Heritage New Zealand magazine, Ngahuru Autumn 2020 issue

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Issue 156 Ngahuru • Autumn 2020

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

NZ $9.95 incl.GST

THROUGH THE MILL A visit with the volunteers at Clarks Mill

WRITTEN IN STONE

Retrieving the lost art of stonecraft

PRESERVED IN AMBER

Behind the myths of Kiwi beer brewing

BEAUTY SPOT

A remarkable little goldmining cottage

NOTICEBOARD

100% Kiwiana. shop.heritage.org.nz Now open online

CONTENTS

Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 Features

Explore the List

12 A way of life

8 Love and devotion

For Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Chair Marian Hobbs, heritage is about knowing yourself and your place in the world

The connections to the French Catholic nun Suzanne Aubert run deep in Pakipaki, Hawke’s Bay

16 Beauty spot Conserving a remote Central Otago goldmining cottage unearths new finds

20 Standing strong The history of one of Northland’s most significant battle sites is being kept alive 175 years on

24 Written in stone Moves are afoot to help retrieve lost lime and stone construction techniques for heritage buildings

30 Thursdays at the mill The talents and enthusiasm of Maheno’s Clarks Mill volunteers have created real payback for visitors

36 Preserved in amber Heritage – real or implied – plays a big part in one of our oldest industries: the brewing of beer

10 Free spirits

42 24

Immigrant barracks built in Caversham offer a window into the world of those new arrivals

Journeys into the past 42 Driving history The Taranaki Wars driving tour app shows the signs of prior habitation and conflict that are all around

16

48 Fighting the good fight Determined Buenos Aires citizens are taking action to save its stunning architectural legacy

36

Columns 3 Editorial 4 Noticeboard 52 Books

30

Delving deeper into the symbolism of our historic places

54 Heritage for kids Autumn is a great time to explore the maunga of Auckland with the kids

Heritage New Zealand is printed with mineral oilfree, soy-based vegetable inks on New Silk paper.

This paper is Forestry Stewardship Council® (FSC®) certified, manufactured from pulp from responsible sources under the ISO 14001 Environmental Management System. Please recycle.

Heritage New Zealand

Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 1

RING THE BELLS! The Belfry at Old St Paul's. Soon the bells will be ringing again. (Credit: Peter Shep, Auckland, NZ Flickr.

THANK YOU You wonderful members and supporters have helped achieve the best fundraising appeal in our history!

The #ForeverOSP campaign went well past the $100,000 target and will make a huge difference for the thousands of people who will visit this place in years to come.

Providing the project continues to go to plan, it will only be a couple of months from the time you read these words to the doors opening again in Wellington.

The wonderful support for this project is humbling and all those who are working on this beautiful heritage gem in the heart of the capital are indebted and immensely grateful.

When Old St Paul's reopens, you can look forward to new talks and tours, enriched visitor information, new guides to exploring the church, and a refreshed gift shop. The upgraded lighting and sound systems mean you can also look forward to some top-notch concerts and events.

We are very grateful to all those supporters who have recently made donations. While many are kindly acknowledged below, more have chosen to give anonymously.

Riddick Family Mr A & Mrs E Simcock Mr Colin & Mrs Barbara Hickling Mr Geoffrey & Mrs Judy Wilson Ms Christine Turner Dr Donald & Mrs Jean Thompson Mrs M H Cranston Mr R & Mrs M I Coldham Mr Dorian Scott & Mrs Carol Scott-Dye Mr Paul & Mrs Natalie Hickson

Mr & Mrs C A Cheyne Mr Ross Steele Gillian Whitehead & Joyce Whitehead Penny Deans & Andrew Gawith Mr L A & Mrs G C Cox Ms Jane Edmed & Mr Gary Elford Mr Grant & Mrs Jennifer Dickey Mr H & Mrs F Cooke Mr Ron Pynenburg Mr T C & Mrs V G Henderson

Mrs I Pain Mr Duncan & Mrs Jill Matthews Mr Richard & Mrs Dinah Airey Mrs Alison Werry Mr W J H Baillie Prof P H Waddington & Kim Gutchlag Mr David & Mrs Hilary Bott Miss Fay Jewell Miss M G Snodgrass Ms Elizabeth Carpenter & Ms Clare Mills Ms Janet Blackman

Mr G J & Mrs R F Prowse Mrs C L Burbury Mr R A Corrigan Mrs L Dodd Mrs Debra Farndon & Mr John Farndon Mr Hamish and Mrs Mati MacMaster Mrs Ruth Moss Miss B H MacMillan Mrs Ingrid Rampton Miss Anita Banbury Miss Margaret O'Connor Ms Anna Gibbons & Mr Brian Gaynor

Mrs L Dodd Mr Peter & Mrs Marie Sauvary Mr A & Mrs P Hall Mrs Diane Small Dr & Mrs Peter Curzon Mrs M Harlow Jenny S Middlemass Mr J D Goddard Mr G McVicar Mr L R Smith Dr Colin Patrick & Mr Bryan Gibbison Mr David & Mrs Lyn Buckle Mrs A M Ricketts

Mr John & Mrs Avenal McKinnon Mr R G & Mrs D M Jones Mr Garry Gould Miss M Van Steenbergen Mr Charles & Mrs Ayleen de Vilder Dr Robert Easting & Dr Christine Franzen Mr P J Kaveney Mr G T & Mrs V Christie Dame Adrienne Stewart Mr Graham Russell & Mrs Margaret Bell

Mr David Chilvers Mr Peter Avery Mr Peter Washbourn Mr Malcolm Wade Mr Philip Rundle Mrs Vivien Ward Dr F T M Schroder Ms Esther Glass & Mr Ken Tunnicliffe Mr & Mrs L and L Jacobs Dr R P Rothwell & Mrs M G Rothwell Mr Don & Mrs Margrethe Huse Mr M & Mrs A Moss Mr Garry Gould

Mr Dennis & Mrs Maree Mills Mr J C & Mrs S Wigglesworth Mr David & Mrs Yvonne Mitchell Mr Andrew & Mrs Amanda Nicoll Mr C F & Mrs S Mansell Mr G D & Mrs R Chesterman Mr Joe Hollander Mr A R & Mrs M L Turner

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CONTENTS g

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Issue 156 Ngahuru • Autumn 2020

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

NZ $9.95 incl.GST

THROUGH THE MILL A visit with the volunteers at Clarks Mill

WRITTEN IN STONE

Retrieving the lost art of stonecraft

PRESERVED IN AMBER

Behind the myths of Kiwi beer brewing

BEAUTY SPOT

A remarkable little goldmining cottage

Heritage Issue 156 Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 ISSN 1175-9615 (Print) ISSN 2253-5330 (Online) Cover image: Through the mill by Amanda Trayes

Editor Caitlin Sykes, Sugar Bag Publishing Sub-editor Trish Heketa, Sugar Bag Publishing Art director Amanda Trayes, Sugar Bag Publishing Publisher Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

Heritage New Zealand magazine is published quarterly by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga. The magazine has an audited circulation of 11,512 as at 30 September 2018.

The views expressed in the articles are those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

Advertising For advertising enquiries, please contact the Manager Publications.

Phone: (04) 470 8054 Email: advertising@heritage.org.nz Subscriptions/Membership Heritage New Zealand magazine is sent to all members of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga. Call 0800 802 010 to find out more.

Tell us your views At Heritage New Zealand magazine we enjoy feedback about any of the articles in this issue or heritage-related matters.

Email: The Editor at heritagenz@gmail.com Post: The Editor, c/- Heritage New Zealand National Office, PO Box 2629, Wellington 6140 Feature articles: Note that articles are usually commissioned, so please contact the Editor for guidance regarding a story proposal before proceeding. All manuscripts accepted for publication in Heritage New Zealand magazine are subject to editing at the discretion of the Editor and Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

Online: Subscription and advertising details can be found under the Resources section on the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga website www.heritage.org.nz.

Heritage New Zealand

Back to the future Late last year Heritage New Zealand magazine art director Amanda Trayes and I had the opportunity to meet some of the wonderful volunteers who have, over the course of many years, helped bring the Clarks Mill complex at Maheno in North Otago back to life.

It was the first visit to this site for both of us, and it was an eye opener on many fronts. The sheer scale of what the group has achieved is staggering. The milling machinery, which they have painstakingly got up and running again, is spread over four storeys and made up of a mind-boggling conglomeration of parts – none of which you’d find an easy replacement for at your local hardware store today.

Then there are the myriad projects the group has undertaken across the complex to show the public the intricacy and diversity of the Clarks’ business; currently, for example, one of their projects involves restoring a crane to help tell the story of the quarrying business the Clarks also ran.

The volunteers’ enthusiasm for and connection to the Category 1 property, which is managed by Heritage New Zealand, is still going strong after more than 15 years. While ours was a fleeting visit, we could appreciate the volunteers’ deep knowledge of the place immediately – and their willingness to share it with visitors.

The visit got me thinking more widely about ideas of innovation and progress.

In particular, a comment from volunteer Roger Blackburn really resonated.

As we drank coffee in the volunteers’ ‘office’ at the complex, he told us: “People

think we’re only really clever and innovative today, but when you’re involved with something like this you understand that’s not the case at all. You gain a real appreciation of the quality of the engineering.”

In this digital age, the pace of innovation only appears to be accelerating and advances in science and technology are playing a major part in combatting some of the huge challenges that society is now facing.

But it’s clear that re-examining the past also has a role in taking us forward. Grow your own produce, eat seasonally, buy less (but invest in quality when you do), jump on a bike for short trips – these are all messages we’re hearing as ways to meet modern challenges, such as swelling waste streams and, of course, climate change.

Yet these were everyday habits that my grandparents embraced, and were part of a way of life that was in many ways much more resourceful and less wasteful than how we live today.

In my own family, we’re always trying to do better, but with many of the little ways in which we’re pushing forward – composting our food scraps, carrying our own shopping bags, buying in bulk to reduce packaging – we seem to be going back to old habits.

Individually they’re small steps, but together we hope they add up. And I’m sure Nana and Grandad would be chuffed to have provided the examples.

Ngā mihi nui Caitlin Sykes Editor

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Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 3

NOTICEBOARD

Letters to the editor Along with other excellent articles in your Winter 2019 magazine, I enjoyed Sharon Stephenson’s account of your wallpaper collection and history.

It tweaked my memory of a great-grandfather, Peter Gourdie, who came out from Scotland in 1875 on the ship Wellington.

He tried goldmining in Otago, then [growing] kumara before becoming a prominent builder in Ashburton. Peter brought his wife and first child from Dunedin on the first passenger train to Christchurch, pulled by the locomotive K-88 Washington, which has been restored and now runs at The Plains Vintage Railway and Historical Museum in Tinwald, Ashburton. The locomotive had been dumped in an Otago river but was recovered and restored by rail engine enthusiasts.

Peter Gourdie built many town and rural houses, as well as banking and other commercial buildings in Ashburton.

Despite having a family of 15 children, he and his wife made a couple of trips back to Scotland.

In 1913 they bought a Willys Overland Model 69 Tourer car and travelled 4500 miles [7200 kilometres] around Scotland and England before filling the car with wallpaper rolls bought for sixpence a roll, and selling the rolls in Ashburton for two shillings and sixpence a roll.

Canny Scots!

It took me a while to get to the wallpaper bit, but I hope you enjoyed the story.

David Field (abridged) Regarding the article in your Summer 2019 issue on the film projector at Te Araroa, I was reminded that, many years ago, my wife and I stopped there to see a film. At that time, the small complex was owned by residents who lived in a house next door. You called in there in the evening and were charged a

nominal sum to enter, with the owners pointing out that the proceeds went to the upkeep of the theatre and projector.

We were instructed to close the door behind us and if anything went wrong during the film to knock on their door to fix it. At a certain time the lights went out and the projector started on a time switch; later the projector turned off and the lights came on.

All went well, the film finished and we walked out to our small campervan.

Eric Strickett (abridged) I have just been reading the item on Meretoto in the Summer 2019 issue. I was one of the crew on the Spirit of New Zealand for the amazing Tuia 250 pōwhiri there. The entry to Picton was incredible too, with [HMB] Endeavour and the various waka following the Spirit into port with a huge escort of small vessels.

I feel disappointed that the media have largely ignored the various Tuia 250 events around

the country – I have been on the Spirit for three of them. There has been such a wonderful coming together and sharing of our history from all points of view and a celebration of all Pacific navigators over the centuries.

Sheila Budgen

HERITAGE NEW ZEALAND DIRECTORY National Office PO Box 2629, Wellington 6140 Antrim House 63 Boulcott Street Wellington 6011 (04) 472 4341 (04) 499 0669 information@heritage.org.nz Go to www.heritage.org.nz for details of offices and historic places around New Zealand that are cared for by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

In the last edition of Heritage New Zealand magazine, I promised to share some images in this issue of the wonderful new roof at Ruatuna, which you all helped to fund, and the Open Day, during which we showed off this heritage gem to our members and the local community.

So here they are.

For those of you who couldn’t make it to the Open Day, there will be other opportunities, I promise! And for our Wellington-based members in particular, we’re also planning a ‘sneak peek’ so you can look around Old St Paul’s once this work is complete. Keep an eye out for more news on that in a few weeks’ time.

Brendon Veale Manager Asset Funding

SUPPORTER SPOTLIGHT

... WITH BRENDON VEALE

4 Ngahuru • Autumn

0800 HERITAGE (0800 437482) bveale@heritage.org.nz

Heritage New Zealand

Places we visit

Auckland, p36, p54

Ōhaeawai, p20

SOCIAL HERITAGE

... WITH JAMIE DOUGLAS Heritage New Zealand Social Media Manager A 160-year-old octagonal chapel thought to be the smallest church in New Zealand was the standout performer on Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga’s Facebook page (facebook.com/ HeritageNewZealand) heading into the new year.

