Photos

This statue stands on a hill overlooking the northern road entrance to Paraparaumu. It is made of fibreglass and stands 13-15mtres tall. It has a halo which lights up at night. There is a winding walkway from the street up the hill.

Historical note: In 1858, a 14-year-old French girl was visited by visions of the Virgin Mary in a grotto near her home town of Lourdes. One hundred years later, the parish priest at Paraparaumu wanted to mark the centenary by building a temporary statue of Mary on land behind the Presentation Sisters convent, but later decided a permanent statue would be better.

Our Lady was made by Dutch artist Martin Roestenberg, who built the two-metre-high head in his workshop in Taihape. He managed the project--from leveling the top of the 75-metre knoll the statue sits on, to building the scaffolding and transporting the head down to Paraparaumu. The rest of the statue was built on site. It took about six months through the winter of 1958 to build the body--in winds of up to 156kmh that threatened to tear down scaffolding.

Photo was cropped to remove a house roof and a metal wire fence.