Sculptor Martin Roestenberg works on his Virgin Mary statue, Our Lady of Lourdes, on site at Paraparaumu in 1958.

The pilgrimage most Wellingtonians made to Paraparaumu's giant statue of the Virgin Mary was prompted by a bargain secondhand shop at her feet. But Our Lady of Lourdes has attracted hundreds of true pilgrims since being built in 1958 to commemorate a miracle in France.

A hundred years beforehand, in 1858, a French miller's daughter called Bernadette Soubirous was told to build a chapel in her hometown of Lourdes by a "small young lady" the village believed was the Virgin Mary. Bernadette was later made a saint, and Paraparaumu's statue was built on the centenary of the holy visitation.

Six thousand nuns, priests, Catholic faithful and curious bystanders marched through Paraparaumu on October 19, 1958, to dedicate the 14.3-metre statue in the town's eastern hills.

It was "probably the largest display of faith that Paraparaumu has ever seen", The Evening Post said.

"Hundreds of cars jammed nearby streets as people climbed the steep hill path to the foot of the flower-decked statue, glistening in the hot afternoon sun," The Dominion reported.

Archbishop of Wellington Peter McKeefry blessed the statue with holy water and prayed the Virgin would lead Russia "back home" out of the Cold War.

Irish tenor Patrick O'Hagan sang hymns, Karori priest Patrick Herlihey spoke of his recent pilgrimage to Lourdes, and Paraparaumu priest Jack Dunn addressed the crowd.

"This statue will become for many of us an inspiration to raise our eyes heavenward and seek the higher and greater things in life under the protection of the Blessed Mother of God," Dunn said.

Also at the ceremony was Dutch sculptor Martin Roestenberg, who had built the two-metre-high head in his Taihape garage, then built the Virgin's body beneath the scaffold-suspended head on site.

A special hymn, Lady of Lourdes, was composed for the occasion by Paraparaumu music teacher Dorothy Curran.

Within weeks of the statue's dedication a 100-strong contingent of pilgrims arrived from Blenheim. In 1983, 600 Aucklanders spent the night on the hill in prayer to mark the 50th anniversary of Catholic organisation the Legion of Mary.

"At the top as the darkness closed in, hundreds of pilgrims, packed together, knelt in prayer for the Catholic ceremony of Benediction. Below, hundreds of other pilgrims listened to loudspeakers, unable to reach the hilltop because there was no room," the Post reported.

Not everybody was so enamoured with the Virgin. She was defaced with creosote, a coal tar oil, in 1959.

One of New Zealand's largest jumble shops opened beneath the Virgin on Tongariro St in 1981, called the Statue Bargain Barn. It stayed in operation until competition from Trade Me forced its closure in 2010.

Sister Joseph-Mary, a teacher at the Presentation Sisters convent in 1958, said the statue's construction was strenuous work for sculptor Roestenberg.

"At that time there was no road to the top of the hill, so Roestenberg and his assistant had to haul the concrete to the top themselves. They got some locals to help them," she told The Dominion Post in 2004.

"We thought the statue was a wonderful thing, and it certainly is an outstanding feature of the district."