History
Constance Eveleen Barklie (Sister Eveleen), born in 1871, was a well-known violinist in England. She studied the art in Rome and Dublin. However, Eveleen moved from England with her family to Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1898. Soon after arriving in the country the family joined the Community of the Sacred Name (founded in 1893) on Barbados Street. It is reported that the Barklies’ move to New Zealand was for the health of some of their family members who had been diagnosed with psychosis (a serious mental health disorder that causes hallucinations, delusions and an impaired relationship with reality).
The family spent many years in the service of the church. Conflicting sources suggest that the family worked in both the Catholic Diocese and the Anglican, but this simply cannot be true. Therefore, as Eveleen’s father, John Knox Barklie, was a former Irish protestant minister it is likely the family served the Anglican Church. The fact that the family joined the Community of the Sacred Name also supports the idea they were part of the Anglican communion. However, things changed following the death of John Barklie in 1917. Around this time Eveleen was diagnosed with tuberculosis and advised by doctors to move out of the city to a more rural location. After receiving her diagnosis, Eveleen travelled to England to seek medical help in the early 1920s.
Eveleen returned to New Zealand to set up a retreat house by the coast. Her reasons for doing this were twofold. First, it was common belief in the 1900s that sea air was the best treatment for respiratory diseases, and second, Eveleen had a keen interest in the retreat movement at the time because it was thought to refresh the spirit. The whitewashed house, which was, and still is, accessed by a winding path, sits high above the coastal suburb of Sumner, Christchurch. The property, which is surrounded by flowers, looks out over the city, and on stormy nights’ waves can be heard crashing on the rocks down below. After moving into the house, Eveleen had a small wood-panelled chapel added to the building and stained glass windows. Once it was completed, Eveleen conducted retreats and Sunday school, and held services for the local community.
Unfortunately, Eveleen passed away in 1939 due to tuberculosis. However, the house was bequeathed to the Anglican Diocese of Christchurch and after her death a committee was formed to run the retreat. After only a few months an annexe had to be built to cope with the high number of visitors seeking respite from day-to-day life. Despite its popularity, the Anglican Diocese struggled to find money for maintenance, so by the early 1980s the property fell into a state of disrepair. According to Clare Hardy, one of the caretakers of the retreat, “the roof leaked, paint work was peeling off and the house was very damp.” Fortunately, though, some finances were found in 1986 and the Anglican Church were able to renovate the property. With the help of the local community, the house was repaired, repainted and the interior rimu panelling was re-stained. New carpets were also laid and a retaining wall behind in the house was built using excess rock from the Lyttelton quarry. Finally, to ensure future repairs could be made, the retreat was opened to the public; it was made available to all individuals and groups looking for peace and quiet.
The Sister Eveleen Retreat Centre continued to provide respite until the 2011 Canterbury earthquakes. In spite of the February earthquake, the centre was inspected and declared safe, so it continued to hold retreats. However, in June 2011 a second earthquake caused the retreat centre to drop in one corner. Following a thorough assessment it was discovered that the front veranda had collapsed and that the whole house had shifted on its foundations. The directors of the property were forced to move into the city where they established ‘Sister Eveleen in the City’, a retreat that offered day-long respites. This retreat survived for a year, before it was damaged by another earthquake in February 2012. Today, Eveleen’s original and largely untouched house still stands; yet, whether it can be repaired remains undetermined.
Our Version of Events
It was getting late and we were in need of a place to sleep. We’d spent most of the day exploring various sites in Christchurch; however, none of them were particularly suitable for sleeping inside. As fortune would have it, though, Nillskill happened to know of a place that would do just nicely: Sister Eveleen’s old retreat house.
I can’t say I was very comfortable staying in Eveleen’s house, especially since we planned to drink a crate of beers for the rest of the evening. Nevertheless, before we knew it we were climbing the broken, twisted pathway that leads up to the retreat. The wind was howling, forcing our hoods back despite our efforts to hold them in place, and cold rain slammed into our faces. Down below, at the base of the cliff, seawater churned and crashed against the rocks. A bitter chill ran through us. If it was all a sign from Eveleen, we ignored it. We were too wet to care, and the silhouette of the retreat just ahead suddenly seemed very inviting.
