Heritage New Zealand, Winter 2018

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Issue 149 Winter 2018

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

NZ $9.95 incl.GST

Site mapping unlocks battle stories

HIGH FIDELITY A Nelson music institution restored

MOTORCYCLE MECCA Revving up Invercargill’s main drag

CROSSING OVER New Zealand’s beautiful bridges

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CONTENTS

Winter 2018 Features

Explore the List

12 Recovery position

8 Mission accomplished

A sense of loss prompted Suzanne Price to lead one of Canterbury’s biggest earthquake recovery efforts

The future of Mission Bay’s Melanesian Mission has now been assured

16 Back to school

Ian Athfield’s iconic Wellington complex continues bravely to evolve

Historic Christchurch farm buildings have been restored to their rightful places in the community

20 Revved up

10 Rebel with a cause

Journeys into the past

A restored Invercargill building is now home to an impressive collection of vintage motorcycles

42 The style files

24 Crossing over

48 Sweet waters

New Zealand’s numerous bridges hold special places in the hearts of many Kiwis

Careful heritage management is key to future visitors enjoying Bath’s healing waters

30 High fidelity A Nelson music centre is once again reverberating with sound

36 The next chapter Mapping the East Coast site of a defining battle in New Zealand history is unlocking new stories

8 36

10

A walking tour takes in central Auckland’s fashionable past

Columns

20

3 Editorial 4 Noticeboard 52 Books Great books to challenge preconceived ideas

54 WW100 A new book tells previously untold stories of Māori in World War I

12 Heritage New Zealand

Winter 2018 1

Protecting heritage across New Zealand Most of you reading this magazine are members of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

The magazine showcases what we, and the heritage community, are up to. It is a key membership benefit and many of you have told us how much you love it.

Your membership helps protect heritage across New Zealand. Many of you also make donations to our work and those who have given recently are thanked below.

We are very grateful to all those supporters who have recently made donations. Whilst some are acknowledged below, many more chose to give anonymously.

Mr H G & Mrs G Kasper Mr Mike & Mrs Rosalind Robertson Mr L & Mrs J Walker Dr & Mrs J G Blackman Mr Barry Sefton & Jocelyn Bryant Mr W & Mrs D Hann Mary Ronnie Mrs Tracey Rowan Mrs L F Stephenson Mr Lindsay & Mrs Margaret Butterfield Mr J R Nicoll Mr N & Mrs C Anderson P L Holl

Mr R & Mrs S Geck Dr Phillippa Black Mr P D & Mrs M C Smith Dr T H & Mrs L M Marshall Mr & Mrs P Woodcock Mr E J Bush Mrs Janet Waite Mr Ron Pynenburg Mr D Thompson Miss C Webster Miss G E Matthews Mr G Mansergh Mr & Mrs A M Bloomer

Mr Barry & Mrs Viv Wilson Mr Geoffrey Lamb Mr Gorham and Mrs Yvonne Milbank Mr Ian & Mrs Erryn Dawson

Member-get-member

Whilst your membership subscription helps, there are other ways that you could extend your support of heritage and directly channel financial (and other) support to where it is really needed.

These alternative methods of support are outlined on the right. Best of all, they don’t have any direct cost to you! If you would like to discuss any of them, please get in touch using the details at the bottom of the page.

Do you have friends or family who love New Zealand’s unique heritage and culture? Encouraging them to join Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga is one of the most effective ways you can help support heritage.

Volunteering Do you have a flair for hospitality?

Could you see yourself as a visitor guide or helping to conserve valuable collection items? By volunteering even just a few hours of your time you can make a big difference at one of the historic places that Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga cares for.

Involving your place of work or business You don’t have to be the boss to persuade the organisation you work for to help support heritage. Whether you own your own business or you are part of a cast of thousands of employees, there may be ways that we can work together to protect heritage in New Zealand.

To talk about how these activities – or other ideas you have – can support heritage, please get in touch by: Emailing fundraising@heritage.org.nz Phoning 0800 802 010 Writing to us at Freepost 3206, PO Box 2629, Wellington

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Issue 149 Winter 2018

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

NZ $9.95 incl.GST

Site mapping unlocks battle stories

HIGH FIDELITY A Nelson music institution restored

MOTORCYCLE MECCA Revving up Invercargill’s main drag

CROSSING OVER New Zealand’s beautiful bridges

Heritage Issue 149 Winter 2018 ISSN 1175-9615 (Print) ISSN 2253-5330 (Online) Cover image: Hungahungatoroa Pā

by Brennan Thomas

Editorial Director Bette Flagler, Sugar Bag Publishing Editor Caitlin Sykes, Sugar Bag Publishing Subeditor Trish Heketa, Sugar Bag Publishing Designer Amanda Trayes, Sugar Bag Publishing Publisher Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Heritage New Zealand magazine is published quarterly by Heritage New Zealand. The magazine has an audited circulation of 11,669 as at 30 September 2016.

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

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. 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

The little things One of my favourite tasks as we prepare each issue of Heritage New Zealand magazine is pulling together our Noticeboard stories. When we introduced this section just over a year ago, there were a number of things we wanted to achieve, but primarily we envisaged it as a way to put the Heritage New Zealand community front and centre in the magazine.

One way we’ve tried to shine a light on the many connections members have to our heritage places in this part of the publication is through our regular ‘Three quick questions’ piece – a short interview with a passionate heritage supporter.