The Category 2-listed Oruaiti Chapel was originally built near Mangonui Harbour in Northland but now resides at Kiwi North: Whāngārei Museum, Kiwi House and Heritage Park. The post attracted more than 12,600 views, with 46 ‘love’ emojis posted within the 344 reactions, comments and shares.

The chapel’s quirky shape lends itself to all sorts of comparisons, such as the pointy tip of a pencil, the cone of a rocket ship and even a roundabout, once popular at playgrounds around the country.

It’s a fun way to be creative with young children (and older, if you like) when you visit. Most important, though, is its original purpose as a 19th-century nondenominational church.

The chapel was also a library for a time in the 1870s, which dovetails beautifully with the

pou whenua: carved wooden post

Heritage New Zealand

mid-November post about the philanthropy of self-made millionaire, American Andrew Carnegie, and his funding of 2700 libraries worldwide.

It’s hard to put a good book down and, fingers crossed, it’s also hard to bring the former Carnegie Public Library in Dannevirke down. The post about the library and its threat of demolition proved to be a really good read, reaching just over 8100 people and garnering 288 reactions, comments and shares.

Eighteen Carnegie-funded libraries were built in New Zealand, with those in Balclutha and Marton still open for that purpose today. Here’s hoping Dannevirke’s Category 2-listed former library has an opportunity to write a new chapter in its history.

Rounding out this issue’s highlights was the unveiling of a carved pou whenua acknowledging the connections between Aotearoa Māori and their Pacific tūpuna from the Hawaiki homeland at Mangahāwea Bay on Moturua

Taranaki, p42

Pakipaki, p8

Maheno, p30

Roxburgh, p16

Dunedin, p10, p36

Island in the Bay of Islands.

The post topped 10,000 views, with an impressive 818 reactions, comments and shares. Included in that tally were 15 ‘wows’ and it’s easy to see why, given the craftsmanship of Rāwhiti-based carver Hohepa Hemara.

The icing

ON THE CAKE One of our regular contributors, Jacqui Gibson, rounded out 2019 by receiving the International Food, Wine and Travel Writers Association 2019 Excellence in Journalism Award.

Jacqui won the prize for her article ‘The Kings of Creole’, which appeared in the Autumn 2018 issue of Heritage New Zealand magazine, and told the story of New Orleans chefs and food historians who worked to preserve the city's unique culinary heritage in the years following the catastrophic devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 5

NOTICEBOARD Jane McFarlane is the cook at Hannah's Kitchen, the Hayes Engineering Works and Homestead café, where all the food is made on site. Here she shares the background of and recipe for the café’s much-loved quiche: “Hannah’s Kitchen smoked salmon quiche has evolved from a basic quiche recipe of flour and eggs to now using gluten-free flour and baking powder along with adding capers, horseradish cream, feta and, when seasonally available, asparagus. It is cooked in a round dish and presents well in a wedge with a swirl of cream cheese, capers and a slice of lemon on top. The orange colour of the salmon, the green of the spinach and the white of the feta make it appealing to look at. It is our café’s most popular gluten-free savoury item and we are complimented frequently on our tasty food and our food cabinet that ‘looks amazing!’”

For a tiny town, Oturehua has some serious cultural clout. Among the many talented artists and makers who have made the Central Otago settlement their home is poet and author Brian Turner (pictured above with fellow writer and Oturehua resident Jillian Sullivan), who has lived there for close to 20 years.

Oturehua is also home to the Heritage New Zealand-run Hayes Engineering Works and Homestead. And while the historic property is a popular stop for the thousands who cycle the Central Otago Rail Trail each year, it’s also a much-loved meeting place for locals.

1

You’re a regular visitor to Hayes. What draws you to the place?

I’ve had the odd look through the house, which is maintained very much as it has been for ever and a day, and it takes one back. In my case, because I’m in my mid70s now, I can remember a lot of the stuff that’s there from my grandparents’ period.

I also like looking at the old machinery and how it functions; I’ve always been interested in what people were able to do with the equipment they had available to them in the past.

It puts you in a situation whereby you think of days of yore and compare them with today. That always interests me because I’m of the view that if humankind is not careful, we’re going to

6 Ngahuru • Autumn

destroy what remains in the world historically – be it the environment or otherwise. All change is not necessarily progress.

2

What part does Hayes play more generally in the Oturehua community?

It’s in a good spot on the Central Otago Rail Trail, so lots of people who are doing that stop in to go through the works, or the house or the café. There’s a group of women who run the café and you wouldn’t get a more agreeable bunch to present our community to the wider public.

Whenever I’m there we have a good old laugh and it’s the place where you go to meet your friends. There’s a really good mixture and inflow of people, both visitors and locals, more generally in

1. Line quiche dish with baking paper.

2. With the splash of oil, cook the onion and garlic over a gentle heat until onion is translucent.

3. Beat wet ingredients (eggs, milk, horseradish cream), then add flour, baking powder and salt and mix.

4. Stir in onion and garlic, spinach, salmon and capers.

5. Pour into lined quiche dish and sprinkle with grated cheese.

6. Cook at 200 degrees C for 20 to 30 minutes.

Oturehua; for a small village, there’s considerable diversity.

3

What are your favourites from the Hayes café?

The café produces an excellent mixture of snacks, muffins, sandwiches, scones and so on – all of which are damned good.

They also make very good coffee and tea.

I’ve just come back this

morning from the café with my son Andre, who lives in London and is out here to see me and a few others, and he just smacked his lips together when he had some quiche there. The variety of excellent food you can get there is unexpected in the eyes of many people. www.heritage.org.nz/places/ places-to-visit/otagoregion/hayes-engineering

Heritage New Zealand

IMAGE: BRIDGET MUSTERS

THREE QUICK QUESTIONS WITH ...

BRIAN TURNER

HANNAH’S KITCHEN SMOKED SALMON QUICHE 4 eggs 2C milk 2 tbsp horseradish cream 1C gluten-free flour 2 tsp gluten-free baking powder 1 tsp salt 1 medium onion, diced 1 tsp crushed garlic Splash of oil 250g smoked salmon pieces 4 big handfuls of fresh spinach/kale, chopped 2 tbsp capers, chopped Grated cheese

IMAGE: ROB SUISTED

STANDING TOGETHER The next two months will see the wrap-up of Tūhono Kerikeri! – a six-month programme of events marking the establishment of New Zealand’s first bicultural settlement at the Kerikeri Mission Station.

Commemorations marking 200 years since the mission station was founded under the protection of Kororipo pā and Ngāpuhi rangatira Hongi Hika kicked off with a dawn blessing and opening ceremony in October last year.

They will round off with the Kororipo Park Heritage Festival Day to be held in Kerikeri on 21 March and featuring live bands, cultural and heritage activities, kapa haka, food, art, tours and talks.

A closing ceremony will take place on 26 April. https://tuhonokerikeri.nz

Heritage This Month – subscribe now Keep up to date by subscribing to our free e-newsletter Heritage This Month. Visit www.heritage.org.nz (‘Resources’ section) or email membership@heritage.org.nz to be included in the email list.

Heritage New Zealand

RETURN TO CONTENTS

Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 7

NOTICEBOARD EXPLORE THE LIST

LOCATION Pakipaki is situated southwest of Hastings at the intersection of State Highways 2 and 50A.

Love and

devotion In the Hawke’s Bay settlement of Pakipaki, the connections to the French Catholic nun Suzanne Aubert run deep WORDS: ANN WARNOCK • IMAGERY: TOM ALLEN

A treasure trove, a hidden jewel, a pot of gold – the host of adages cannot capture the significance of a small, steeply pitched church with a soupçon of rural France in the Māori settlement of Pakipaki near Hastings.

8 Ngahuru • Autumn

Situated a stone’s throw from Houngarea Marae – one of three marae in Pakipaki – the tiny timber ecclesiastical building is Gothic Revival in style, without a spire, bell, altar or pews.

Outside, weatherboards have

waned. Inside, nesting swallows are having a ball.

But the dilapidated condition of the Church of the Immaculate Conception is immaterial in the face of its deep resonance within the terrain of European missionaries, Māori Catholicism and the papakāinga of Pakipaki.

Constructed in 1880, the church is the oldest surviving building in New Zealand connected with the French Catholic nun Suzanne Aubert – nurse, social worker, impassioned advocate for tangata whenua, proficient speaker of te reo Māori and one of the most important women in the nation’s historical trajectory.

So momentous is Aubert’s footprint on Aotearoa that her current status is Catholic saint-inwaiting as the Vatican deliberates her canonisation.

Future glory notwithstanding, the impact of the small-framed Frenchwoman who lived alongside the people of Pakipaki from 1871 to 1883 and reputedly helped to fund the church from an inheritance received on her father’s death continues to be felt today.

“We’ve always viewed her as someone very special and, just like the church, she’s part of us and always has been. She lived in a hut not far from here and we understand she never enjoyed good health,” says Hera Ferris, Pakipaki kaumātua and chair

of the Pakipaki Whare Karakia Charitable Trust.

The trust is spearheading a full-scale restoration of the church, underpinned by a recently commissioned conservation plan, as a salute to its status in New Zealand’s social and religious landscape. As part of the process, the church has attained a Category 1 listing with Heritage New Zealand.

“The importance of Mother Aubert is increasing and a growing number of pilgrims are visiting Pakipaki seeking out its deep connection with this amazing holy woman,” says trainee deacon Charles Ropitini of the Pakipaki Māori Catholic Mission.

Suzanne Aubert came to New Zealand from France with Bishop Pompallier in 1860 and initially worked among Māori in Auckland before moving south to Hawke’s Bay, where she was instrumental in re-energising the Marist Mission and growing the region’s Catholic narrative.

She later referred to her time in Hawke’s Bay as the happiest period in her life.

The construction of the Church of the Immaculate Conception on tribal land gifted by rangatira Urupene Pūhara – whose father Pūhara Hawaikirangi had been patron of the Catholic Māori Mission in Hawke’s Bay – was perceived as the culmination of Aubert’s mahi in the area.

Heritage New Zealand Heritage Advisor Central Region Kerryn Pollock says the little church reflects the dissemination of organised Western religion into Māori communities but is framed within te ao Māori.

“It captures a dynamism and openness to new ideas so evident in Māori communities, even after the hugely damaging New Zealand Wars period,” she says.

“And it’s a great story of Māori agency intertwined with the incredible energy and commitment of Suzanne Aubert.”

No concrete information is known about the instigator of the building of the church, and

Heritage New Zealand

there are no records or letters referencing its design credentials, but there is speculation that Aubert herself may have sketched its plans.

Interestingly, the church’s composition and adornments signalled nothing of her close affinity with Māoridom.

The church was devoid of indigenous elements but stamped with the influence of her homeland – French lacework and embroidery, French altar vessels and a pearl chandelier in the nave.

Regardless of its decoration, the Church of the Immaculate Conception was a powerhouse of Māori-imbued Catholicism.

In 1944 it was the scene of a joyous and ground-breaking mass celebrated by New Zealand’s first-ever Māori Catholic priest,

kaumātua: elder mahi: work papakāinga: ancestral home rangatira: chief tangata whenua: people of the land te ao Māori: the Māori world

Wiremu Te Āwhitu, who’d been ordained in Napier the day before.

While the building was reconfigured over the years – its fourth lancet windows were removed to create an altar boys’ dressing room and a sacristy – its encapsulation of the essence of Suzanne Aubert remained intact and it served its community for almost 90 years.

Dramatic change, however, came in 1967.

Deemed by some to be in poor condition, and further fuelled by a Vatican edict requiring a new orientation of the altar that allowed the priest to face the people during mass, the church was decommissioned and moved 40 metres west on its site to make way for a John Scottdesigned replacement (pictured left), which opened in 1968.

“It’s still a bit of a mystery as to why it all happened and who paid for the new church,” says Hera Ferris.

The interchange wasn’t without tears. Hera, who was baptised, confirmed and married, and whose four children were baptised in the Church of the Immaculate Conception, says her late father,

Heritage New Zealand

Pakipaki kaumātua Jim Kenrick, was devastated by its closure.

“Dad thought the replacement looked like a dance hall. He was the last person to lie in state at the old church. My uncle says as Dad’s coffin was carried from the marae past the new church, it suddenly went heavy and they thought they’d drop it. Once they walked on towards the Church of the Immaculate Conception, it lightened,” says Hera.

In the late 1980s, the empty church housed a carving school for unemployed young people.

A hardboard surface installed to protect the original timber floorboards remains today.

Around the same time, a huge mural depicting religious figures and the proclamation ‘Faith, Hope, Peace and Love’ was painted in the sanctuary.

While there’s no debating the jaw-dropping disparity of a fullgloss, turquoise frieze adorning a highly significant historic church, one can’t help thinking that Suzanne Aubert would nonetheless be content.

After all, distributing faith, hope, peace and love was the theme of her life and the function of the petite church she brought to life at Pakipaki.

RETURN TO CONTENTS

Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 9

NOTICEBOARD EXPLORE THE LIST

Free spirits Barracks built in the 1870s to house an influx of immigrants to New Zealand offer a window into the world of those new arrivals WORDS: JAMIE DOUGLAS • IMAGERY: HERITAGE NEW ZEALAND

10 Ngahuru • Autumn

They might not have been students in Dunedin in the early 1870s but these ‘freshers’ in the gold-rich ‘Edinburgh of the south’ certainly knew how to party.

So much so that the influx of immigrants under Premier Julius Vogel’s ambitious public works and government-subsidised immigration scheme were slated in one Otago Daily Times report in 1874 as “certified scum” for their boozy antics. Welcome to New Zealand.