We trudged up the stairs of the annexe and found ourselves on a long wooden porchway. There were a few damp chairs and benches, so we decided to ditch all our gear here for the time being while we explored the site to look for a place to sleep. After checking all of the doors of the annexe, we discovered that all but one opened, and each room was fully furnished with a freshly made bed (if you can call a bed that’s been ready to sleep in for six years fresh), a bedside cabinet, a crucifix on the wall and additional blankets. Perfect we thought, lovely jubbly!
Once we’d chosen our rooms for the night, we proceeded to check out the main house. Getting inside was easy and we quickly realised that the building has been left untouched since it was abandoned. There was a thick layer of dust coating everything throughout the old retreat, and a heavy musty odour filled our nostrils. The place felt exceptionally weird; it was as though someone had been living there, but all of a sudden they vanished. The story of the Mary Celeste popped into my head as we poked around the place. Even the Sheffield cutlery, tea bags and rich teas were still in situ. A long corridor took us towards the living room and it was here we started to detect a change in the levelness of the floor. The building seemed to slope off, in the direction of the cliff edge. It still seemed study enough to support us though. From the relatively intact living room which was filled with books and crosses, we turned right and found ourselves inside a small chapel. This was the very same chapel Eveleen had constructed back in the late 1920s/early 1930s. Some of the wood panelling showed signs of stress as there were several cracks here and there, but other than that the room was well preserved. However, the dust in here was much worse than the rest of the building, probably due to it having been closed off for many years.
After exploring the chapel, we decided to head back over to the annexe and get started on the crate of beer we’d brought with us. It felt a wee bit immoral to drink in the house of Sister Eveleen, but we did find a bottle of rum and whisky inside the chapel – the most religious part of the whole place – so we figured she’d probably forgive us if we cleaned up after ourselves. So, in the end we sat on the balcony overlooking Christchurch and worked our way through the crate. We have to admit, it was rather tranquil as we listened to the sea crash below us and the rain batter the house and surrounding trees.
Explored with Nillskill and Bane.
Constance Eveleen Barklie (Sister Eveleen), born in 1871, was a well-known violinist in England. She studied the art in Rome and Dublin. However, Eveleen moved from England with her family to Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1898. Soon after arriving in the country the family joined the Community of the Sacred Name (founded in 1893) on Barbados Street. It is reported that the Barklies’ move to New Zealand was for the health of some of their family members who had been diagnosed with psychosis (a serious mental health disorder that causes hallucinations, delusions and an impaired relationship with reality).
The family spent many years in the service of the church. Conflicting sources suggest that the family worked in both the Catholic Diocese and the Anglican, but this simply cannot be true. Therefore, as Eveleen’s father, John Knox Barklie, was a former Irish protestant minister it is likely the family served the Anglican Church. The fact that the family joined the Community of the Sacred Name also supports the idea they were part of the Anglican communion. However, things changed following the death of John Barklie in 1917. Around this time Eveleen was diagnosed with tuberculosis and advised by doctors to move out of the city to a more rural location. After receiving her diagnosis, Eveleen travelled to England to seek medical help in the early 1920s.
Eveleen returned to New Zealand to set up a retreat house by the coast. Her reasons for doing this were twofold. First, it was common belief in the 1900s that sea air was the best treatment for respiratory diseases, and second, Eveleen had a keen interest in the retreat movement at the time because it was thought to refresh the spirit. The whitewashed house, which was, and still is, accessed by a winding path, sits high above the coastal suburb of Sumner, Christchurch. The property, which is surrounded by flowers, looks out over the city, and on stormy nights’ waves can be heard crashing on the rocks down below. After moving into the house, Eveleen had a small wood-panelled chapel added to the building and stained glass windows. Once it was completed, Eveleen conducted retreats and Sunday school, and held services for the local community.
