Pompallier Mission

Bishop Jean Baptiste Pompallier's French Catholic mission built this in 1842 as a printery, tannery and store - and it is the oldest surviving industrial building in New Zealand, put up in pise de terre, rammed earth, by workers who knew the technique from France. Inside, the mission printed and bound more than thirty thousand books and tracts in Maori between 1842 and 1849: prayer books and catechisms, on a hand press, with leather tanned on the premises from local hides. The restoration returned the building to that working configuration, so a guided tour walks through tannery, printery and bindery with the equipment in place and demonstrations of the processes. That is what distinguishes it from most mission houses, which are presented as domestic interiors. The garden runs down to the waterfront. Russell itself was the country's first permanent European settlement and briefly its capital, with a reputation in the 1830s that earned it the name hellhole of the Pacific.

History

Bishop Jean-Baptiste Pompallier, who reached the Hokianga in 1838, bought land in Kororareka, now Russell, in 1839, and the building went up in 1841-42 under Louis Perret, in the rammed earth common in Lyon. Its Gaveaux press printed more than 30,000 books and tracts between 1842 and 1849, some of the first in Māori; the mission moved to Auckland in 1850, and the government bought the building in 1941 (Wikipedia, Pompallier House).

Highlights

• The rammed-earth building - 1842, the oldest industrial building in the country.
• The printery - hand press and type, with demonstrations.
• The tannery - leather worked on site for the bindings.
• The garden - running down to the Russell waterfront.

When to go

Any season. Guided tours only, running to a schedule - check times before taking the ferry across. Russell is a passenger ferry ride from Paihia.

Things to know

Entry is by guided tour and ticketed; you cannot wander. Tour times are fixed and limited. Getting there means a ferry or a long road detour round the inlet.

Nearby

Christ Church and Flagstaff Hill are in Russell; Waitangi and Paihia are across the water.

Key facts