The gathering place for the new arrivals, who were predominantly from England, was the former Caversham Immigration Barracks.

Completed in 1873, these barracks were a great improvement on what immigrants to Dunedin had previously endured. Prior to 1870, they had been housed on the beach in a 20-metre-long hut, with single women at one end, married couples in the middle, and single men at the other end.

That the barracks have survived is nothing short of a miracle given their use after the immigration scheme ended in 1882. They were disused for more than a decade before becoming home to the New Zealand Wax Vesta Company – a match factory… in a wooden building.

The barracks then became a care facility for scarlet fever cases for a short period in the early 20th century, under the auspices of the Department of Public Health, before the building was sold to John Overend Hewton, who dismantled it to build workers’ cottages.

Hewton relocated one complete wing, however, to nearby Mornington in 1907. Today it is still in use as four apartments and is one of the few survivors of colonial architect William Clayton’s standard plan for government buildings.

Great interest remains in the stories the building’s walls could tell. The New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero report prepared for the Category 1-listed property details the efforts made

Heritage New Zealand

LOCATION Dunedin lies at the head of Otago Harbour on the South Island’s southeast coast.

by builder Alexander Jerusalem Smyth to adhere to William Clayton’s blueprint, in keeping with 19th-century sensibilities and morals.

But while the architectural theory was nailed, it couldn’t stop the free spirit of youth, combined with a drink or two and a wilfully errant mind, from playing up a bit.

As the listing report notes, with reference also to the Otago Witness newspaper: “The form of the building reflected its purpose, which was to ‘keep each class of immigrants entirely distinct from the other, and, once within the building, the chances of communication between the single men and women, for instance, is as remote as if one or other were at Timbuctoo’”.

Heritage New Zealand

The north wing accommodated single women and the south wing single men; dormitories each contained 96 bunks. Rooms were also provided for warders, whose duty was “to enforce the regulations and suppress the joviality of the young bloods when it exceeds the bounds of propriety”.

Rowdiness was passed on to those arriving under Vogel’s updated scheme, with the Otago Daily Times describing some immigrants as “drunk and frolicsome”, with their behaviour “of the coarsest description”.

“The life of the former Caversham Barracks has a rich depth to it that you can’t simply see from its appearance today, a partial version of the original

uprooted from its first address and now in Mornington,” says former Heritage New Zealand Heritage Assessment Advisor Susan Irvine.

“We often say that these places are all about the people – and with the barracks it is the people who really bring them to life on a social and historical scale.

“The architectural merit of the barracks is relatively simplistic but nonetheless very important in the overall context of why they were built and who they were built for. They certainly sent an early message to those who were destined to live in them that expenses were spared for their accommodation!”

Today’s barracks at Mornington retain their accommodation purpose, with a number of

original or near-original interior features remaining.

The exterior appears much the same as it would have done 150 years or so ago and fits the listing description of an institutional building: long, narrow and rectangular, without decoration.

For Susan, here lies the true appeal of the place.

“The barracks may be a plain building, but its aesthetic is what imparts its value as an example of architect Clayton’s standard plan. Functional, temporary and a public facility – those were the key elements he designed to. A decorative flourish was not in the thinking.

“We are lucky that John Overend Hewton made few changes to the barracks at Mornington, so we can appreciate what they would have looked like originally.

“Sadly, Clayton’s plans for the barracks have not survived, but photographs clearly show his design style to be timber, twoor three-storeyed, multi-winged, of plain, rectangular form, and with a hipped roof.

“Today the barracks are very important as this section appears to be New Zealand’s last remaining structure built specifically for immigration purposes under Vogel’s public immigration scheme.”

Perhaps important enough, indeed, to raise a glass to.

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Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 11

PROFILE NOTICEBOARD

WORDS: JACQUI GIBSON • IMAGERY: ALAN DOVE

A way of life

12 Ngahuru • Autumn

Marian Hobbs was walking the Scottish Highlands one day when she was struck by the need to go home.

It was something about the familiarity of the barren landscape, while at the same time feeling alien within it, she explains over the phone from her century-old Dunedin cottage.

“I felt so homesick for New Zealand, I burst into tears.”

Marian Hobbs, former Labour MP, was appointed Chair of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga in July 2019, taking over from former National MP Wyatt Creech.

She returned to New Zealand from the UK in 2013 after one gap year of teaching morphed into five.

“To me, heritage is so much more than old buildings – it doesn’t matter which part of the world you live in. It’s about one’s identity, knowing oneself and understanding one’s place in the world.”

Marian’s place is undoubtedly Aotearoa New Zealand.

A long-time learner of te reo Māori, with a career that spans more than 35 years as a secondary school teacher, department head and principal and 12 years in parliament, Marian grew up in a state house in the Christchurch suburb of Papanui.

“My mother left school at 14. My father matriculated and had one year at university but couldn’t afford to continue. We didn’t have a lot of money, but we weren’t poor. Books and education were important. I went to university thinking I’d take up journalism like Dad.” Her father was Parliamentary Press Gallery reporter and author Leslie Hobbs.

“But later I found teaching was my gift and I never looked back.”

Championing New Zealand’s heritage has been an enduring theme in Marian’s life.

It was the country’s literary heritage she passed on to high school students as an English literature teacher – the canon of writers such as Albert Wendt and Witi Ihimaera in particular.

Years later, as Minister of Broadcasting, she successfully pushed to get more New Zealand music played on commercial radio.

By 2005, New Zealand content averaged around 20 percent, up from lows of around 1 percent in the mid-1990s.

As a university activist, Marian helped to shape New Zealand’s radical political heritage.

A member of HART (Halt All Racist Tours), a protest group against the 1981 Springbok Tour,

Heritage New Zealand

“We’ve got to continue to make sure this country’s heritage is relevant to everyone – our kids in schools, our Māori communities, tourists, you name it”

Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 13

NOTICEBOARD PROFILE

Marian was also a member of the Communist Party for six years, became a Quaker in the late 1980s and joined the Labour Party in the early 1990s.

In 1993 she was one of 500 women and men who received the New Zealand Suffrage Centennial Medal, recognising her contribution to women’s issues in New Zealand.

Last year Marian was elected Chair of Otago Regional Council and now hopes to play a role in protecting the region’s environmental heritage during her three-year tenure.

So what are her plans for her new role at Heritage New Zealand?

“Things are going well,” she says. “I think our direction is pretty well on track. Don’t expect to see any stick-shaking from me.

“As a country we’re turning a corner when it comes to our heritage, thank God. We’re starting to face up to our colonial past and explore new stories about our nationhood. It’s exciting.”

That said, she’d still like to see the recognition and protection of more wāhi tapu and wāhi tupuna sites and other sites of significance to Māori.

She’s keen on more proactive engagement with New Zealand’s Chinese, Indian and working-class communities to work out the sites and stories that matter most to them.

And she’s interested in improving pay and conditions for Heritage New Zealand’s staff.

“We’ve got some of the lowest rates of public sector pay in the country. If we value our heritage and our past as a nation, then we have to properly pay the professionals who look after it. It’s as simple as that.”

What’s not so straightforward are the solutions needed to change such things. “Look, I know the pressure on the government purse and the need to

14 Ngahuru • Autumn

wāhi tapu: a site of sacred significance wāhi tūpuna: a site of ancestral significance

run a tight financial ship. I was part of [former finance minister] Dr Michael Cullen’s team, don’t forget.

But I’m definitely keen to talk to our prime minister [Jacinda Ardern] to see what’s possible and where we might fit into her priorities.

“I’d also like to see us increase the overall pool of funding available to conserve our heritage. There’s plenty of room for innovation. I can’t see the need to preserve buildings in aspic – not when we have so much tourism potential. And not when we know people want to experience our heritage properties as places to stay, get married and eat and drink some of New Zealand’s excellent food and wine.”

Totara Estate, an historic farm in North Otago, bought by Heritage New Zealand in 1980, is a case in point, says Marian. Every year, people tour its collection of Oamaru stone buildings. Some hire it as a wedding venue.

More could be done, she says.

“Wellington’s gorgeous wooden cathedral, Old St Paul’s, is another example of an historic building increasing its appeal in an innovative way.”

Currently closed for seismic strengthening, the historic church built in 1866 has its own Facebook page and fundraising hashtag (#FOREVEROSP). It hosts tours and unconventional fundraising events such as special film screenings and organ, jazz and acoustic pop concerts, alongside conventional Christian services.

“What I’m saying is we’ve got to continue to make sure this country’s heritage is relevant to everyone – our kids in schools, our Māori communities, tourists, you name it. Heritage must be a living thing. Our heritage places must continue to be places we want to live.”

Heritage New Zealand

IMAGERY: GRANT SHEEHAN/HERITAGE NEW ZEALAND POUHERE TAONGA

For years, as an MP, I’d look at Wellington’s Old Government Buildings from my office in Bowen House. It quickly became a firm favourite.

It’s New Zealand’s largest wooden building and possibly one of the world’s biggest wooden buildings – so I like its scale and the way its classical design conveys a sense of strength and stability. Its interior use of timber, mostly kauri, is impressive, as is the fact that it was one of the country’s first smoke-free buildings [to combat the constant fire threat].

On a personal level, it’s a building that feels relevant to me as a former government minister. I suppose that’s what I enjoy about New Zealand’s built heritage: buildings from another era give you a window into the people, places and norms of that era. They offer us a chance to reflect on our identity as a nation and achieve a sense of place.

Ask me to choose between New Zealand’s wonderful stone buildings and our wooden heritage buildings and I’ll pick the latter every time.

Both are architecturally special.

But memories of my time spent at Dunedin’s Dominican Priory give me a shiver when I think back. I was a boarder there from the age of 10 – and it was a cold, damp place. While I admire its origins and the goal of the priory’s Irish nuns to educate the young women of New Zealand, I can’t get past the warmer and more inclusive feel of our historic wooden buildings.

Old Government Buildings

RETURN TO CONTENTS

Heritage New Zealand

Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 15

ARCHAEOLOGY NOTICEBOARD

WORDS: JAMIE DOUGLAS • IMAGERY: HERITAGE NEW ZEALAND

BEAUTY SPOT

Its outlook may have changed, but many features of a remote cottage from a oncethriving goldmining community remain, hinting at the life of its eponymous owner

16 Ngahuru • Autumn

Heritage New Zealand

They’re two simple pictures, but they go a long way towards communicating those moments in the archaeological world that make all the painstaking work worthwhile.

The first, taken by stonemason Keith Hinds, shows pavers laid at the front of the quaintly named Mrs Heron’s Cottage – a 19th-century relic of the goldmining days dating from the 1860s at Roxburgh Gorge in Central Otago. Taken while conservation work on the cottage was being carried out in May 2019, the picture captures this exciting and

Heritage New Zealand

previously undiscovered feature of the site.

The second picture shows heritage builder Chris Naylor, archaeologist Matthew Sole and former Heritage New Zealand Senior Archaeologist Otago/Southland Matt Schmidt enjoying a break from their work with a cuppa overlooking the beauty of Lake Roxburgh.

Not visible in the shot is Chris’s fishing line with a frozen shrimp on the hook – a cunning recommendation from Matt that helped to catch five trout, of which the biggest three sadly got away.

How’s that for a workplace?

The view from the cottage was significantly different when it was built for Henry and Harriet Heron, who lived there from 1863 to 1875. For a start, it was part of a mining community called Fourteen-Mile Beach, which sprawled along the edges of the Roxburgh Gorge, with the Clutha River/Mata-Au in the distance.

Today the cottage is a rare surviving reminder of those mining days, and that community, after the construction of the Roxburgh Dam in 1956 flooded the gorge and created Lake Roxburgh.

While the front doorstep of the cottage is now closer to the water’s edge, it is still a safe distance away.

Thanks to a 2003 joint memorandum of understanding (MOU) to manage and conserve archaeological sites along the banks of the Clutha/Mata-Au, this is as far as the water will encroach on Mrs Heron’s Cottage.

The conservation work at the cottage is being managed by Heritage New Zealand and funded

by Roxburgh Dam/Lake Roxburgh hydro-electric generation resource consent holder Contact Energy. The MOU also involves

Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 17

ARCHAEOLOGY

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cottage owner Land Information New Zealand and pastoral lease holder and previous caretaker/ owner of the cottage site, the Miller Family Trust.

The three-bay Mrs Heron’s Cottage was built in stages: the centre in the 1860s, the stone extension of its left side possibly in the 1880s or ’90s, and the corrugated-iron addition on the right side by miners during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

It was constructed primarily of schist and mud mortar, with remnants of the original and later floors, plus tongue-and groove ceiling timbers and fireplaces, including a Shacklock oven, still there.

“In archaeological, historical and heritage terms, this is a remarkable site,” says Matt, who has been heavily involved in this project.

18 Ngahuru • Autumn

“[Iron hoops were] all concertinaed into a neat pile where a barrel at the back corner of the house had been located, probably to catch fresh rainwater” “The artefacts found while removing the fill that had built up around the cottage gave you a sense of the day-to-day lives of Mr and Mrs Heron. A rubbish pit with alcohol bottles, pieces of fencing wire, clay penny inks, a scale weight, broken plates and the remains of a beautiful black tea or coffee pot with gold trim were found.

“There were also iron hoops all concertinaed into a neat pile where a barrel at the back corner of the house had been located, probably to catch fresh rainwater.

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Heritage New Zealand

“The surprise discovery was the paving out the front of the cottage, beautifully laid.”

Henry and Harriet Heron owned and worked a successful goldmining claim at the former Fourteen-Mile Beach, building the original cottage above the burgeoning town that at its peak had more than 1000 people living and working there.

The Herons lived there until around 1875 before moving about 15 kilometres south to Roxburgh to run the Commercial Hotel, and the cottage became known locally as Mrs Heron’s Cottage.