For this issue I spoke with Wilf Wright who, alongside wife Jan, has been a longtime parishioner at St Andrew’s Anglican church in Reikorangi, just outside Waikanae on the Kāpiti Coast. As we chatted, Wilf recounted the many ways the community has rallied around this place over the years: relocating a Category 1 historic church to the site to be used as a hall, restoring the church itself, and developing its gardens. He also described how, on the day he and Jan were married at the church 55 years ago, their friends laid a hāngi for them; when a scan of a photo taken of the beautiful couple on their wedding day subsequently landed in my inbox, I could indeed see the smoke pluming in the background.

Another highlight while doing my Noticeboard rounds this issue was chatting to Ken Gillespie for our ‘From the collections’ piece. We thought highlighting a pair of much-loved ice skates from the collections housed at the Category 1

Heritage New Zealand property Hayes Engineering Works, in Central Otago’s Oturehua, would be appropriate for our Winter issue, and Ken, a long-time Hayes volunteer, was a fount of knowledge about skating on the nearby Idaburn Dam. There was the time in 1969, for example, when the newly formed Oturehua Ice Hockey Club won the prestigious Erewhon Cup in the face of competition from six other teams. In those days players “played the puck, not the man”, Ken explained, and took to the ice without wearing pads or helmets (although the goalie did wear a face guard, he noted, fashioned from quarter-inch [six-millimetre] rod welded at the local garage).

Another aim we had for the Noticeboard section was to keep the stories short and punchy, as a foil to the longer feature pieces that are the foundation of the magazine.

As a writer, I can find it a challenge to fit the wonderful details, such as those shared by Wilf and Ken, into a shorter format. But I also remind myself that this allows us to tell more stories in the magazine – adding, I hope, to the overall richness of the publication.

Personally, I find it a privilege to share these moments, however brief, with some of the many members of our community who wrap their arms around New Zealand’s precious heritage places. I hope in reading the stories you’ll likewise feel that good things can come in small packages.

Caitlin Sykes Editor

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.

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

Heritage New Zealand

Winter 2018 3

Letter to the editor As your Heritage New Zealand magazines are excellent, the following are some thoughts related to increasing audited circulation.

When members are visiting a GP, dentist, hospital and so on they could leave a past copy of the magazine in the waiting rooms.

The above concept should achieve the following objectives: increased funding for Heritage New Zealand as a result of additional membership. There would be no increases in costs to Heritage New Zealand as it is envisaged the members would use their own copies of the magazine to distribute to waiting rooms. It would also “promote and encourage public interest in, and care for, the beauty, history and character of heritage sites throughout New Zealand”.

On this subject, Heritage New Zealand magazine does a great job.

Ashley Shewan Ed’s note: Nice idea, we just suggest you ask first. Some businesses may prefer to manage what’s displayed for visitors.

Correction

We’re sorry! Due to a production error we incorrectly stated that the bridge pictured in the WW100 story on page 54 of our last issue (Autumn 2018) was the ANZAC Memorial Bridge in Kaiparoro in the Tararua District. The bridge pictured was actually the primary subject of the story, the Edith Cavell Bridge in Queenstown.

BEHIND THE STORY: BRENNAN THOMAS Photographer Brennan Thomas is a regular Heritage New Zealand magazine contributor and captured images for our story on the mapping of Hungahungatoroa Pā on page 36.

Around a decade ago, my wife and I had hit the high-water mark of our Wellington existence. We both had solid jobs and a great circle of mates and all those good things, but we felt a push to leave the capital.

We gave the dice a roll, deciding to drive the North Island over a period of weeks with the objective of finding a new place to nest. The alternative plan was to leave New Zealand, as a lot of our mates were doing at the time.

Gisborne blew our minds, so we dropped anchor on a gut feeling.

It was mid-winter when we arrived in this amazing place, but the residents were still t-shirt clad and had a massive affinity for both whānau and whakapapa, as well as the land and the ocean. The pace and pressures of modern city life were non-existent.

The total jewel in the crown for both of us was, and still is, the East Cape – especially Te Araroa and Hicks Bay and their surrounding areas.

We have had some truly amazing experiences here. It’s not just the incredible beauty of the physical landscape, it’s also the people of Ngāti Porou that make me respond to this area. Photographically, experiencing both is often mind-blowing.

Some of the most awe-inspiring human beings I’ve met have been in this far corner of Aotearoa over the past 10 years. This will undoubtedly continue.

4 Winter 2018

Generating interest AUTUMN 2006, ISSUE 100

SINCE WE WERE THERE After undergoing an ‘extreme makeover’, a restored Hawke’s Bay Opera House was revealed on Heritage New Zealand magazine’s cover back in Autumn 2006.

And now, while undergoing a significant earthquakestrengthening project that is due for completion next year, the Category 1 building continues to reveal surprises.

In a small room at ground level, those working on the project recently discovered the theatre’s original backup power generator – a piece of machinery dating back to 1913 and of such epic proportions it is believed the theatre was literally built around it.

Using the generator’s serial number, workers traced its origins to an English manufacturer called Mawdsley’s – a firm founded in 1907 in the town of Dursley in

Gloucestershire, and which is still in existence.

With the help of the company and some of its retired engineers, they found that the generator was an early Mawdsley M-type machine, manufactured circa 1907 to 1918, with an American motor – and that it is extremely rare. When Mawdsley’s celebrated its 50th year in business in 1957, it could find none of these models to showcase.

The generator is so heavy, and so tightly wedged under a set of stairs, that moving it out of the heritage theatre to preserve it elsewhere isn’t tenable.

So instead it will be celebrated in situ: once the opera house, considered one of New Zealand’s most significant examples of Spanish Mission architecture, is reopened, visitors will be able to view the spruced-up generator from its own special viewing platform.

