In the cloister courtyard beside the foyer entrance of the Cathedral stands the two-metre, cast-iron statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, made in France ("with heavy Gilt" ) that was lodged, in honour of the Immaculate Conception on 8 September 1867, high up on the east side of the tower of the original cathedral, St Mary's Cathedral, where it faced the harbour and its gilding reflected "the first rays of the rising sun." The statue was placed in the tower in memory of the consecration of the diocese in 1855 to the Immaculate Conception, which Bishop Viard had carried out, after he had proclaimed the newly pronounced dogma, as a specific remedy against any recurrence of the series of severe earthquakes felt in the province of Wellington over several months in that year.