Te Awamutu's Pride.

Quite a model country town is Te Awamutu, a place that has long developed a true civic 'spirit, and has done much to make itself attractive to travellers. It has an atmosphere of the historic too. If you have not seen its pretty church, standing in its churchyard by the willow-fringed Manga-o-Hoi stream, you have a picture of old-time yet to admire. It is a steepled church of the first Bishop Selwyn's time, and it was built in 1854, so that it is the oldest English building in the Waikato, and one of the oldest churches in New Zealand.

Like its sister church amidst the beautiful farming lands of Rangiaowhia, three miles away, it was a Maori mission place of worship, when the Waikato was still in native hands, before the war.

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Te Awamutu is very proud of its St. John's, and the church of antique look is tended with a care that will ensure its preservation for many a year to come.