CORPORATE MEMBERS OF HERITAGE NEW ZEALAND We thank all members for their commitment to our work and acknowledge the following Corporate Members: Antigua Boatsheds • Aon New Zealand • Apt Design • DLA Architects • Holmes Consulting Group • Resene Paints • Salmond Reed Architects • The Church Property Trustees • The Fletcher Trust • WT Partnership NZ (ChCh) •

Heritage New Zealand

Places we visit Auckland, p8, p42 Te Araroa, p36

... WITH BRENDON VEALE SUPPORTER SPOTLIGHT

... WITH BRENDON VEALE I have recently spoken with a committed supporter Malcolm, who is interested in continuing to protect heritage long after his own lifetime.

With Malcolm’s blessing, I am able to share his story.

Malcolm is interested in leaving a bequest to Heritage New Zealand, and because there are so many ways of leaving a heritage legacy, we had a fascinating conversation that touched on the benefits of perpetual endowment-style funds, the changing needs and landscape of heritage protection and also Malcolm’s own wishes as someone who wants to make a long-lasting difference to heritage in this country.

This is, of course, just one of many conversations I’ll be having with Malcolm and I see my role as ‘matchmaker’ really: to enable members and supporters to make a difference – no matter how small or large – to the unique heritage, culture and history of this beautiful place we all call home.

Heritage New Zealand

Leaving a gift in your will or similar ‘planned giving’ (as it is called in some parts of the world) can be transformational for historic sites and built heritage in New Zealand.

This often allows for much more significant projects to be enabled than through conventional charitable donations.

So please do get in touch with me if you’d like to have similar conversations about how to give heritage a helping hand in New Zealand. I’d love to listen to your ideas and plans.

Nelson, p30

Wellington, p10

Invercargill, p20

Christchurch, p12, p16

Brendon Veale Manager Asset Funding 0800 HERITAGE

LOCAL AUTHORITY MEMBERS

(0800 437482)

Auckland Council

bveale@heritage.org.nz

Bay of Plenty Regional Council Central Hawke’s Bay District Council Dunedin City Council Gore District Council

News & views follow us on ...

Hamilton City Council Hauraki District Council Invercargill City Council Manawatū District Council Marlborough District Council Matamata-Piako District Council Porirua City Council Rotorua Lakes Council Selwyn District Council South Taranaki District Council Tasman District Council

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.

Timaru District Council Waipa District Council Waitaki District Council Western Bay of Plenty District Council

Winter 2018 5

NOTICEBOARD OUR PICKS

FROM THE ONLINE SHOP A trip to the English city of Bath (the subject of this issue’s International story on page 48) is on many a heritage lover’s bucket list. But if time, money or other circumstances don’t allow, create your own winter spa experience at home with these products from the Heritage New Zealand online shop: shop.heritage.org.nz.

FEATURED SUPPORTER

THREE QUICK QUESTIONS WITH WILF WRIGHT Wilf Wright has lived in the Reikorangi Valley, just outside Waikanae, for 63 years, where he and his wife Jan, a fellow potter, have run Reikorangi Pottery Park and Cafe for more than five decades. Here Wilf shares his special connection to St Andrew’s – Reikorangi’s Anglican church.

1

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2

How did you become involved with St Andrew’s and the Reikorangi community?

My family was originally looking for a weekend cottage we could escape to from Wellington. I’d been to a picnic here and enjoyed the valley so thought it would be a good place, and we eventually bought a property here.

In Wellington, we had a one of the very early craft shops, which was called Stockton’s. I was very fortunate that through that I met some of the pioneering New Zealand potters who were just starting out, like Barry Brickell, Len Castle and Helen Mason. I became interested in potting through them; eventually Barry decided a good place to build a kiln would be out here in Reikorangi so the pottery all started from there.

We’ve been members of the church for the whole time we’ve lived here, and Jan and I were married in the church 55 years ago [pictured above]. Our Māori friends put on a hāngi for us, which was very special, and the marquee came from the local marae.

How has the church changed over the years?

In 2000 the community asked for a hall adjacent to the church for social occasions and so on. Jan and I found a Category 1 historic church at Tangimoana, which was originally from Parewanui;

most unusually for a church, it has gun ports in its walls as it was used as part of a redoubt during its history. A generous donation from a parishioner helped to move the building from Tangimoana to Reikorangi, and with a lot of community fundraising we were also able to paint and restore St Andrew’s itself. More recently, as a result of a lot of effort from a lot of people, there’s been a tremendous amount of work done developing the garden and walkway around the church, so it’s looking exceptionally good.

3

Many old church buildings are closed and falling into disrepair in our rural communities. Why do you think this hasn’t happened with St Andrew’s?

As a church community we all get on well together. On average we get about 25 people to our morning services, which is pretty good, and not all parishioners come from the valley; some come from Waikanae, and I think they like the special spiritual feeling they get here by virtue of the beautiful natural surroundings. And even people who don’t come to services tell me they often wander around the grounds and get a lot of inspiration and meditation from that.

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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.

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Heritage New Zealand

The ice-skating tradition continues, as captured in this image of the Idaburn Dam taken last winter by Christchurch photographer Liam Ashby.

Chilling out It’s around this time of year that the dams of Central Otago can transform into winter sports playgrounds – and as these ice skates (inset) attest, it’s been that way for some time.

Made to attach to boots, and consisting of wooden base plates with leather straps and steel skate blades, this pair of homemade skates is a well-loved collections item housed at Hayes Engineering Works in Oturehua.