Henry died in 1896 but Harriet carried on managing the property until she died in 1913. There’s no doubt Harriet was an incredibly strong and resourceful woman.

Twelve years spent at FourteenMile Beach, including three as possibly the only woman, are testament to that.

Last year’s conservation work centred on removing the built-up soil and debris from around the cottage, repairing the roof, and drying out and repointing the stonework. The interior was made safe where possible – for example, by patching holes in the floor – with care being taken to maintain the original features and fabric.

Stonemason Keith Hinds is an experienced hand in pointing and stone repairs and has worked on many conservation projects.

The St Bathans resident spent around two weeks with the other experts working on the exterior and interior of the cottage, using the next-door farmer’s track – not the easiest of routes – to get to and from the cottage.

Keith is pleased with the finished result, especially given the almost complete loss of the exterior render coat, which had left the schist stonework and mud mortar bonding open to further deterioration.

“The original stonework was pretty poor really, with lots of round and small rocks,” says Keith.

“There were a lot of holes for mice and birds to come and go through, but now the job is done it gives the cottage a lot

Heritage New Zealand

1 Matt Schmidt with a

late-19th-century beer bottle.

2 The overgrown front of Mrs Heron’s

Cottage prior to conservation work.

3 Tin found in front of the kitchen

area to protect the timber floor.

4 The cottage is a valuable reminder

of 19th-century goldmining activity.

5 Chris Naylor with in-situ iron hoops

from a wooden barrel.

6 The wave wall protects the cottage

from Lake Roxburgh.

IMAGERY: CONTACT ENERGY 7 The cottage nestled by the lake.

IMAGE: ANDREA FRAMINER

more strength. The repaired roof makes it quite safe now. I did mud pointing but with a lime base to it because of the cottage’s remoteness.

“I’m a bit of a heritage supporter and was keen on saving the cottage. The old rule is to only do what you have to do and not point rake out the old lime.

“I’ve been doing heritage stonework for 30 years now.

When I was approached, I was asked to really get this right. I love working on heritage like this and I feel really proud when the job is finished.”

Clyde-based carpenter Chris Naylor says the woodwork at Mrs Heron’s Cottage was in a parlous state.

“It was pretty much on the way out. The internal gutters had blocked up and rotted out, and rain had rotted out parts of the building.

“The central room flooring was pretty good, but the corrugatediron side was completely buggered. We replaced about 75 to 80 percent of the south-side floor with recycled rimu to match the original flooring.

“The idea was to leave the cottage as a ruin but make it safe. I put half-doors, on springs, in doorways, basically to keep the sheep out. Rough-sawn macrocarpa was also used to distinguish between the old and the new.

“The whole project was so fun, so good. It’s just beautiful down there.”

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CONTACT AND CONSERVATION Daniel Druce, Environmental Advisor for Contact Energy, says the Mrs Heron’s Cottage project is “the most significant heritage restoration work Contact Energy has done in Otago” and he is proud to be associated with it.

The cottage has been conserved as a managed ruin, as opposed to being restored to a liveable condition, in accordance with the conservation plan prepared by Jackie Gillies + Associates in 2014.

“The conservation plan was the blueprint for what was required to ensure that the cottage lasts another 150 years,” says Daniel, who is based at Clyde.

“The actual conservation work was done in two phases, with the construction of the wave wall in 2010 the first. That wall was a huge undertaking at such a remote site but prevented undermining the cottage by Lake Roxburgh. And the second stage was engaging the right people to do the work in accordance with that plan.”

Contact Energy has been active in a number of other heritage conservation projects in Central Otago – the majority in the Roxburgh Gorge – including archaeological investigations.

The continued conservation work reflects the increased public appreciation of archaeology and heritage from when the dam was built in the 1950s.

“Mrs Heron’s Cottage is a pretty cool site,” says Daniel. “It’s a place that’s difficult to get to, only accessible by boat. You start to develop something of a duty of care, and then it just takes over a little bit.” n

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Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 19

NOTICEBOARD MĀORI HERITAGE

WORDS: JENNY LING • IMAGERY: DEAN WRIGHT 1

Standing

STRONG

The history of one of Northland’s most significant battle sites is being kept alive 175 years on through the sharing of stories and wānanga

20 Ngahuru • Autumn

St Michael’s Anglican Church in the Far North looks like any quaint, modest church, with its white, vertical boarding, steep pitched roof and small arched windows.

But take a closer look and you’ll find that Te Whare Karakia o Mikaere, as it’s also known, and the site upon which it sits, is loaded with history and wairua.

Perched on top of a hill near Ngāwhā, it’s where one of Northland’s most important battles, the Battle of Ōhaeawai, took place and where local Māori inflicted heavy casualties on British forces.

Heritage New Zealand

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1 St Michael’s Anglican Church in Ōhaeawai is surrounded by the urupā and is the site of one of Northland’s most significant battles.

2 The urupā houses a memorial marking the interment spot of 47 British soldiers.

The church occupies most of the original pā of rangatira Pene Taui, around which Te Pakanga o Ōhaeawai was fought in the winter of 1845 during the third major engagement of the Northern Wars.

Surrounding it is the urupā, encased in stone walls that house a memorial marking the interment spot of 47 British soldiers.

Inside the church is an account of the battle and a plaque listing the names of those same British dead.

Heritage New Zealand

With particular input from Heritage New Zealand Senior Pouārahi Northland Atareiria Heihei and Kaiwhakahaere/ Manager Māori Heritage Policy and Recognition Xavier Forde, in 2018 the battle site Te Pakanga o Ōhaeawai was recognised as wāhi tapu by Heritage New Zealand.

Under the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014, wāhi tapu is defined as a place sacred to Māori in the traditional, spiritual, religious, ritual or mythological sense.

There are many accounts of the battle around the pā site, which is now a peaceful place of worship that holds great significance to local hapū Ngāti Rangi.

Local historian Edward Clarke cautions that any accounts of the battle involving his tūpuna have not yet been written and recorded; they remain stories within an oral history, passed down from one generation to the next through whakapapa, whakataukī, kōrero and waiata.

The great-grandson of chief Heta Te Haara, who succeeded Pene Taui as the local rangatira after his death, Edward has spent much time with kaumātua absorbing these stories.

Edward and Adrienne Tari, who is Chair of the St Michael’s Church and Urupā Committee, acknowledge other rangatira and hapū who were involved in the battle.

“It’s part of our history; we have all grown up knowing it,” says Edward.

“There’s a lot of humility in this hapū and in Ngāpuhi in general. We totally respect this place, it’s very special for us.”

The story began in June 1845 when Lieutenant Colonel Henry Despard attempted to wear down a division of Ngāpuhi over one week.

On 25 June about 600 troops from the 58th and 99th Regiments, the Royal Marines and militia, as well as approximately 300 warriors of Tāmati Wāka Nene, besieged 100 men at the Taui pā.

Under the leadership of Ngāpuhi leader Te Ruki Kawiti, the warriors successfully defended the pā, which featured ground-breaking fortifications, including communication trenches, that gave their occupants maximum protection, and rua that were set into the ground and covered with logs, stones and matted flax.

The pā also had three palisades, including a strong inner fence made of pūriri logs set almost two metres into the ground, with five metres standing above ground covered in flax leaves that worked as a screen, preventing the British seeing inside.

The British, having established a four-gun battery on the nearby hill of Puketapu, opened fire and continued until dark.

By the end of the day, minimal damage had been done and the bombardment continued, just as ineffectually, for another two days.

On 1 July a raiding party from the pā successfully overpowered the camp of Tāmati Wāka Nene and took the Union Jack, which

Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 21

MĀORI HERITAGE was flown within their pā in full view of the British, upside down and at half-mast below a kākahu.

Enraged by the insult, Despard ordered the storming of the pā, against advice from Wāka Nene, who refused to take part in the attack.

Within a matter of minutes 47 of the attackers lay dead and another 70 were left injured. Only a handful of defenders were killed.

By 8 July the pā was abandoned, the defenders having disappeared into the night.

The church – which is listed as a Category 1 historic place – was built by Messrs Neilsen and Cook in 1870 as a symbol of peace and a tribute to the Pākehā who had died in battle there.

It was opened by Bishop Cowie in 1871, the same year that Heta Te Haara obtained permission from the government to reinter the bodies of the British soldiers in the Ōhaeawai urupā.

On 1 July 1872, 27 years after the battle, the troops were honoured

by Māori at a service and a memorial cross was erected.

The site is now registered under the Historic Places Act 1980.

Over the years, gravediggers have come across artefacts such as cannon balls, pipi shells and charcoal, along with pieces of the pūriri palisades.

In the lead-up to the 175th commemorations of the Battle of Ōhaeawai in 2020 there has been much community activity at the site.

Adrienne says commemorations will be held over the first weekend in July 2020 to acknowledge the battle and will include kōrero and a hākari, along with a church service.

A number of guests, dignitaries and representatives from various agencies will be invited, she says, including the New Zealand Defence Force.

HANDS ACROSS THE WATER The tale of how St Michael’s Anglican Church came to be built is a story in itself.

In 1863 Wesleyan lay preacher William Jenkins took a party of 14 Māori men and women, mainly from Northland, to England in a bid to improve Māori/Pākehā relations.

Once there, the group received invitations from England's most eminent people, including Queen Victoria, and were lavishly entertained.

Queen Victoria was still mourning Prince Albert’s death in 1861, so Ngāpuhi rangatira Hare Pomare and his wife Hariata, who had given birth to a son, composed a waiata, which they performed in front of the Queen, placing a heitiki at her feet.

Touched by these gestures, Queen Victoria adopted their child, Albert Victor Pomare, as her godson.

Within several months of their stay, however, funds were dwindling and the group, now stranded, were wondering how to finance their return to New Zealand.

It was Birmingham woman Dorothea Weale, who, upon hearing of their plight, paid for their passages home. Wanting to acknowledge her kind gesture, they set about fulfilling her wish to provide churches in their home communities.

Enough money for two churches was raised. One is St Michael’s Anglican Church in Ōhaeawai; the other, Te Hēpara Pai, Church of the Good Shepherd, was located in Mangakāhia but was destroyed by a fire in 1915. n

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22 Ngahuru • Autumn

Heritage New Zealand

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hākari: feast hapū: tribe heitiki: a type of greenstone pendant kākahu: a type of cloak kaumātua: elder kōrero: talks korowai: a type of cloak mātauranga: knowledge rangatira: chief rua: anti-artillery bunkers tūpuna: ancestors urupā: cemetery waiata: song wairua: spirit wānanga: tribal knowledge/conference whakapapa: genealogy whakataukī: proverbs

Heritage New Zealand

The whānau of Dorothea Weale, whose kind gesture inspired the building of the church (see sidebar), have been invited from England and Ngāti Rangi are commissioning a korowai to be made as a gift for her family.

With funding from Te Puni Kōkiri, the Ministry of Māori Development, they also plan to create information boards in both te reo Māori and English so that visitors can learn about the battle and the history of the site. It is expected that these boards will be erected outside the church before the commemorations take place.

The church has undergone minor renovations and general maintenance over the years, including in the 1970s to celebrate its centenary.

It was in tip-top shape for the filming of Mesmerized,

a 1986 drama directed by Michael Laughlin in which the characters, played by A-list actors Jodie Foster and John Lithgow, were married.

But the history of the site is being kept alive mainly by sharing stories and wānanga, led by Edward and other local historians, Adrienne says.

These include national commemorations called Te Pūtake o te Riri, The Cause of the Anger, which took place in the Bay of Islands over a weekend in March 2018.

It was the first time a national commemoration had recognised the New Zealand Wars, which led to the loss of 3000 lives across the country.

During the event, Ngāti Rangi hosted a wānanga on the Battle of Ōhaeawai, which attracted

six busloads of people to their Ngāwhā marae.

Adrienne says it was an impressive event, and one in which she heard the full story of the battle for the first time.

“It was really special,” she says.

“It started a bit of an epiphany; we need to embrace it and learn more about it. It’s not just a story, it forms part of our history and we are the people who hold on to that mātauranga. It’s entrenched and we have a responsibility to learn it.”

RETURN TO CONTENTS

1 The church was built in 1870 as a

symbol of peace and a tribute to the Pākehā who had died in battle there.

2 Local historian Edward Clarke (left),

St Michael’s Church and Urupā Committee chair Adrienne Tari and Heritage New Zealand’s Tautiaki Wāhi Taonga Director Mita Harris.

Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 23

NOTICEBOARD HOW TO 1

WORDS: NICOLA MARTIN • IMAGERY: ALAN DOVE

Written in

STONE Lost knowledge is threatening the retention and conservation of New Zealand heritage structures built using lime and stone – but moves are afoot to help retrieve it

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24 Ngahuru • Autumn 2020

If the walls could talk in some of New Zealand’s oldest stone buildings, they would speak to changing construction practices dating back to World War II and skills lost between generations.

As Australian heritage consultant David Young acknowledges, there’s no escaping the anthropomorphic nature of stone walls. They may not actually talk, but they certainly breathe.

“There’s a fundamental understanding that air gets inside limestone, and bricks and lime mortar, and that walls exchange that air with the atmosphere – that walls breathe,” he says.

Among the many hats he wears, David is involved in the Building Limes Forum (BLF) – an international organisation with many independent branches around the world – which encourages expertise and understanding in the appropriate use of building limes.

Heritage New Zealand

1 Different lime plasters, with

dates recorded, which can be used in projects.

2 Salt damage and seepage are

A New Zealand chapter of the forum was set up late last year and is co-chaired by Dunedin stonemason and Heritage New Zealand Conservation Advisor Otago/Southland Andrew Barsby.

Andrew returned from Melbourne over a year ago to take up his new role and discovered, as time has moved on and building techniques have changed, that generations of knowledge have been lost in New Zealand’s stone conservation history.

