The Ohaeawai battlefield of July 1845 and St Michael's Church, Bay of Islands

In the watercolour by John Williams (top right), the British troops are advancing across the centre of the field. In the left foreground is the British camp and slightly forward of that again is a lengthy breastwork of which no trace is to be seen in the modern photograph (above). (It would lie at about the line of the old Ohaeawai Maori School, the prominent white building with a wide verandah.) St Michael's Church is on the same location as the original stockade—where it commanded the field forward (north of) a shallow gully (filled with many dark trees in the photograph). The British troops attacked the near right (northwest) corner of the fortification from the north and from a position in the gully running towards the camera viewpoint about 100 m west of the churchyard. Both painting and photograph are oriented to the south-east.