Oturehua identity Ken Gillespie wears many hats in the community, including tour guide at Hayes, and says the engineering works sharpened local ice skaters’ blades until around 1970.

A particular stone, also still housed at the works, created the hollow grind required by figure skaters, he says, “and the sharper they

Heritage New Zealand

are, the easier they are to skate on and the faster you go”.

The nearby Idaburn Dam (pictured above) is perhaps best known for the Bonspiel – a major national curling tournament that is called when there is sufficient natural

ice to form a rink (the dam has been the venue since 1932, except for 2015 when the Centennial Ponds in Naseby were used).

But it also plays host to a range of other winter sports – from speed and figure skating to ice hockey – and for many years a community highlight was the Annual Ice Carnival, hosted by the Oturehua Winter Sports Club, which was formed in 1933.

Today, Ken says, if ice is going to form a natural rink on the dam it will be during a period of about six weeks, starting around Queen’s Birthday weekend.

“The winters here are not as long or as tough as they used to be; we can get substantial snowfalls, but they’re not so common now,” he says. “We go out with a drill and measure the depth of the ice, and if we can we’ll still skate and we do a lot of curling. I had my grandchildren skating on an inch and a half of ice last year.”

Winter 2018 7

EXPLORE THE LIST WORDS: JAMIE DOUGLAS • IMAGERY: MARCEL TROMP

Mission accomplished The future of Mission Bay’s Melanesian Mission, an Auckland icon, is now assured Melanesia’s inclusion into modern-day Auckland’s melting pot of cultures can be pinpointed to a Tudor Revival stone building nestled near the water’s edge at Mission Bay that was built 160 years ago next year.

The Melanesian Mission building and site on Tamaki Drive has many layers of history, particularly its connection with Ngāti Whātua and Ngāti Paoa iwi as an area of pre-European settlement, food gathering and travel routes. The importance of that connection and the building that originally served early Anglican missionary ideals was succinctly articulated by the Archbishop of Melanesia,

8 Winter 2018

George Takeli, when blessing the reopening of the Melanesian Mission in November last year.

This followed a $3 million project that included a new pavilion building being built on the site, in addition to strengthening and refurbishing the historic stone building. In essence, the site’s spiritual and cultural heart still beats strongly.

“That relationship is a true friendship – a deep friendship actually,” Archbishop Takeli said at the reopening.

“I described it in my address as the tūrangawaewae. It captures all of our life, our faith and our imaginations.”

LOCATION Auckland lies between the Hauraki Gulf to the east and the Waitakere Ranges to the west and north-west.

Built of basalt quarried from nearby Rangitoto Island, the Melanesian Mission building was part of a larger complex, including a church and schoolhouse, created to provide young Melanesian men with a Christian education before they returned home to share their Anglican faith.

The Anglican mission transferred to Norfolk Island eight years later, but education

continued in different forms on the site. It was part of a naval training school, then an industrial school, before becoming the site of New Zealand’s first flying school, where at least one-third of the country’s airborne personnel trained in World War I. It became a Melanesian Mission Museum in 1928 and since 1974 has been in the care of Heritage New Zealand, with a Category 1 listing.

“The Melanesian Mission site is important as a place of early contact and cultural exchange between Pacific and European peoples,” says Heritage New Zealand Assessment Advisor Martin Jones. “Connections forged here influenced future relationships between cultures.

The boys educated here would return to Melanesia to spread the Christian values linked with the Anglican faith. Bonds between students, who themselves came from different cultural backgrounds within Melanesia, are also likely to have strengthened.

“There has been a multitude of other historical uses and

Heritage New Zealand

associations for the site, which can be unravelled to a significant degree through archaeology.”

Reflecting a combination of 19th-century craftsmanship with 21st-century innovation and business acumen, the site’s historical layers were the centre of attention during the 12-month project. The new restaurant building and the restoration of the Melanesian Mission stone building complement each other within their archaeologically and historically significant park setting.

Heritage New Zealand’s early investigative work to identify the archaeological features of the site set the platform for an appropriate engineering design to be created for the new pavilion building.

To minimise the impact on the site, floating steel beams were used as the support structure for the floor, reducing the number of pile foundations required.

“A number of archaeological features were identified through

Heritage New Zealand

this process and it ensured there was minimal sub-surface disturbance,” says Heritage New Zealand Archaeologist Bev Parslow, who oversaw the on-site work.

During the installation of footings, exposed masonry foundations of one of the quadrangular dormitory buildings confirmed the 19thcentury L-shaped layout of the original property and identified features including an extensive shell drainage trench.

The masonry foundations and drainage trench remain in situ below the pavilion. Few artefacts were identified that could be directly linked to the property in its formative years, but rubbish pits and other features unearthed will provide a greater understanding of the property in the coming months.

“Meeting with locals during site works, some of whom had family connections to the later 19th-century institutions housed in the previous buildings on site, was invaluable,” says Bev.

“It provided another dynamic to the close community ties with the property and demonstrated how archaeology can provide a broader story and understanding of a place and its occupation over time.”

The techniques used to conserve and strengthen the Melanesian Mission ensure its longevity for generations to enjoy. The seismic upgrade focused on making the building earthquake resistant by preventing the rubble-filled, double-skin stone walls from collapsing. This was achieved by bonding the inner and outer skins of stone and rubble core together using Mapei’s MapeAntique, an injectable specialist lime-based grout, to create a solid homogeneous wall. The lime-based constituent allows the wall moisture vapour to escape to the exterior.

“It was a big challenge to strengthen a building comprising unreinforced stone,” says Heritage New Zealand Conservation Architect Robin Byron.