“There are so many at-risk heritage buildings in New Zealand that are just hanging on.

Another 50 years of people doing nothing to maintain them – or the wrong things – will lead to demolition by neglect, or at least the loss of the very surface of these buildings,” says Andrew.

Part of the plan proposed to increase knowledge and skills in this area, says Andrew, is for the New Zealand BLF to run a workshop focused on how to work with lime and stone.

David says the knowledge gap in methods and materials comes from dramatic changes in building practice from World War II and more recently, as new building techniques and materials have developed.

Modern cement, acrylic paints and even changes in building codes, designed with safety in mind, have all taken their toll on our stone buildings.

“Materials like acrylic paints don’t breathe enough. You end up trapping moisture behind the paint. The traditional coatings were usually lime washes, sometimes with added extras to weatherproof them, like tallow or linseed oil,” says David.

two of the consequences of maintaining lime and stone buildings incorrectly.

3 Stonemason Stuart Griffiths

(left) and Andrew Barsby experiment with lime solutions.

4 A build-up of salt crystals can

eventually blow the stone apart.

“The contemporary use of cement in reinforced concrete is great, but using it in mortars, which has become the norm, is not right for use with softer porous materials like limestone.”

When stone buildings are not allowed to breathe, moisture becomes trapped, leading to damp masonry and buildings that are bad for people’s health or are simply not energy efficient.

In the worst-case scenario, rising damp that becomes trapped within cement or behind acrylic paints can lead to salt crystals being deposited within the stone.

A build-up of these crystals can eventually blow the stone apart, causing expensive and sometimes irreparable damage.

For building owners, says David, maintenance can be a costly and difficult exercise, but while it may be expensive to do it right, doing it wrong can cost far more.

Andrew says that while building owners can’t be forced to perform maintenance, doing small amounts at a time can save dollars later down the track.

“It’s coming back to that lost knowledge. We want to get people thinking about these things again. They need to do little bits over time, which is better than suddenly finding they have a $100,000 problem to fix.”

“It’s coming back to that lost knowledge. We want to get people thinking about these things again” Heritage New Zealand

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Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 25

HOW TO

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“The building techniques today, they want to seal everything up, but lime needs to breathe and have airflow” Homeowner Jenny McKerrow says she has struggled to find knowledge about working with lime in New Zealand.

She has owned her stone cottage in Lawrence, on the edge of Central Otago, for six years and has been chipping away at its restoration.

“I just love it. I love the older heritage buildings, but, as we’ve discovered, there’s not a lot known in New Zealand about lime plaster. We’ve done some renovations, but it’s been a really hard road finding out what to do to preserve this building.”

Her cottage was built in 1860 using clay mortar and finished with a lime plaster.

26 Ngahuru • Autumn

“The building techniques today, they want to seal everything up, but lime needs to breathe and have airflow.

“We’ve found it hard to find builders who will embrace that knowledge and find the products that they can use to do the work.”

Jenny says she has learned a lot about rising damp and the next challenge is to tackle the exterior paint on the cottage.

“The maintenance on them [these types of home] is so important,” she says.

Another Dunedinite with a passion for stone buildings, and who is also involved in the New Zealand BLF chapter, is stonemason Stuart Griffiths.

Stuart is working alongside the Dunedin City Council on the Hereweka Harbour Cone Trust project, which includes the restoration of three lime kilns at the historic McDonald’s Lime quarry on the Otago Peninsula.

Stuart has a passion for stone that stretches across decades.

He is a founding member of Dunedin’s Long Beach Masons, who were responsible for stonework including the entrance to Dunedin’s Botanic Garden, the stone arch in the duck pond, and the Kokonga Basalt stone around the herb gardens.

A member of Stuart’s cohort, Paul Cahill, was also involved in armouring the roadside

along Dunedin’s harbour with bluestone, currently one of the largest stone projects in the world.

Stuart believes that things like the continuity of work (there aren’t many projects in New Zealand), new off-the-shelf materials, economics and the necessary building codes and policies are all hindering a thriving stone culture in New Zealand.

Accessing quarries or finding the original quarries in which stone has been extracted also poses difficulties in restoration projects, he says.

In many cases, stonemasons are using imported lime bought off the shelf. The methods used

Heritage New Zealand

1 Jenny McKerrow has struggled to

find knowledge about working with lime in New Zealand as she restores her stone cottage in Central Otago.

are still quality stonemasonry, but they are eroding another opportunity to use traditional quarrying techniques, he says.

Those in the Hereweka Harbour Cone Trust project are working with a doctoral student to identify the origin of the lime for the kilns and subsequently develop a method that other projects can use in restorations.

Stuart’s first job as a stonemason was building a house in Arrowtown in the 1980s using chlorite schist quarried from the property. An older stonemason in charge of the job left after a week because of the sheer scale of the work.

“He left two young guys standing there looking at each other and thinking we’d better have a look around for some more experience.

“Two thousand tonnes of stone later, we completed the house, but even then we realised the stone culture was disappearing in New Zealand.”

There are now new pockets of encouragement, he says, including the proposed workshop.

He says many stonemasons are also coming here from Britain to work on projects, so hopefully there will be the continuity of work there to grow the skill base.

He believes those walking past these stone buildings every day would never notice many of the methods employed to ensure new earthquake standards, for example, are met.

Many stonemasons are now creating stone veneers or tiles, where once they would have cut full blocks of stone, and this can create tensions on projects where old and new building techniques are employed together.

Stuart says there is an ongoing conversation about how heritage stone buildings are being preserved, which includes the question of whether new work should be visible in order to denote the journey between old

Heritage New Zealand

2 Stuart Griffiths’ work has included

constructing the entrance to Dunedin’s Botanic Garden.

3 One of the three lime kilns being

restored at the historic McDonald’s Lime quarry on the Otago Peninsula.

and new, or whether visitors and viewers should be allowed a seamless experience.

“Being a professional stonemason, I always look for good practice and I think people should come across these structures as if they have been uninterrupted by the visible hand,” he says.

He points to Dunedin’s Standard Building as a good example. Owner Ted Daniels had the façade restored to its former glory before renovating the inside in a contemporary fashion.

On the face of it, he says, it looks like a 19th-century building, but as you walk through the door you enter a very modern building with significant heritage elements that have been carefully retained, built in this century with great skill, quality materials and craftmanship.

A similar conversation is happening on the Hereweka Harbour Cone Trust project: whether to completely restore the historic kilns or simply reinforce them to allow public access.

Whether lime from the site is used is also being discussed.

It’s an interesting conversation, says Stuart, but ultimately the preservation and conservation of New Zealand’s stone buildings are at the forefront.

As Heritage New Zealand’s Andrew Barsby says, these buildings are our heritage and our stories, and they are as much about people as about the buildings themselves.

“These buildings provide a bridge between two worlds – the old and the new – and their walls and the work within them help to tell that story.”

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Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 27

NOTICEBOARD BEST SHOTS

28 Ngahuru • Autumn 2020

Heritage New Zealand

WO RDS AND IMAG E : RO B S U IST E D

Strategic spectacle I’ve been interested in the sites of the New Zealand and Waikato Wars since writing a small heritage book a few years ago. I was travelling to the New Zealand Photographer of the Year awards in Auckland and had a few spare days in which to ramble around on my motorbike and find fresh imagery. I’d ridden around Raglan Harbour and up to Port Waikato, heading for Auckland as the sun slowly set. Passing under Alexandra Redoubt, I knew the low angle of the sun would pop the earthworks into relief, essential to show the construction. I arrived, quickly sent my drone skyward and got one set of images spotlighting the high ground before the sun disappeared into cloud. That spotlight effect created a striking image and showed clearly why this was such a strategic Waikato location for the redoubt. Four frames were shot and combined to get the sweeping panoramic view. Oh, and I did okay in the awards too.

TECHNICAL DATA Location: Alexandra Redoubt, built in 1863 by the 65th Regiment, led by Colonel Alfred Wyatt, above the Waikato River at Tuakau.

Aerial view at sunset, Tuakau, Franklin District, New Zealand.

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Heritage New Zealand

Ngahuru Ngahuru••Autumn Autumn2020 202029 29

COMMUNITY NOTICEBOARD

THURSDAYS AT THE MILL WORDS: CAITLIN SYKES • IMAGERY: AMANDA TRAYES

30 Ngahuru • Autumn 2020

Heritage New Zealand

For 15 years a group of blokes has met weekly at what must be one of the country’s ultimate ‘heritage sheds’. Heritage New Zealand magazine editor Caitlin Sykes and art director Amanda Trayes meet the volunteers at Maheno’s Clarks Mill complex

Heritage Heritage New New Zealand Zealand

Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 31

NOTICEBOARD COMMUNITY

1

It’s a Thursday morning, and after about an hour’s drive from Dunedin, we’ve just pulled up at the Clarks Mill complex in Maheno. The weather is glorious and unseasonably warm, despite snow still dusting the Kakanui Range, but the greeting from the mill’s volunteers is even warmer.

A group of blokes, all with ready smiles, shake our hands and introduce themselves. But before our visit progresses further, there’s someone else they’re anxious for us to meet.

“Come and meet Harry,” says volunteer John Chetwin, beckoning us across a bridge that spans the water race leading to the mill. On the other side sits a large memorial stone; close by is a young golden tōtara, beneath which, says John, the ashes of Harry Steenson are buried.

If you want to tell the story of the volunteers who have brought Clarks Mill back to life, he says, you have to begin with Harry.

Born and bred in Oamaru and later retired to Kakanui, Harry’s association with the mill stretched back to the early 1980s. Closed in 1976, the mill and surrounding land were purchased by Heritage New Zealand (then known as the New Zealand Historic Places Trust) in 1977 and Harry, an architect, was involved in essential exterior work done on the mill

32 Ngahuru • Autumn

“People think we’re only really clever and innovative today, but when you’re involved with something like this, you understand that’s not the case at all”

soon after. And that involvement inspired an ambition – to see the historic place opened to the public.

It was an ambition that proved infectious.

John explains how he grew up in Dunedin but had worked in the public service in Wellington before retiring in the early 2000s to Kakanui. A keen tramper, he was lured to the area by the Kakanui Range – and just happened to buy the house next door to Harry’s.

“Harry talked about wanting to open the mill to the public, and it was around 2005 that he started to really bring people together to bring that ambition to life,” recalls John.

“Originally, we had nothing: there was no budget, no maintenance programme. We had to start from scratch and build up a project plan.”

And so Thursdays at the mill began.

The old Formica table around which the volunteers gathered each week for a coffee before getting down to work still sits in the mill, although today we’re invited into ‘the office’ – a pod that’s more recently been inserted inside the mill to better combat the North Otago chill and keep the group’s essential belongings secure and in one place.

While the mill itself was water-powered until the late 1960s, when it switched to electricity, you

Heritage New Zealand

CLARKS MILL: A BRIEF HISTORY The mill was built in 1866.

First known as the Kakanui Flour and Oatmeal Mill, the Oamaru stone building was designed by eminent Edinburgh engineer James Balfour Melville and built for early settlers Matthew Holmes and Henry Campbell.

It began operating in 1867 under the ownership of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company.

The first millers to lease the site were James Anderson and Andrew Mowat, who already had a large milling operation in Dunedin.

2

The mill originally used grinding stones powered by an ‘undershot’ waterwheel. Its heavy machinery was brought by ship from the UK, Australia and the US. During the 1890s the mill changed to roller milling.

Roller-milled flour was whiter and finer.

In 1901 the New Zealand and Australian Land Company sold the mill complex to Alexander Clark and his brothers, after whom the mill is now named.

The Clark family modernised the mill’s machinery; the last major overhaul occurred in 1948 and closed the mill for a year.

The Clarks continued to run the mill for 75 years.

In 1976 the mill stopped operating and was bought by the Northern Roller Milling Company, which soon after sold it to Heritage New Zealand.

3

The mill’s restoration in the early 1980s was the biggest project undertaken to date by Heritage New Zealand.

North Otago once had 13 flour mills; today the local industry has disappeared.

1 Clarks Mill volunteers

(from left to right): Denis Spring-Rice, Warwick Clark, Jim Howden, Roger Blackburn, Karl Ruddenklau and John Chetwin.

2 The volunteers meet

weekly at the site.

3 The presence of Harry

Steenson, who was a driving force behind the restoration of Clarks Mill, is still felt at the complex.

4 Volunteers convene in

‘the office’.

4

Heritage New Zealand

Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 33

NOTICEBOARD COMMUNITY

2

1

5

4 6

3

could argue that coffee has been the essential fuel for bringing it back to life in more recent years.

“Getting together for a coffee is the whole foundation of these weekly gatherings,” laughs volunteer Roger Blackburn as we settle around the table in the pod, warm beverages in hand, with a delicious spread, including the essential cheese rolls, laid out before us.

The volunteers explain how the focus of their initial work was to make the site safe for the public to enter. The vertiginous stairways that run up and down the mill’s four levels, for example, needed secure handrails, while extensive renovations were carried out on the interior woodwork, and barriers were installed around machinery before the site first opened to the public in 2008.

34 Ngahuru • Autumn

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Getting the mill machinery up and running took another three or four years.

The group’s members outline how they were each drawn to volunteer at the mill through a range of connections and experiences. Karl Ruddenklau, for example, is a third-generation farmer and cropper in the area and relished the opportunity to use his skills with machinery to keep its agricultural heritage alive, while Roger has been extensively involved in researching and documenting the mill’s history.

Providing a direct Clark link are volunteers Dave and Warwick Clark, both grandsons of some of the original Clark brothers who bought the mill in 1901.

While Dave wasn’t on hand during this Thursday visit, John says that with his background in both the history of the Clark involvement and things technical,

Heritage New Zealand

Dave’s role in the practicalities of the restoration has been pivotal.

