alterations.
The most meticulous part of the job was measuring and joining up the tiny panels, or blocks, to form the whole screen. Each panel was 250 millimetres square and 30mm thick. It had four screws – one on each corner, covered by a wooden mushroom button, and the panels were all joined togetherwith tiny aluminium rods.
At the time, Maurice Shailer was also working elsewhere, at the
The reredos is a large, wide screen, in the warm colour of the old wood, and the many tiny panels it’s made of are deceptively simple and exact.
Palmerston North Extension Ladder Company factory.
During the reredos work, Shailer’s wife Judy popped in sometimes to lend a hand, even though the birth of their first child was imminent. Somaurice allowed himself one small perk of the job. ‘‘I made a cot,’’ he says, from the pew wood.
Though not a parishioner of Wesley nowadays, Shailer has, in the reredos that will be stored and hopefully used again one day, a link to the creation of the church, which aimed to give ‘‘a warm evangelical welcome to all’’.
Its new interior was described by the Manawatu¯ Standard in August 1911: ‘‘Except for a dado of 4ft 6in in height, the walls are of finished red brick tuck-pointed in white and relieved bywhite Gothic arches behind the pulpit. The handsome appearance is added to by the exceptionally fine finish of the roof, whose heavy rafters are diagonally trussed in a novel and distinctly pleasing manner. One of the most notable advances made is the provision of a sloping floor, which will greatly add to the comfort of both the preacher and worshipper.
‘‘The Gothic windows are leadlightedwith a design in keeping with the general theme, and these assist considerably in the general effect of the interior. The pulpit is raised well above the level of the floor, is approached from either side by a flight of steps and is surrounded by a communion rail.
‘‘Seating and woodwork generally are of heart of rimu excellently finished. It is anticipated that when all the accommodations are in use 450 persons can be comfortably seated, so that the building will be one of the most commodious in Palmerston North.’’
On that opening night, Reverend Laws took the evening service and reportedly ‘‘held his hearers spellbound for well over the customary length of sermon’’.
Maurice Shailer has just learned the reredos will be incorporated in the new church building in a slightly trimmed version.