“But the adopted solution to carry out Mapei’s lime grouting injection meant that the main strengthening could be achieved in a relatively non-invasive and visually unobtrusive way.

“It’s a system used extensively in Europe but little, so far, in New Zealand. Other strengthening techniques were used through careful consideration and design to minimise the visual impact, so much so that it is hard to detect that the strengthening work has occurred at all.”

The interior conservation work reversed much historical intrusive work that had taken place – such as removing the later kitchen – and looked to return original character features especially in the main room – the original dining space. Renewing the wooden shingle roof and copper flashings, and repairing and repointing the external stonework have, says Robin, “refreshed the Melanesian Mission’s appearance for many people to enjoy and, most importantly, helped to ensure its physical integrity for its future”.

Winter 2018 9

EXPLORE THE LIST

WORDS: JACQUI GIBSON • IMAGERY: ALISON DANGERFIELD

REBEL

with a cause

At nearly 50 years old, Ian Athfield’s iconic Wellington complex of terraced dwellings and offices continues bravely to evolve

It’s hard to imagine another suburban house in New Zealand that more brazenly thumbs its nose at the quarter-acre dream.

For sure, it’s a problematic aspiration these days, given the current state of housing affordability. But back when the first clod of Athfield House and Office was turned, the conventional family home was very much the desire of most middle-class Kiwis.

10 Winter 2018

And that’s exactly what the property’s creator, architect Ian Athfield, wanted to poke a stick at.

The then-28-year-old husband and father wanted to take hold of the typical New Zealand family home and turn it on its head.

Instead of wood, he’d build it from concrete and gleaming white plaster. Instead of shaping it to suit the needs of the single familial unit, he’d design it to house anyone eager to live and

work together in a kind of social experiment.

It would start as a family home, but would soon morph into an interconnected network of separate dwellings, private alleyways, sheltered courtyards, office spaces, recreation areas and even a rooftop pool. He’d construct it atop a hill as proud and as precipitously placed as any Mediterranean castle.

And he’d furnish it with radical features such as a round lookout tower and porthole windows to make the most of the site’s expansive city and harbour views.

Then, as a final footnote, he would ditch any kind of boundary fence in favour of infinite space, to allow the suburban structure to evolve and grow continually, as author and photographer Simon Devitt once wrote, “as lava leaks from a volcano”.

Sited on a steep Khandallah hillside in Wellington for nearly 50 years now, Athfield House and

Office does, in fact, look as if it’s cascading down the bank from Amritsar Street to Onslow Road.

Heritage New Zealand Central Region Conservation Architect Alison Dangerfield has made several visits to Athfield House and Office, a 10-minute drive from Wellington’s CBD, over the past few years.

“We know Sir Ian and Lady Clare chose the elevated site thinking it would grab people’s attention. And certainly, with the addition of the home’s bulbous white tower in 1971, the property did become a conspicuous presence on the Wellington landscape,” she says.

“But it’s really so much more than that today. Today it joins the likes of St Gerard’s Monastery and the Beehive as one of the city’s most celebrated buildings: a symbol of not only Sir Ian and Lady Clare’s identities, but that of the city as well.”

Alison was one of three authors of the 2017 listing report for Athfield House and Office, the ever-growing complex of terraced dwellings and offices that act as either homes or offices or both to approximately 65 people.

Heritage New Zealand

LOCATION Wellington is located near Cook Strait on the south-western tip of the North Island.

The property is one of more than several hundred buildings that make up the Athfield body of work, which started with Athfield House in 1965 and went on to include dozens of residential homes, as well as major commercial and public projects such as Wellington’s Civic Square and waterfront.

Heritage New Zealand

Before his death in 2015, aged 74, ‘Ath’, as he was known to family and friends, was considered one of the country’s most outstanding and celebrated architects of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

In 1976, having practised architecture for less than a decade, he took first prize in an international competition for his approach to low-cost housing in the Philippines. By 2014, with a slew of accolades under his belt, he’d picked up a knighthood for services to architecture.

Alison says: “It’s a career that started right here in Khandallah with this pivotal building. In Sir Ian’s work, we see the development of a unique approach to domestic architecture within New Zealand.

It signals a time of transition between modernism and the Colonial Revival era of the 1970s.

It also provides a link between the colonial period and late-20thcentury urbanism rarely seen

elsewhere. It’s a property I’m confident will become more and more significant with time.”

In Athfield House and Office, she says, visitors are given a glimpse into its author’s rebellion against the social isolation and individualism of the suburbs.

“He very much believed in communal living – in the mini city or village – where work and home were intrinsically linked.

The Titanic Tearoom, for example, is the central congregating place for workplace conversation and refreshments. In contrast, Cliffside is a three-level apartment just four minutes’ walk away through a double door.”

Athfield House and Office was added to Heritage New Zealand’s Category 1 list as a place of outstanding and special significance in January this year.

Zac Athfield, son of the late Sir Ian Athfield and principal at the firm his father set up, says it’s a privilege to work on site every day and continue his father’s work.

“Obviously, I have a long association with this place. First, as a child growing up here. I have plenty of memories of sitting in the tower, peering out the portholes and ducking in and out of the small spaces he created, just like my kids do now.

“Mum and Dad’s parties were legendary, of course. And it’s hard to imagine this now, but Dad’s belief in the ability to work from home was itself another innovation of its time.

“I think the biggest challenge for the practice, as we continue to acquire land and change and evolve the spaces, is to think about what’s next. What new materials do we want to apply and where? In my experience, that’s how this building works – as an ongoing project that’s in a constant state of semi-completion and renewal. It’s a building that will forever have its purpose defined by the energy and endeavour of the people who live and work here.”