Warwick actually once worked at the mill, as did his father, and it’s a tangible link that has proven invaluable in getting the mill up and running again.

“It’s been a journey of discovery to figure out how the place and its equipment works,” explains Roger.

“As a group we have a quirky collection of skills in areas, like engineering, carpentry and history, and collectively we’ve been using our skills and networks to piece together the puzzle.

“Having Warwick in the group has been hugely helpful, because often we’ll look at something and ask, ‘How did they do this?’ or ‘What did they use this for?’ and he’ll be able to tell us.”

Later John takes us on a tour of the mill, where we learn more about the milling process and the different machinery involved. Spread across four levels, the scale and complexity of the machinery is astounding. The mill originally used grinding stones but became a roller mill in 1893, using a total of 13 rolls to produce flour.

There are more than 100 belts in the mill, and wooden chutes at every imaginable angle everywhere.

After Karl sounds a horn and the call of ‘clear’ is heard from all four floors, he fires up the machinery.

The floor vibrates beneath our feet, and the sensation is of being close to the tracks as a train rumbles past.

“It feels like a living organism,” comments Roger.

“Given its age and complexity, it’s astounding how little ever goes wrong with the machinery.

“People think we’re only really clever and innovative today, but when you’re involved with something like this, you understand that’s not the case at all. You gain a real appreciation of the quality of the engineering.”

Ongoing maintenance of the complex’s buildings and machinery is a constant focus for the volunteers on Thursdays at the mill.

But there are also wider projects on the go that the group is using to increase visitors’ understanding of how the site once operated. As an example, they show us some pieces of machinery lying on the ground that have been brought recently onto the site by Dave.

The pieces comprise a crane, which the group aims to restore to help tell the story of the Clark family’s involvement in the quarrying industry. (Renowned for its quality, stone from the Clarks’ A1 quarry was used in the construction of a number of landmark buildings, including the Auckland Town Hall.)

The group is also there to greet the public when the site is open every Sunday from October to April (and running the machinery on the last Sunday of those months), as well as host group visits and three major open days annually.

Volunteer Jim Howden, who is also a visitor host at the nearby Heritage New Zealand-run property Totara Estate, says it’s here that the men’s passion for the place has also created real payback.

“Everyone who comes here is made welcome,” he says. “The genuine enthusiasm the group has for this place and its history really shows – and that rubs off on RETURN TO CONTENTS the people who visit.”

Heritage New Zealand

OPEN ALL NITE 1 Safety barriers around

the mill equipment are essential.

2 Work continues on

projects that communicate the mill’s heritage.

3 Visitors can learn about

the region’s wider flour milling heritage at the site.

4 John Chetwin provides a

tour of the mill equipment.

5 Karl Ruddenklau helps

operate the mill machinery.

6 There are more than 100

belts in the machinery.

7 The group’s talents and

enthusiasm have created real payback.

Step across the threshold of the small stone cottage that sits on the quiet Clarks Mill complex and the first word that springs to mind is probably not ‘nightclub’.

Yet you are, indeed, entering what was once the hottest nightspot around: Smokey Joe’s.

Built around the same time as the mill, the Oamaru stone building originally housed mill workers and later became an office for the Clarks’ business. However, when Allan Clark returned from serving in the Middle East during World War II, he had the idea to turn the space into a nightspot like the ones he’d seen on

his travels. So he set up Smokey Joe’s.

Painted inside with Hawaiian scenes, it was a space in which the local community could come together to socialise and have fun, says volunteer Roger Blackburn.

“The Clarks were really into community-building.

This complex wasn’t just about doing business; it was a hub where the community gathered.

They were very early to have lighting here and they had an area for playing basketball – Smokey Joe’s was all a part of that social mix.”

And the small size of Smokey Joe’s obviously didn’t deter those looking for a good time. As the sign for the nightclub that still sits inside says: ‘Open all nite’. n

Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 35

BUILDINGS AT WORK NOTICEBOARD

Steve Wood, head brewer at the Shakespeare Hotel and Brewery on Auckland’s Albert Street.

IMAGERY: MARCEL TROMP

36 Ngahuru • Autumn

Heritage New Zealand

WORDS: MATT PHILP

Heritage – real or implied – plays a big part in one of our oldest industries: the brewing of beer

History is inescapable – and in the case of the Shakespeare Hotel and Brewery, immovable too. In 1986 the legendary downtown Auckland watering hole became New Zealand’s first brewpub, a development that required the installation of a 1400-litre brewery in the basement.

“They took the floor off, gutted the inside, lowered all the fermenters and serving tanks in there, put the floor down, then built walls around it,” says recently appointed head brewer Steve Wood.

“Those tanks in the basement, you can’t get them out and you can’t put new ones in – it’s a challenge.”

Steve left his job with the craft beer label Hallertau in 2019 to take on the Shakespeare’s 40-year-old “beast of a brewing system”, one of three of its type built and installed by the New Zealand Dairy Association back in the day, when smaller breweries would repurpose tanks and other gear used by the dairy industry rather than import.

“I wanted to prove that good beer can be made on this kit,” he explains.

But it wasn’t just the professional challenge that drew Steve to the Shakespeare – it was the heritage.

The 1898 Italianate hotel is an Auckland landmark, and its brewing operation once had a committed following, before time and beer trends passed it by.

Heritage New Zealand

“It’s a historic building, a historic brewery, so why not try to put the Shakespeare name back in the minds of craft beer drinkers?”

Heritage is a big deal when it comes to beer. In fact, for a beverage best consumed fresh, history is an increasingly potent factor in marketing the stuff. Yet this country’s brewing landscape is not exactly blessed with storied sites and enduring labels.

That’s not because we’ve only just discovered the amber fluid – in 1921, there were 57 breweries operating around New Zealand, and they generally inspired fierce tribal loyalty in their regions.

What happened to them? Some of the early ones, which were often built of timber, were lost to fires. One reason given for so many pioneering New Zealand breweries being named ‘Phoenix’ is that they tended to rise from the ashes.

But more were consumed by market forces.

“Many of the older breweries were bought up by DB and Lion and then shut down,” says Michael Donaldson, author of Beer Nation: The Art & Heart of Kiwi Beer.

“That’s the crying shame: we lost vast tracts of history through rationalisation in that post-war period.”

Some of our most significant early brewing sites are largely ruins. The goldrush-era, Category 1 Black Horse

Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 37

NOTICEBOARD

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Brewery at Bluejacket Gully, for example, once Otago’s most important provincial brewery, is dominated by the remains of its brick malting plant amid 10 hectares of daffodils.

Other early breweries have been repurposed, as in the case of the heritage-listed 1915 Thorndon Brewery Tower, which was formerly home to the Staples and Red Band beer brands and is now the central feature of the local New World supermarket complex.

Thankfully, two major historic brewing sites endure: the Tui Tower at Mangatainoka, in the Tararua District (see sidebar), and Speight’s of Dunedin.

The former, a Category 1-listed, seven-storey tower built in 1931 that used gravity to turn malt into beer, occupies the site on which sawmiller Henry Wagstaff founded an eponymous brewery in 1889, reputedly after savouring a superlative cup of tea brewed using water from the Mangatainoka River.

The tower hasn’t been used for brewing since the 1970s, when a new complex was built around it, but the label’s owner, DB, has turned Tui into a national brand, partly by trading on the heritage. In 2005 it opened ‘Tui HQ’ at Mangatainoka, offering brewery tours that delve into the 130-year history of the site.

Michael Donaldson, who is quick to highlight instances of myth-making by New Zealand beer brands, says that in this case DB is drawing on authentic history.

“Everything that led to the creation of the brewery and the brand was pretty organic and genuine and not too contrived,” he says.

That’s echoed by Nick Rogers, former marketing manager for Tui, who these days works in a freelance

38 Ngahuru • Autumn

2

“It’s a historic building, a historic brewery, so why not try to put the Shakespeare name back in the minds of craft beer drinkers?”

4

Heritage New Zealand

3

THE DARK SIDE Yeah, right? A little known sidebar to the Tui story is that, for a brief period in the 1960s, Mangatainoka became the first New Zealand site to brew Guinness. Rod Smith, author of Guinness Down Under, says the Irish chose Tui for the prestigious franchise partly because they didn’t want to alienate the local ‘Big Two’ – New Zealand Breweries (now Lion Nathan) and DB – by choosing one over the other.

Guinness insisted that a Guinness brewer was

employed on site, and Tui invested in new plant to raise its game.

“They tried their darnedest to make a decent drop, but there are mixed reports,” says Rod. In any case, the Tui-brewed stout didn’t sell well, and Guinness made the call to switch to New Zealand Breweries’ Auckland operation.

Yet before quitting Mangatainoka, the Irish “sweetened the pill”, says Rod. “Guinness agreed to pay half the cost of repainting the Tui plant. It’s the way they used to operate: if there’s bad news to break, do something nice.” n

1 The historic Shakespeare Hotel.

2 The Shakespeare’s elegant staircase.

3 Steve Wood and fellow beer lovers.

4 Steve Wood samples a brew.

IMAGERY: MARCEL TROMP 5 The 1931 Tui Tower at Mangatainoka.

IMAGE: ROB SUISTED

Heritage New Zealand

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Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 39

NOTICEBOARD

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capacity managing visitor experiences at Mangatainoka and the Monteith’s brewery in Greymouth.

“Longevity is a good thing for beer brands,” says Nick.

“If you look at the ones that have provenance stories, they’ve lasted a lot better in New Zealand than ones that haven’t.”

None has lasted longer than Speight’s, established in 1876 by Dunedin businessman James Speight, maltster Charles Greenslade and brewer William Dawson.

Although various aspects of the operation were initially scattered around Dunedin, eventually the brewery was consolidated at 200 Rattray Street, where Speight’s has been made ever since.

Deidre Wilson is the daughter of Hugh Speight, who managed Speight’s from 1940 until 1969. As a child, she accompanied her father on his Sunday inspections of the plant, entering from the Dowling Street end, where the boilers kept the place toasty.

“I remember the tuns [storage containers] were like great big swimming pools full of beer,” she says. “And around the back they had the tankers, which would take beer all around Southland and Central Otago.”

Michael says that few realise just how popular Speight’s was.

“It was probably New Zealand’s most well-known brewery between the two wars – not world famous, but it had a really strong footprint in New Zealand and was well known in Australia because they used to send beer off to competitions there.”

Speight’s has weathered plenty since, including a threat in the 1980s from owner Lion Breweries to shutter the brewery, but the brand bounced back.

40 Ngahuru • Autumn

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Following the February 2011 Canterbury earthquake, when Lion shifted its Christchurch beer production to Auckland and Dunedin, the Rattray Street site underwent a two-year, $40 million redevelopment, including a new brew house, tank farm and offices, plus seismic strengthening.

Yet much of the original brewery survives – the revamp retained the curved façade of the old cellar building, among other features – and you can’t deny Speight’s prerogative to accentuate its history.

Others that play up provenance are on more contestable ground, however.

“A lot of New Zealand brewing history has been ‘back-engineered’, if you like,” says Michael.

Why do brewers feel the need? Michael points out that European ‘green bottle’ lager brands such as Carlsberg have typically marketed their long histories.

“It sets a baseline; people think it’s important.”

Emphasising longevity is also a response to the rising craft beer scene.

“It’s a differentiator against everything that’s new.

It’s saying ‘Trust us, we know what we’re doing’,” says Michael.

And if you can look past some of the ‘long-bow’ marketing, there’s a lot to like about the efforts of modern New Zealand beer brands to bring heritage into play.

When DB redeveloped Monteith’s Greymouth brewery in 2012, for example, it did a nice job of evoking a broader, rough-sawn West Coast history.

Meanwhile, Emersons, a Dunedin craft beer label that was bought by the renamed Lion Nathan in 2012, now occupies a terrific new brick brewery that evokes

1 Deidre Wilson is the

daughter of Hugh Speight, who ran Speight’s from 1940 until 1969. She is photographed next to a likeness of her ancestor and Speight’s co-founder James Speight.

2 Former maturing tanks are

now used to collect bore water at Speight’s.

3 A copper kettle for boiling

up the wort at Speight’s brewery.

4 Speight’s brewery at 200

Rattray Street, Dunedin.

IMAGERY: ALAN DOVE

Heritage New Zealand

3

an old locomotive shed, with railway motifs scattered throughout. Brewer Richard Emerson’s father George was a notable trainspotter who was instrumental in reopening the historic Taieri Gorge Railway.

“Richard loves trains, too,” says Michael. “It’s all very genuine and part of the family’s story.”

Other notable examples in which brewing has been effectively yoked to heritage include Cassels & Sons Brewing in the revamped historic tannery site in the Christchurch suburb of Woolston, and Auckland’s long-running Galbraith’s Alehouse, which occupies the 1912 former Grafton Public Library.

In a different vein, The Laboratory is a modernday brewing phoenix that arose after the Canterbury earthquakes shuttered the Twisted Hop brewpub in downtown Christchurch.

Sited in Lincoln, the brewhouse and restaurant are built of materials salvaged from historic and quakestruck buildings, including sarking from a demolished church and vintage pine trusses that were once part of Christchurch’s original 19th-century brewery, Wards.

And then there’s the Shakespeare, where Steve Wood is also engaged in a type of resurrection. Given ongoing disruption to the pub from the construction of the City Rail Link and the fact that Lion Nathan has dibs on five of eight taps for a bit longer, Steve is currently limited to brewing once a week.

But in the fullness of time, he’ll have that quirky 1980s brewing system singing its old song.

“All I can do is try to make some good beer and put this amazing historic place back on the map,” he says.

