ChristChurch Cathedral in 1900
On the 22nd of February, 2011 Christchurch, on New Zealand’s South Island, was hit by a major earthquake. 185 people were killed and much of the city’s centre was severely damaged or destroyed.
Included in the damage was ChristChurch Cathedral.
Sir George Gilbert Scott
The cathedral was built between 1864 and 1904, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, a world-renowned English Gothic revival architect.
The Canterbury region the city of Christchurch is in has been hit by many earthquakes over the years, and the cathedral had also been damaged in 1881, 1888, 1901, 1922, and only five and a half months earlier, in 2010.
In 2011, however, the damage was severe, bringing down the spire and half of the tower, collapsing part of the roof, and causing other structural damage.
Since February 2011, the church has largely been in favour of pulling the remains of the building down, while others in the community have fought a long – sometimes legal – battle to preserve the city’s most iconic structure.
In Times Gone By... 