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PROFILE

For Suzanne Price, Recovery Programme Manager for Church Property Trustees (CPT), a desire for heritage protection developed from an acute sense of loss.

It was while on a drive through her hometown of Kaiapoi, outside Christchurch, after being away studying veterinary science at Massey University, that she noticed the old library was gone.

“The council had demolished the library; my library.

I’d virtually lived there as a child and I couldn’t believe that the beautiful triple-brick building wasn’t there anymore. I just cried.”

Her next trip back to Christchurch was ruined as well. “I drove past St Bede’s College and was appalled to see the beautiful façade of St Bede’s had vanished. It had always made such an impression on me as I drove past. It was always there, and then one day it wasn’t.”

Once again, she felt the loss of something beautiful and completely unrecoverable.

The experiences had a huge impact on Suzanne, and when deteriorating hearing forced a move from veterinary school to property management and valuation, she was determined that any heritage

building that came her way would be given a chance.

“Everyone looks at the economics of restoring old buildings, but it shouldn’t rule the decisions. No matter where you live, there will be heritage buildings that are important to your community and there is a huge sense of loss once they go, because you can’t get them back,” she says.

In the mid-1980s, as one of only a handful of women in the property development and management industry, Suzanne became the first woman to join the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA), now the Property Council of New Zealand. She remembers the day she derailed a BOMA meeting that was being held at the Wellington Club. “Women weren’t allowed in, so they had to change the venue for future meetings.”

The work was hard but the challenges exciting. She enjoyed the theory behind valuations and early on was given some internal fit-out projects to manage. “And suddenly, she who was never going to work in an office was really enjoying it,” she laughs.

Suzanne’s early projects in Christchurch involved finding new office venues, fitting them out and then moving sales agents into their new, open-plan offices.

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RECOVERY

With decades spent working in the property sector and a long-held love of heritage spaces, Suzanne Price had the right set of skills to lead one of Canterbury’s biggest earthquake recovery efforts

WO R DS : K I M T RIE G AARDT • IMAG E RY: KIRST E N S H E PPARD

12 Winter 2018

Heritage New Zealand

Another project involved a small office and retail development that required the demolition of the Crystal Palace Theatre, which came down virtually overnight. “It was a look into the corporate preference, which was to knock down a building because they could do something bigger and better at far less expense,” she says.

Suzanne’s longstanding interest in heritage buildings was given a boost when she worked in the North Island for a company that had a large stock of old buildings whose owner had a passion for them.

“Where other people would put them in the too-hard basket, he loved them. He would buy them, give them a makeover and put in a new business, or restructure the old business. He gave these old buildings a whole new, vibrant lease on life.”

It is this ability to create new life from old that has kept Suzanne accepting commissions to retrofit and strengthen heritage buildings. Her experiences have also strengthened her faith in heritage restorations.

“I’m not fazed by the extent of the work it might take to fix a building, because I’ve seen how it’s possible to transform a building,” she says.

It was the huge portfolio of earthquake-damaged heritage buildings that attracted Suzanne to her role with CPT, which holds and administers the property and investments of the Anglican Diocese of Christchurch and is one of the largest private owners of heritage-listed buildings in New Zealand. Of the 75 heritage buildings in a portfolio of more than 280, 56 had quake damage of varying degrees.

“It was an opportunity to really use my skills in heritage and background in property management to get things to stack up from a numbers point of view.

I’ve been able to look at a building and say, ‘Hey, that is actually manageable – that can be saved’.”

This means putting strategies, reviews and alternative plans into place that are contrary to the initial repair schemes, which were undertaken at the time CPT was negotiating insurance payouts after the Christchurch earthquakes of 2010 and 2011.

With many of the old parish churches facing depreciated insurance payouts, there hasn’t been much spare cash to go around. At St Barnabas (pictured) in the Fendalton parish, the $5.7 million scheme that was initially developed was completely uneconomic, so it meant working with the engineers to revisit the project and propose an alternative.

“We ended up basically with exactly the same result through revisiting the engineering solutions, coming up with something more buildable and saving nearly $3 million in the process.”

HeritageNew NewZealand Zealand Heritage

Winter 2018 13

PROFILE

Suzanne has had the added challenge of assisting the parishes with fundraising to help restore the churches.

Despite all these challenges, Suzanne appreciates the unique situation in which she finds herself. “It’s not very often you get to work on a series of buildings dating from 1855 through the 1880s to the 1900s.

Many of the churches carry the signature looks of the region’s eminent architects Benjamin Mountfort and Cecil Wood.

“These are churches that were built with whatever was around, so they are unique. At the Church of the Holy Innocents at Mt Peel, the builders took stones from the Rangitata River and put them in fire and split them with axes. There is nothing else like it anywhere,” says Suzanne.

The restoration of the Church of the Holy Innocents epitomises the level of care and attention to detail that Suzanne takes in her restoration projects.

“While you can still get the same Mt Somers stone that the decorative details of the church were made of, because the quarry where it came from is still there, for it to be the same colour, the stone would need to have been quarried at the same time. Fortunately, we were given access to stone that had been quarried and was

14 Winter 2018

“These are churches that were built with whatever was around, so they are unique”

still sitting there from the time the church was built, so we could match up the stone identically.”

Suzanne says assembling the right team – architects, engineers and builders who understand heritage projects – is the key to making these projects happen.

Heritage New Zealand Conservation Architect Dave Margetts says Suzanne’s strong conviction to save as much of CPT’s at-risk heritage as practically possible is commendable.