RETURN TO CONTENTS

Heritage New Zealand

“If you look at [beer brands] that have provenance stories, they’ve lasted a lot better in New Zealand than ones that

4

Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 41

NOTICEBOARD DOMESTIC TRAVEL

DRIVING HISTORY During a weekend spent using the Taranaki Wars driving tour app, photographer Ann Bremner discovers that signs of prior habitation and conflict are all around. She reflects on some of the sites she found most resonant WORDS AND IMAGERY: ANN BREMNER

42 Ngahuru • Autumn

Heritage New Zealand

THE TOURS Two tours are available on Heritage Taranaki’s free-to-download Taranaki Wars driving tour app (Apple and Android); the first covers the First Taranaki War (1860-61) and the second the Second Taranaki War (1863-65). These tours cover important places and events in the region between 1860 and 1881 that shaped the Taranaki of today.

FIRST TARANAKI WAR TOUR SITES

1

Taranaki Cathedral Church of St Mary’s

2

Marsland Hill – The Barracks

3

Te Pou Tūtaki

4

Bell Block Stockade

5 Mahoetahi 6

Waitara River Mouth

7

Camp Waitara

8

Waitara Military Cemetery

9

Te Kohia Pā

10 Puketākauere 11 Matarikoriko 12

Number 3 Redoubt

13

Te Ārei

14

Omata Stockade

15 Waireka SECOND TARANAKI WAR TOUR SITES

1

St Patrick’s Redoubt (Poutoko)

2

Pahitere Redoubt

3

Wairau Ambush

4

St Andrew’s Redoubt

5 Kaitake 6

Ahuahu

7

Hauranga Pā and Timaru Redoubt

8

St George’s Redoubt and Katikara

9

Okato Township and Stony River Redoubt

10 Warea Redoubt 11

Heritage New Zealand

Sentry Hill

Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 43

NOTICEBOARD DOMESTIC TRAVEL

TARANAKI CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST MARY’S:

TOUR 1, SITE 1 To me, the first site on the tour, Taranaki Cathedral Church of St Mary’s, feels different from other churches I’ve visited – as if it has been around longer, seen more and survived more but still remains strong and elegant, defying the march of time.

Consecrated in 1846, St Mary’s is a quiet place that somehow rejects the bustle of the city of New Plymouth outside its gates.

While the interior of the church is closed for seismic strengthening when I visit, the building and its gardens draw me into the story of an emerging colonial world fraught with tension, fear and discord.

44 Ngahuru • Autumn

The short epitaphs written on the memorial stones pique my curiosity, while a stark wooden memorial stands blank, its details long gone – at odds with its stone neighbours.

A sub-menu on the app directs me to a remote corner of the churchyard where six Waikato Māori warriors were buried after the battle at Mahoetahi (1860) in recognition of their great bravery.

I feel that nothing is more evocative of past cultural attitudes than the location of this grave and memorial; while the intent was genuine, it feels like a disservice to place them here – segregated and easily overlooked.

Heritage New Zealand

MARSLAND HILL:

TOUR 1, SITE 2

Overlooking St Mary’s, Marsland Hill is just a short walk, so I head uphill from the church. This was a fortified area where imperial troops established themselves in 1855 as tensions in the area increased. Marsland Hill is known

by Māori as Pūkākā, after an early pā on this site, and when I visit it’s easy to see why the location was chosen for the pā and the fortified military area

that followed. Views sweep far and wide over land and sea.

Prefabricated corrugatediron-clad buildings were shipped from Melbourne and used at Marsland Hill for barracks. All were dismantled in 1891, but one of these buildings was relocated to Mt Taranaki by sledge to provide visitor accommodation.

The Camphouse – New Zealand’s oldest prefabricated, corrugatediron-clad building – is still sited there today (pictured above).

TE POU TŪTAKI/ FITZROY’S POLE:

TOUR 1, SITE 3

Te Pou Tūtaki/FitzRoy’s Pole now stands surrounded by the trappings of the modern world: petrol stations, chain stores and traffic lights.

The original pou, however, was erected in 1849 by the Puketapu hapū of Te Ātiawa chief Te Whaitere Katatore. Placed on the northern boundary of Governor Robert FitzRoy’s 1844 purchase, it marked the northern limit of European settlement in New Plymouth.

The environment of land rights and purchases of the period can be confusing to the modern mind. I found the sub-menu ‘The New Plymouth Purchase’ helped me to understand the difficulty of obtaining a clear licence for expansion and purchase faced by the officials of the day.

Heritage New Zealand

Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 45

DOMESTIC TRAVEL

WAITARA RIVER MOUTH AND WAITARA MILITARY CEMETERY: TOUR 1,

SITES 6 AND 8

TE ĀREI: TOUR 1, SITE 13 To me, Te Ārei feels like a very special place, seemingly untouched by the modern world, where native ferns, trees and bird life abound.

But nowhere else do I also feel the intensity of the struggle for Taranaki more than when I visit here.

This is where, under the methodical tactics of Major-General Thomas Pratt, which included using a series of redoubts to steadily approach Te Ārei, the first phase of the Taranaki War ended on 18 March 1861 with an uneasy truce.

46 Ngahuru • Autumn

The Waitara River flows from the highlands of eastern Taranaki, and near the sea splits the town of Waitara in two.

I learn from the app that after Wīremu Kīngi Te Rangitāke and about 600 Te Ātiawa returned from the Kāpiti Coast in 1848, four Māori pā were located here, and a farming community was established.

In 1859 when land here was offered for sale to Governor Gore Browne, the sale was vehemently opposed by Te Rangitāke, but the governor rejected the opposition and on 22 February 1860 declared martial law after surveyors were blocked by those who stood against the sale. War broke out on 17 March 1860 as troops moved in, burned local pā and established a strong military presence in the area.

Today the area is home to a walkway fringed by tidal wetlands that meander toward the sea, with views to Mt Taranaki. The sight of birds wandering leisurely about seems incongruous with the magnitude of the events that occurred here.

Just up the road lies the Waitara Military Cemetery.

I learn that many who were killed in the battles were buried where they fell, and some were never recovered, so this cemetery also serves as a memorial to lives lost.

A monument was erected here in 1915 to recognise the soldiers who were killed while attacking Puketākauere Pā, and there are other memorials recognising Pākehā soldiers and settlers who lost their lives in local battles during the First Taranaki War.

Heritage New Zealand

PAHITERE REDOUBT: TOUR 2, SITE 2 Although Pahitere is now on private land, it can be seen and appreciated easily from both the main and side roads. This redoubt, created on the site of an old pā of the same name, was established here by military settlers in March 1864, at the same time as St Andrew’s Redoubt, a little further south, was being reoccupied.

Evidence of fortification and earthworks is still clearly visible, even from a distance.

WAIRAU AMBUSH: TOUR 2, SITE 3 Oākura feels like any other modern beachside town on a summer’s day; ice cream, swimming, sandcastles and surf lifesavers are the norm. Two streams – the Wairau and the Waimouku – emerge to the beach and head out to sea, with no sign of the harsh and bloody past of this place still being evident today.

Occupation by British forces of Tātaraimaka, to the south of New Plymouth, in April 1863 was a provocative act destined for a response: a Māori retort in 1863.

As soldiers from St George’s Redoubt at Tātaraimaka were taking one of their own to New Plymouth for court martial, they stopped to water their horses at a stream. The ambush that followed left nine dead; only one soldier, although wounded, managed to escape.

Repercussions were immediate, with steps to confiscate Māori land beginning immediately following the ambush.

KAITAKE AND AHUAHU:

TOUR 2, SITES 5 AND 6

The land around Kaitake is rugged, steep and bush covered, and looking up toward the area from the bottom of the hill you can appreciate the defensive value of the hills. Something of a fortress, with a series of pā running along the bush line, the area was not brought under military control until 1864, after considerable effort.

Of all the places on the tour, Ahuahu felt the most ominous to me, with the drive being steep, narrow and shrouded in trees.

The arrival at the site of a wedding party filled with excitement and joy did little to dispel my sense of unease in this place.

Pahitere, Wairau and Kaitake are in the rohe of Taranaki iwi, Ngā Mahanga a Tairi hapū.

RETURN TO CONTENTS

Heritage New Zealand

Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 47

INTERNATIONAL NOTICEBOARD

WORDS: SHARON STEPHENSON • IMAGERY: MARTIN HAUGHEY

1

FIGHTING THE

good fight

2

48 Ngahuru • Autumn

Heritage New Zealand

3

With an architectural heritage defined by a mish-mash of styles, Buenos Aires, some have argued, has no heritage of its own worth saving. A group of determined activists, however, thinks otherwise Buenos Aires has always been easy to define: a city of wide boulevards and neatly demarcated barrios (neighbourhoods) suffused with European flavour but with a sultry Latin feel. Sufficiently sophisticated to be one of the world’s greatest cities, but with enough of a gritty backstory to be interesting.

Pinned to the banks of the River Plate, BA, as it’s often called, is probably best known for being home to the world’s sexiest dance, steaks so big you almost have to unhinge your jaw and a dizzying array of architectural styles, from European Colonial and Art Deco to Neo-gothic and Rioplatense Baroque.

“Walking around the streets of BA is like a Who’s Who of styles, features and architectural follies,” says my guide Esteban. “It’s beautiful but also slightly confusing.”

He isn’t kidding. Posh Recoleta swells with upscale

Heritage New Zealand

1 The ‘living wall’ that forms

the letters BA is a visitor drawcard in the heart of the Argentinian capital.

2 Casa Rosada, or the Pink

House, is the home of the Argentinian president.

It was made famous as the location of Eva Peron’s renowned speech.

3 Historic San Telmo’s streets

are best visited on a Sunday when the market sets up (in the background).

Georgian houses, hotels and old money (not to mention a famous cemetery where Argentina’s favourite daughter, Eva Peron, is buried), while in historic San Telmo, the battered Baroque buildings and weathered pastelcoloured apartment blocks lay empty for years following a bout of yellow fever in the 19th century.

Today, the hipsters have moved in, carving trendy bars, restaurants and boutiques into the bones of these classic old buildings. And no trip to BA would be complete without visiting La Boca, one of the city’s oldest and possibly most colourful barrio, which appears to have been decorated by a madman armed with tins of paint.

To unravel how BA inherited its mish-mash of elegant and not-so-elegant edifices, you have to follow the money.

“From the 1800s, beef and grain exports helped to forge an alliance with the British Empire,” says Esteban.

Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 49

NOTICEBOARD

1 The colourful cobbled

backstreets of San Telmo.

2 The old and new rub

shoulders in downtown BA. 3 Basta de Demoler

(Stop the Demolition) protests in downtown BA. IMAGE: SUPPLIED 4 Basta de Demoler

occupies the courtyard of a BA church threatened with demolition.

IMAGE: SUPPLIED

1

“Ordinary citizens must protect their heritage now for future generations”

2

50 Ngahuru • Autumn

The result was an oligarchy with deep pockets that could afford to hire the best architects in the world to stamp its marks on the city in the form of Victorian pavilions and Neoclassical palaces.

With work so abundant and living conditions good, a tsunami of immigrants, mainly from Italy and Spain, but also from France, Germany, Austria and Poland, arrived with dreams of becoming ‘as rich as an Argentinian’.

These homesick migrants carried the seeds of the European avant garde – Art Nouveau, eclecticism and modernism – with them, shaping the buildings in which they lived and worked.

But then life – whether in the form of poor economic decisions, political instability or the changing fortunes of export commodities – intervened, and by the 1950s, Argentina’s economy had hit the ropes, never quite bouncing back to its earlier financial glory.

Which hasn’t worked out so well for the city’s stunning architectural legacy.

“There’s neither the money nor the will to preserve heritage buildings,” says Santiago Pusso, a musician and founder of Basta de Demoler (Stop the Demolition), a grassroots group of activists that has been responsible for saving several landmark BA buildings and public spaces in recent years.

“Because of the many different styles of buildings, many copied from Europe, some architects argue this city doesn’t have a real architectural heritage and therefore the buildings have no real value. So there is a real culture of tearing them down.”

Heritage New Zealand

Santiago, who teaches singing at the city’s prestigious conservatory as well as to deprived children in an innercity slum, became interested in his city’s heritage in 2005 when he noticed some of BA’s metro stations being renovated and their heritage tiles removed.

“I contacted the authorities, who weren’t interested in saving the stations, so I wrote letters to the papers, and ordinary citizens started becoming interested.”

Initially the strategy was to protest outside metro stations, and their actions were so successful that Santiago estimates the group saved around 30 stations from being ‘modernised’.

It wasn’t long before Basta de Demoler was getting involved in preserving other buildings, including the historic Petit Hotel in Recoleta, a gracious 1920s hotel that developers wanted to tear down and replace with a 10- to 12-storey building.

“Not only would it have destroyed the character building, it would also have been out of keeping with the rest of the neighbourhood, where buildings are usually not more than three or four floors,” says Santiago.

Handily, one of the members of Basta de Demoler is a lawyer, and this time the group took their fight to court – a David and Goliath fight that saw them win.

“The developers had to keep the hotel’s façade and only make it three rather than 10 storeys.”

The group – which numbers anywhere between seven and 10 members – employed the same tactics with Teatro Picadero, a 1920s theatre that had defied the military dictatorship of 1981 by staging what were seen as subversive plays. This time they got actors and celebrities involved in their legal fight, and once again they won.

Since then the group has fought around 20 battles, including last year stopping the erection of a 20-storey building next to the Santa Catalina Church, which was built in 1745 and is one of the city’s best remaining examples of colonial-era architecture.

Not only would the proposed development have affected the foundations of the historic church, it would also have ruined its view and blocked its sun.

The group’s success came in spite of the government hitting the group, and Santiago, with a US$3 million lawsuit in 2014 for blocking the construction of a new subway station under Plaza Alvear, a landscaped 19th-century park.

