A place of worship, community and music, and a significant heritage building in Hamilton, the bricks and mortar of the Waikato Cathedral Church of St Peter are more than 110 years old. But the history of the Cathedral is not just held within its walls. There is much to tell of its grounds too.
As you approach the Cathedral, one of the things that may not immediately draw your eye is a young pear tree just in front of the building, on the left as you walk up the steps.
Known as the Ashwell pear tree, this tree has a history dating back more than 180 years.
It was grown from a cutting taken from a pear tree planted at Taupiri in 1843.
The young pear tree at the Cathedral is one of several descendants of the Taupiri mother tree, which was brought from England by the Reverend Benjamin Gate Ashwell of the Anglican Church Missionary Society (1810–1883).
Benjamin and his first wife, Harriet (?–1867), established the first Christian mission and the first literary-based school at Kaitotehe, Taupiri in 1839. The mission was across the Waikato River from the sacred mountain of Taupiri, where the Māori monarchs are laid to rest. Te Rangatira Tame Pokaia cares for the old mission site today as its owner and kaitiaki.
Benjamin and Harriet spread the first seeds of the gospel, ngā purapura pai, as far as Pirongia in their day, including the great Kirikiriroa Pā on the banks of the Waikato River, where Kirikiriroa Hamilton’s London Street now ends.
A cutting from the Taupiri mother tree was originally planted on Pukerangiora, ‘The hill of the life-giving heaven’, in 2008 by Archbishop David Moxon, then Bishop of Waikato. Unfortunately, the first cutting did not thrive, so a second cutting was supplied and planted in 2025 by Te Rangatira Tame Pokaia, a direct descendant of King Taawhiao (c.1822–1894), together with Archbishop Philip Richardson, Bishop of Waikato and Taranaki, and supported by Archbishop David Moxon.
Today, this descendant of the Taupiri mother tree has a place in the Cathedral grounds. Above the Cathedral entrance, a glass panel commemorates the Ashwells’ early mission work in the Waikato, creating a quiet connection between the story of the Ashwells and the living tree outside.
So next time you visit the Cathedral grounds, take a moment to look across to the pear tree.
It is a small part of the Cathedral grounds, but it connects to a much longer history of people, place and faith.
Just one of the many stories like this held in the Cathedral and its grounds.
Sometimes you just need to know where to look…