“We have been impressed with her ability to lead from within CPT to appropriately assess and make cases for the retention of the most significant and often very damaged heritage church buildings.”

No story on Christchurch churches would be complete without a question about the recovery of the 136-year-old Gothic-style Christ Church Cathedral.

Suzanne was involved with the preliminary planning for the reinstatement and was keen to see it saved.

“I’m hopeful I will have a role and I would like to lead the recovery project, but it’s still some way away.”

Uncertainty notwithstanding, the heritage buildings that Suzanne has helped to save so far have gone a long way towards easing the pain of those earlier losses.

Heritage New Zealand

St Bartholomew’s Church, Kaiapoi Despite having worked on a large number of heritage projects, Suzanne barely hesitates when asked to name her favourite building. ““It’s got to be St Bart’s,” she says fondly. “I grew up in Kaiapoi, and it was the church I

Heritage New Zealand

attended as a child so I’ve always had a soft spot for it.”

St Bartholomew’s Church is a Category 1 church designed

by Benjamin Mountfort and is the oldest wooden church in Canterbury. The church had to be moved off its foundations to

allow new ones to be installed and was then moved back again.

“I’ve always loved the interior of the church. It’s not the same as modern churches. There is a sense of the surreal, and mystery.

You feel something different from the usual. Also, because Kaiapoi

lost so much in the quake, it’s been quite special to work on it and be able to save it.”

Suzanne says that handing it back to the parish in as-new condition following a year of quake repairs and restoration was very satisfying.

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BUILDINGS AT WORK

Back to

school

Farm buildings once belonging to one of Christchurch’s founding families have come through earthquake and fire to be restored to their rightful places in the community WORDS: DAVID KILLICK

16 Winter 2018

Situated in a leafy Christchurch suburb are a couple of brick buildings that have served a surprising number of purposes over the years: from piggery, stables, and blacksmith’s forge to artillery shelter, woodwork workshop and radio club.

And now, thanks to painstaking conservation work and the vision of Christchurch Boys’ High School, the buildings can add upscale uniform shop and museum space to their utility list.

Saving the Deans Farm Buildings, however, was a close shave. After the devastating Canterbury earthquakes of 2010-11 and an arson attack in 2016 they were almost lost for good.

The buildings were once part of one of Canterbury’s earliest farms. Nearby Riccarton House and Bush, the last remaining stand of lowland native forest in the city, once also belonged to the farm.

Before European settlement, Ngāi Tūāhuriri, a subtribe of Ngāi Tahu, knew the land as Pūtaringamotu and in 1843 Scottish brothers William and John Deans established a farm there. In 1851 William drowned when his ship sank en route to Australia. His brother John returned to Scotland where he married Jane

Heritage New Zealand

McIlraith, and the couple set sail for Lyttelton, arriving in 1853. John died just a year later, but Jane and their son, John Deans II, continued farming.

The Deans were certainly enterprising. They ran sheep, cattle, pigs and poultry, operated a stud, and grew wheat, oats, barley, potatoes and citrus. They even planted and harvested oak trees.

The surviving farm buildings date back to the 1880s.

What makes them special is that they weren’t just utilitarian structures (the Deans used the buildings for stables, a piggery and a blacksmith’s forge); they also featured ornamental flourishes, such as barrelvaulted roofs, decorative fretwork, finials, and an ‘oeil-de-boeuf’ (‘bull’s-eye’) round window.

The family sold the buildings in 1926-27 to Canterbury College for Christchurch Boys’ High School, which concluded that they were “far too valuable to pull down, since they are well and strongly constructed”. The school used the complex for, variously, a woodwork workshop, bicycle sheds, an artillery shelter, a swimmers’ dressing room (the old cattle pen became the swimming pool), a gymnasium, a kayak shed, and a radio club (dubbed “the radio shack”).

The Canterbury earthquakes of 2010-11 severely damaged the buildings, however, and two were demolished, with the remaining two propped up by steel bracing. A 2016 arson attack damaged the timber in one building but, thankfully, didn’t destroy the structure.

The picture prior to restoration: After incurring severe damage during the 2010-11 Canterbury earthquakes, two of the Deans Farm Buildings had to be demolished and the remaining two were propped up by bracing.

IMAGERY: FRANK VISSER

Winter 2018 17

Heritage New New Zealand Zealand Heritage

Winter2018 201817 17 Winter

BUILDINGS AT WORK Despite the dilapidated state of these buildings, Christchurch Boys’ High School made a bold decision to restore them. Although not listed by Heritage New Zealand, they are recognised as an archaeological site, and are listed as Group Two heritage buildings by the Christchurch City Council.

“They deserve to be preserved,” says Christchurch Boys’ High School Senior Master Craig Dunnett.

“They have a huge significance to the school, and are part of the Deans family, which is a part of our school.

You can’t put a price on buildings like these. It’s an important place not only to our school but also to the city. These are some of the oldest surviving brick buildings in Canterbury.”

Fundraising by the school, together with grants that included one from the Canterbury Earthquake Heritage Buildings Fund, which is administered by Heritage New Zealand, enabled restoration work to begin in October 2016.

Managed by The Building Intelligence Group, the project was a collaborative effort involving a host of builders, engineers and conservation experts.

“It was an interesting conservation project of a beautifully detailed utilitarian structure,” says built heritage specialist Carole-Lynne Kerrigan, who works independently. “We tried to keep the intervention into the heritage fabric to a minimum.