Unfortunately, Eveleen passed away in 1939 due to tuberculosis. However, the house was bequeathed to the Anglican Diocese of Christchurch and after her death a committee was formed to run the retreat. After only a few months an annexe had to be built to cope with the high number of visitors seeking respite from day-to-day life. Despite its popularity, the Anglican Diocese struggled to find money for maintenance, so by the early 1980s the property fell into a state of disrepair. According to Clare Hardy, one of the caretakers of the retreat, “the roof leaked, paint work was peeling off and the house was very damp.” Fortunately, though, some finances were found in 1986 and the Anglican Church were able to renovate the property. With the help of the local community, the house was repaired, repainted and the interior rimu panelling was re-stained. New carpets were also laid and a retaining wall behind in the house was built using excess rock from the Lyttelton quarry. Finally, to ensure future repairs could be made, the retreat was opened to the public; it was made available to all individuals and groups looking for peace and quiet.
The Sister Eveleen Retreat Centre continued to provide respite until the 2011 Canterbury earthquakes. In spite of the February earthquake, the centre was inspected and declared safe, so it continued to hold retreats. However, in June 2011 a second earthquake caused the retreat centre to drop in one corner. Following a thorough assessment it was discovered that the front veranda had collapsed and that the whole house had shifted on its foundations. The directors of the property were forced to move into the city where they established ‘Sister Eveleen in the City’, a retreat that offered day-long respites. This retreat survived for a year, before it was damaged by another earthquake in February 2012. Today, Eveleen’s original and largely untouched house still stands; yet, whether it can be repaired remains undetermined.
Our Version of Events
It was getting late and we were in need of a place to sleep. We’d spent most of the day exploring various sites in Christchurch; however, none of them were particularly suitable for sleeping inside. As fortune would have it, though, Nillskill happened to know of a place that would do just nicely: Sister Eveleen’s old retreat house.
I can’t say I was very comfortable staying in Eveleen’s house, especially since we planned to drink a crate of beers for the rest of the evening. Nevertheless, before we knew it we were climbing the broken, twisted pathway that leads up to the retreat. The wind was howling, forcing our hoods back despite our efforts to hold them in place, and cold rain slammed into our faces. Down below, at the base of the cliff, seawater churned and crashed against the rocks. A bitter chill ran through us. If it was all a sign from Eveleen, we ignored it. We were too wet to care, and the silhouette of the retreat just ahead suddenly seemed very inviting.
We trudged up the stairs of the annexe and found ourselves on a long wooden porchway. There were a few damp chairs and benches, so we decided to ditch all our gear here for the time being while we explored the site to look for a place to sleep. After checking all of the doors of the annexe, we discovered that all but one opened, and each room was fully furnished with a freshly made bed (if you can call a bed that’s been ready to sleep in for six years fresh), a bedside cabinet, a crucifix on the wall and additional blankets. Perfect we thought, lovely jubbly!
Once we’d chosen our rooms for the night, we proceeded to check out the main house. Getting inside was easy and we quickly realised that the building has been left untouched since it was abandoned. There was a thick layer of dust coating everything throughout the old retreat, and a heavy musty odour filled our nostrils. The place felt exceptionally weird; it was as though someone had been living there, but all of a sudden they vanished. The story of the Mary Celeste popped into my head as we poked around the place. Even the Sheffield cutlery, tea bags and rich teas were still in situ. A long corridor took us towards the living room and it was here we started to detect a change in the levelness of the floor. The building seemed to slope off, in the direction of the cliff edge. It still seemed study enough to support us though. From the relatively intact living room which was filled with books and crosses, we turned right and found ourselves inside a small chapel. This was the very same chapel Eveleen had constructed back in the late 1920s/early 1930s. Some of the wood panelling showed signs of stress as there were several cracks here and there, but other than that the room was well preserved. However, the dust in here was much worse than the rest of the building, probably due to it having been closed off for many years.
After exploring the chapel, we decided to head back over to the annexe and get started on the crate of beer we’d brought with us. It felt a wee bit immoral to drink in the house of Sister Eveleen, but we did find a bottle of rum and whisky inside the chapel – the most religious part of the whole place – so we figured she’d probably forgive us if we cleaned up after ourselves. So, in the end we sat on the balcony overlooking Christchurch and worked our way through the crate. We have to admit, it was rather tranquil as we listened to the sea crash below us and the rain batter the house and surrounding trees.
Explored with Nillskill and Bane.
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