The church was opened and consecrated on Trinity Sunday, 6 June 1866, by Bishop Charles Abraham, the first bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Wellington. As New Zealand’s unofficial national cathedral, it was at the centre of the city and region’s cultural and social life for a century.

Following the restoration of the church from 1967-1970 by the Ministry of Works with architect Peter Sheppard, the renamed Old St Paul’s quickly took on a new life capital city’s premier tourist destination. It has remained a much-loved icon of the city’s cultural and architectural heritage and a hugely popular local venue for concerts and special events, weddings, and funerals.

Now owned and managed by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, the Friends continue to play an important role to ensure that Old St Paul’s continues to be a vibrant part of the cultural fabric of Wellington.

Designed by architect Frederick Thatcher, then the vicar of St Paul’s, to serve jointly as the Parish Church of Thorndon and as Wellington’s Anglican Cathedral Church, the foundation stone was laid on 21 August 1865 by Governor Sir George Grey.

Old St Paul’s is a historic nineteenth-century Gothic Revival timber church on Mulgrave Street, Thorndon, Wellington. Standing on the clifftop above the beach that is now Thorndon Quay, the church was a prominent landmark to all entering the harbour of Whanganui a Tara.

When the St Paul’s congregation moved across to a new Cathedral in May 1964 there was great debate in Wellington as to the fate of the old building. In November 1966 the government agreed to buy the church and preserve it as a national historic shrine.