Bishop George Augustus Selwyn, the first Anglican Bishop of New Zealand, travelled widely during his tenure, often walking great distances. On at least one occasion, walking south from Auckland, he spent his first night camped under a grove of three old puriri trees, near current day Bombay. Some time later, the land was donated by the Rutherford family for the purposes of relocating St Stephens School, an Anglican boarding school for Māori boys, from the original site in Parnell.

A stone cairn was constructed under the puriri trees in 1932 from stone taken from the demolished Parnell buildings and reads:

‘This memorial is built of stone from the original building of St Stephen’s School Taurarua. Erected to mark the first stopping of George Augustus Selwyn, Bishop of New Zealand. When walking on his missionary journeys, here he rested at night, the Puriri trees his only shelter. The land is the gift of James Rutherford his friend, in journeying oft.’

The trees themselves were included in Burstall’s Great Trees of New Zealand as the twenty-second entry. His notes on the trees state that they were considered to be re-sprouts from long dead original stems. It was also noted that the boys from St Stephens would care for the grove as part of their duties.

The construction of the Southern Motorway in the 1970s separated the grove from the school grounds, and the school itself was closed in 2000. The small reserve appears somewhat derelict, with broken concrete furniture and a small carpark blocked off. The largest tree, some 9 m in girth has suffered the loss of a large limb, and fire damage to the hollow, split multi-stemmed trunk, with obvious decline to the crown. The other two trees also display their age. The combined crowns cover a 26 by 28 m area, to a height of 15 m. Two smaller puriri, not present in early photographs of the trees, have been planted outside of the three original trees. There are well advanced plans to reopen the school in 2025, potentially with the ability to maintain the small reserve once more.

(Smillie 2024)

References

SW Burstall and EV Sale, Great Trees of New Zealand, 1984
NZ Transport Agency, Papakura to Bombay Stage 2 Assessment of Historic Heritage Effects Rev A, Feb 2024