The Church in the Redoubt.

Something has been written in past issues of the Railways Magazine of the charm of old historic churches in New Zealand. One not previously mentioned comes to memory at the moment. It is, I think, unique in its setting. This is the little English Church in that pretty and old-fashioned township, Pirongia (formerly Alexandra, named in 1864 after the just-wedded Queen Alexandra), on the Waipa River, one of the pioneer military settlements of the Waikato. It stands in the centre of a redoubt, the long-deserted headquarters of the Armed Constabulary, on the summit of a commanding knoll, with the Waipa River curving round its base.

The redoubt is a square earthwork, consisting of a deep trench and a parapet, with flanking angles; the ditch is crossed by a rustic plank bridge, replacing the original drawbridge. Whares and tents once occupied the little frontier fort, which was garrisoned by the A.C. force until about the year 1885. Then, when a watch on the Maori border was no longer necessary, the soldier-policemen were withdrawn, and the place was given over to the Church as a site for the place of worship. Fortunately there is a sufficient local sense of historic values to ensure the preservation of the entrenchment in as nearly as possible its original form, the one surviving relic of its kind in a Waikato township.