Basta de Demoler argued that the subway station, near the 1732-built Recoleta Church, would ruin an historic park, protected by law, which is also the site of a popular weekend fair. They were successful and the city had to relocate the subway stop. But it obviously irked the city because, shortly afterwards, the fines were handed down.

“It was to try and smash us, to show off their power and make an example of us. They know we have no money to pay this fine and luckily so far they haven’t put us in jail.”

If Santiago has a message for Kiwis, it’s to keep fighting the good fight.

“Ordinary citizens must protect their heritage now for future generations. When people band together to fight, that’s when they have more of a chance of being heard RETURN TO CONTENTS and of having an impact.”

Heritage New Zealand

3

MAKING IT WORK Community action to save heritage buildings is nothing new in Aotearoa, but Glen Hazelton, Heritage New Zealand Director Organisational Development, says we tend not to see public activism on a scale or style as practised by Basta de Demoler.

“The way the RMA [Resource Mananagement Act 1991] is structured here really discourages public activism,” says Glen. “For example, if groups take on developers and lose, they can often end up with financial penalties. And when you’re going up against a developer with deeper pockets than the average community group, that can dampen down people’s willingness to go to battle to save heritage buildings.”

Instead, Kiwis tend to focus more on positive engagement with local councils and getting involved in the process through legal avenues. Or they’ll find the resources to buy buildings in order to save them.

“This is when the Kiwi number eight wire culture comes into play, that getting involved and figuring out how we can make it work. A good example of this is Dunedin’s Warehouse Precinct, where a number of individuals purchased at-risk buildings to prevent their demolition.” n

4

Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 51

BOOKS

WORDS: M A RI A N NE T R E MA I N E

Metaphors and meanings Delving deeper into the symbolism of our historic places Metaphors are important in history. Although people tend to see history as being concerned with facts, it is more concerned with interpretation, and, to illuminate the more elusive shades of meaning when interpreting history, metaphors are often useful.

The books in this column show examples of the ways in which metaphors expand meanings.

The first two books, The Akaroa Lighthouse: How a Small Community Rescued an Important Piece of their History, by Ben Hutchinson (Akaroa Lighthouse Preservation Society Inc., $35), and Sunset to Sunrise: An Illustrated History of New Zealand’s Lighthouses, by Timothy Nicol (New Holland

52 Ngahuru • Autumn

Publishers, $39.99), deal with the history of lighthouses in New Zealand.

The first tells a story of determined community preservation; the second records the histories of particular lighthouses and the courageous spirit required by lighthouse keepers to live in often very inhospitable and dangerous surroundings.

For example, in Sunset to Sunrise, Timothy’s caption under a photograph of the Karori Rock tower (page 152) says of its site, a small, craggy, barren rock: “Access by helicopter was exciting, as the radius of the whirling blades almost exactly equalled the distance from the tower to the last seagull on the right

(the seagull is on the edge of the rock), necessitating a high degree of personal agility with the helicopter ‘on the hover’”.

This level of excitement, mixed with the privation experienced when stores ran low, is not what most of us seek in our working lives, but obviously lighthouse keepers were equal to these challenges. Nevertheless, lighthouses do hold a fascination for most of us.

The lighthouse beam and its importance as a beacon to sailors provides a metaphor for everything that functions as a guiding light in our lives, giving the lighthouse its strong, symbolic intensity.

In contrast, The Akaroa Lighthouse concentrates on a single lighthouse and its history, as well as the heroic community effort made to achieve its preservation after it was decommissioned in December 1977.

New technology – automatic lights – had made it obsolete.

A new and modern lighthouse had been commissioned and the Marine Department had decided either to burn the old lighthouse or push it into the sea.

When the residents of Akaroa realised that the old lighthouse was going to meet such an ignominious fate, a public meeting was called, and that

meeting led to the inception of the Akaroa Lighthouse Preservation Society.

The society had to find a site and organise the shifting of the old lighthouse to preserve it as a part of local history. The story of the eventual success, despite many setbacks, is an absorbing account and will encourage other community groups in their attempts to preserve their own local historic buildings.

Reading this book will make those who have problems achieving their conservation ambitions realise that if the Akaroa lighthouse could be saved, then almost anything must be possible.

The third lighthouse book, Oliver Goes to Stephens Island Lighthouse, by Grant Sheehan and illustrated by Rosalind Clark (Phantom House, $25), is the third in this series of children’s books about lighthouses.

Oliver’s parents take him to Stephens Island Lighthouse because they are writing a story and supplying photos about the island to a geographic magazine as part of their work.

Oliver is very excited, anticipating the trip, but it turns out to be even more

Heritage New Zealand

GIVEAWAY We have one copy of Leading the Way: 100 Years of the Tararua Tramping Club, signed by the authors, to give away. To enter the draw, send your name and address on the back of an envelope to Book Giveaways, Heritage New Zealand, PO Box 2629, Wellington 6140, before 30 March 2020. The winner of last issue’s book giveaway (Making History: A New Zealand Story) is J B King, Auckland.

exciting than he imagined. He has his first ride in a helicopter and he sees strange and wonderful birds and animals on the island. He learns about the work of a lighthouse keeper and about the importance of conservation to preserve native birds and animals.

A great story for children that adults will enjoy reading with them, this book is interesting and thought-provoking, with a lot of effortless learning in the story and the illustrations.

Through its title, For King and Country – Four Brothers, Four Crosses: A New Zealand Story, by Jock Vennell (Wily Publications, $22.49), makes it clear that metaphors and meanings in this book will be about war.

The book gains its power and significance from the clarity and simplicity of its message about how the loss of four of their five sons in World War I affected an Invercargill family.

Jock, a former journalist, writes in a way that takes you right inside the family with stories of the boys’ experiences as they grow up, explanations of their reasons for deciding to go to war and also the day-today routines of army life and life on the battlefield.

Heritage New Zealand

Jock uses the sons’ letters, and those of other New Zealanders who fought alongside them, to take us into their thoughts and feelings.

To read their words and feel how much they care about their family, their comrades, their brothers – and their genuine desire to fight so that the sacrifice of those who have lost their lives already will not have been in vain – is engrossing, yet disturbing.

You know there are four crosses, yet these four brothers are so admirable, the loss for their family is too huge to bear – and almost too huge for the reader to bear.

Another book on New Zealand in World War I is The Bulford Kiwi: The Kiwi We Left Behind,

by Colleen Brown (Bateman, $39.99). At the end of the war, the men expected to go home to New Zealand and their families immediately. But only a limited number of ships was available and those able to pull rank were often able to jump the queue.

Waiting in Sling Camp on Salisbury Plain in southern England for many months, the men became fractious and there were some alcohol-fuelled riots protesting their situation.

Finally, the focus shifted to creating a huge limestone kiwi on Beacon Hill by Sling Camp to commemorate all the New Zealanders lost in the war. “A monument built by soldiers, not governments, for them and their mates” (page 14).

The Bulford Kiwi still exists as a lasting memorial. It was restored in 1980 and made a protected site by the British Government in 2017.

In Leading the Way: 100 Years of the Tararua Tramping Club,

by Shaun Barnett and Chris Maclean (Tararua Tramping Club in conjunction with Potton and Burton, $59.95), the metaphor of ‘leading’ has the double meaning of leading others on a tramp and leading in the sense of being the first tramping club in New Zealand.

The Tararua Tramping Club was established in 1919. Older members of the club were called ‘the fathers’; younger members were called ‘the fry’.

The generation between had been lost in the war. The club led and supported the formation of tramping clubs in other areas and introduced other activities, such as mountaineering.

Women were important in the club membership, with many contributing their energies and

enthusiasm. Importantly, the club has made a contribution to conservation over the years.

Seeing the beauty of the bush, the waterfalls, the birds and the mountains first-hand makes the importance of protecting all that beauty seem even more of a necessity.

Publishing this history has been an ambition of the club for many years and this book realises all that ambition. The photographs are wonderful.

The quality of the paper and the presentation are impressive.

The stories are inspiring and often humorous. There are amazing stories of club trips in New Zealand and overseas.

You are bound to meet people you know in its pages and you may even find yourself digging out your old tramping boots, making some scroggin and setting out to enjoy one of the nearby tracks.

Books are chosen for review in Heritage New Zealand magazine at the discretion of the Books Editor.

Due to the volume of books received, we cannot guarantee the timing of any reviews that appear and we are unable to return any copies submitted for review. Ngā mihi.

RETURN TO CONTENTS

Ngahuru • Autumn 2020 53

NOTICEBOARD HERITAGE FOR KIDS

mana whenua: guardians of the land maunga: mountains tūpuna maunga: ancestral mountains

WORDS: CAITLIN SYKES • IMAGERY: JASON DORDAY

Climb EVERY

MOUNTAIN With the harsh heat of summer abating, autumn is a great time to explore the maunga of Auckland with the kids For those who live in Auckland, or if you’re planning a visit, there are no better vantage points from which to take in the harbour city than the summits of its many maunga.

There are 48 volcanic cones stretching across the city, and

54 Ngahuru • Autumn

from Te Rangi i totongia te ihu a Tama-te-kapua/Rangitoto Island to Maungawhau/Mt Eden to Maungakiekie/One Tree Hill, they provide the city with many of its most significant landmarks.

Nothing stretches legs both old and young like a hill climb,

but walking the maunga of Auckland also provides endless opportunities to connect with the region’s heritage.

Some of our family’s favourite excursions have included experiencing the thrill of flyovers while exploring military heritage on Takarunga/Mt Victoria on Anzac Day, and getting a taste of holidays past at the Bach 38 Museum – housed in a bach restored by volunteers from the Rangitoto Island Historic Conservation Trust – on Rangitoto.

But one of our most enriching maunga experiences has been learning more about the one in our own backyard – Te Pane o Mataoho/Māngere Mountain.

The tūpuna maunga of Tāmaki Makaurau stand foremost in the historical, spiritual, ancestral and cultural identity of the iwi and hapū of the mana whenua of Auckland.

Taking a tour of the maunga offered by the Māngere Mountain Education Centre and guided by mana whenua helped to open our eyes to amazing features: its shell paths, for example, which emit a satisfying crunch when walked upon, are actually designed to provide an alert for intruders. www.aucklandnz.com/visit/ discover/volcanic-cones www.mangeremountain. co.nz/visit/guided-walks RETURN TO CONTENTS

Heritage New Zealand

ALBERTON MARKET DAYS supported by

Sundays, 8 March and 12 April (Easter Sunday) Alberton Market Days are back! Restock your pantry and gift cupboard. Shop local and enjoy the atmosphere in the garden.

A cracker day out from 10am-2pm n Specialty produce n Artisan food stalls n Handcrafted goods n Talks & workshops n Children’s activities n Live music n Pop-up tearoom n Explore Alberton with discounted admission (children free) n

n

(09) 846 7367 n www.alberton.co.nz

With up to 67% Government funding available

The time to strengthen your heritage building is

RIGHT NOW.

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CONTACT US

www.heritageequip.govt.nz

phone 04 499 4229

heritage.equip@mch.govt.nz

HE0419_HNZ

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Beautiful accommodation in the heart of the West End.

Stay informed with our monthly e-newsletter, covering the latest heritage news and events

Enjoy the elegance of the art deco restaurant or unwind in the stylish buttery of this friendly, affordable and historic London clubhouse.

The ROSL Clubhouse is within walking distance of London’s top attractions and a peaceful base for business travellers. www.roslnz.org.nz info@rosl.org.uk

Consider leaving a gift that will last forever

A gift in your will could provide a lasting legacy for our nation’s heritage and help preserve our history for future generations.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE? Contact Brendon Veale for further details.

0800 802 010 • bveale@heritage.org.nz PO Box 2629, Wellington, 6140 • www.heritage.org.nz RETURN TO CONTENTS

56 Ngahuru • Autumn

Heritage New Zealand

Live your dream… say“I do” in style!

Pure gold setting at Highwic

Love with a French twist at Pompallier

Bring your fairytale to life at Alberton

A fine Victorian mansion, refurbished from top to bottom. Spacious heritage gardens are perfect for marquees or use the Ballroom and Billiard House for true Victorian ambience.

The French place in the heart of the Bay of Islands. The language of love is perfectly interwoven into the lush gardens and lawn which offer you the ideal outdoor venue, mere steps from Russell’s beachfront.

Romantic and elegant, set amid large historic gardens – Alberton is the perfect backdrop for intimate weddings. Enjoy wedding drinks on our expansive verandahs.

Newmarket, Auckland

Pompallier

Russell, Bay of Islands

Alberton

Tel: (09) 524 5729 highwicfunctions@heritage.org.nz

Tel: (09) 403 9015 pompallier@heritage.org.nz

Tel: (09) 846 7367 alberton@heritage.org.nz

Highwic

Mt Albert, Auckland

Hire an historic venue and make your day one to remember.

Hit some heritage trails this autumn and explore our path to nationhood

Experience the heart and soul, and stories, of pre-Treaty New Zealand’s Northland, where Māori and Pākehā first met, traded, philosophised, fought, loved – and established a nation like no other.

Download FREE the Heritage Trails app (Apple and Android) your gateway to some unforgettable heritage experiences.

Heritage New Zealand’s other free apps:

MORE TO DOW NLOA FREE D !

• Waikato’s peaceful hills and plains once rang with battle cries and the boom of warships.

Explore the Waikato War (1863-64) with our driving tour www.thewaikatowar.co.nz and explore the battle sites for yourself.

• Visit highstreetstories.co.nz for over 90 stories, histories and anecdotes of life in Christchurch’s High Street precinct before the quakes.

• Public houses, Private lives take a stroll through an archaeologically-informed history of five colonial Christchurch hotels.

For your free app download go to heritage.org.nz/apps