The church is located on the original site granted by the Crown to
Jean-Baptiste Pompallier, the first bishop, on 1 June 1841. To minister to the 300 or 400, mostly
Irish, Catholics in Auckland in the 1840s, a wooden chapel, clergy house and school room (the first amenity ready for use) were opened and blessed on 29 January 1843. Work soon began on a more permanent church. In 1845, the Australian architect
Walter Robinson arrived in Auckland on the encouragement of Pompallier and he was commissioned to design a stone church. The new church was built on the original grant of land and situated on the corner of Chapel Street (now Federal Street) and Wyndham Street. On 4 May 1884, the foundation stone of a new (24.4m by 12.2m)
nave was laid, and the old stone church became the
transept – the altar, for which a recess was built in 1895, being on the east wall. The architect for this major addition was
Edward Mahoney. The nave had a tower, and the bells for this were brought from Rome. The organ was brought from
Brompton Oratory, London for
£600. The new addition was opened on 15 March 1885 by
Archbishop Redwood, the
Archbishop of Wellington. ==Current cathedral==