“One of the challenges was the huge cracks as a result of the earthquakes. Shotcrete, a strengthening method often favoured by engineers, was not used because of the incompatibility of high-strength modern concrete with soft, early bricks and lime-based mortars.”

Engineers came up with an approach where steelthreaded rods and new rose-head washers (the latter designed to replicate the originals) were used to tie the brickwork back to a number of internal steel columns and beams. This new, steel-framed structure ensured the required strength.

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“If we don’t change the use of buildings and upgrade them, we are going to lose them. Adaptation is essential to ensure survival”

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Says Carole-Lynne: “The buildings had been painted internally and had evidence of rising damp that was causing damage to mortar joints and severe weathering of some of the brickwork. As a result, paint was removed from the walls and the brickwork was consolidated using lime water.

“Agricultural drains were then positioned around the external perimeter of the buildings to keep water away from them and to resolve differences in ground levels due to changes in use over time.”

Shana Dooley, an archaeological consultant with Underground Overground Archaeology, says the most interesting archaeological find was the original cobblestone floor of the piggery and dairy shed. “We also found animal bones and rusty farm equipment, horseshoes, and original stone paving in the courtyard.”

Most of the cobblestones had to be lifted to put in a new concrete slab, but a section has been preserved under a glass floor.

“You are [often] on projects where everything gets destroyed, but we are trying to preserve them and it’s nice to be part of that,” says Shana. “It’s important because once things are gone they are gone forever if we don’t have a record of them.”

Explains Carole-Lynne: “The other thing was trying to retain what we were pretty sure was the original, but now failing, barrel-vaulted, corrugated-metal roof and trusses from Scotland. What we elected to do was to position a brand-new roof over the exterior of the existing [roof ] and recreate a short section of original cast-iron fretwork in aluminium. You can still see the original roof from the inside of the buildings.”

Heritage New Zealand

1

Built heritage specialist Carole-Lynne Kerrigan aims to preserve original elements within a structurally sound modern frame.

IMAGE: KIRSTEN SHEPPARD

2 The old brick farm building

survived the Christchurch earthquakes but needed extensive strengthening and restoration work.

IMAGE: FRANK VISSER 3 Barrel-vaulted, corrugated-

metal roof and trusses from Scotland were preserved beneath a new exterior roof; original cobblestones are visible below a glass inset floor.

IMAGE: FRANK VISSER 4 One building is now the

Christchurch Boys’ High School uniform shop.

IMAGE: KIRSTEN SHEPPARD 5 Archivist Dr Bruce Harding

has his office in one of the old farm buildings.

IMAGE: KIRSTEN SHEPPARD

The discovery of asbestos in the building, quite possibly because it had once been a blacksmith’s forge (which traditionally used asbestos as insulation), was less than welcome. “We didn’t expect to find all the asbestos and that meant sections had to be dug out by hand – once you start a project like this, you don’t know what you’ll find,” says Craig.

One building is now the Christchurch Boys’ High School uniform shop, which Craig says looks like an upmarket menswear shop.

The other building is the Old Boys’ museum and meeting room. The New Zealand Society of Genealogists will meet there in June.

A new metal staircase leads to the upper level, where archivist Dr Bruce Harding has his office and proudly displays the many historical treasures, including a painting by Austen Deans and memorabilia belonging to many New Zealand luminaries. A humidity-controlled environment ensures that the displays stay in good condition.

Carole-Lynne says good teamwork produced a fantastic result. “Old buildings sometimes require a change in use and that’s fine; if we don’t change the use of buildings and upgrade them, we are going to lose them. Adaptation is essential to ensure survival.”

Heritage New Zealand Conservation Architect Dave Margetts says that although the buildings are not listed, they have high heritage value.

“It was quite an exciting project for us because of the new uses the school is putting these buildings to.

We’re thrilled the school has decided to retain these heritage buildings and repurpose them.”

Winter 2018 19

BUILDINGS AT WORK

It seems a perfect match – an extensive vintage motorcycle collection housed in a beautifully restored heritage building in the heart of Burt Munro country.

But when the present owners of the former Thomson & Beattie drapery, a Category 2 historic place on Tay Street in Invercargill’s CBD, bought the building, they did so for its beauty, rather than having a specific use in mind for the site.

Joc O’Donnell – the instigator of the building’s new use as a motorcycle museum, along with her husband, Scott – says the couple was impressed with the former drapery’s good bones and beautiful façade. So in 2014 they bought it, as well as what had once been the John Edmonds Building next door at number 25 Tay Street. The Thomson & Beattie building, built in 1881, had later been used as H&J Smith’s Outdoor World (until Outdoor World transferred to the H&J Smith department store’s main premises), and number 25 had more recently been a seedy nightclub and suffered clumsy alterations.

Fortunately the alterations made to the Thomson & Beattie building to suit later uses had not caused great damage. The leadlight windows in the back wall

had been covered up with board and the tongue-andgroove panelling and mellow old brick were obscured by modern lining material, but the beautiful lift and the graceful staircase remained, and the spaces were expansive and suited to a museum.

At first it seemed the building would become a home for the display of art and sculpture from Anderson Park, a large art gallery with expansive gardens on the outskirts of the city. However, this plan didn’t eventuate and Scott became interested in the auction of a collection of more than 300 vintage motorcycles in Nelson.

His timing was unfortunate for Joc, who was recovering from an operation and busy caring for unwell family members. She told him he could go to the auction with another work colleague as planned “but he was not to buy anything”. True to his word, Scott did not buy anything at the time – but he did negotiate a three-day option to buy the entire collection. He was persuasive and finally Joc was captured by the potential of the idea and began to see the Thomson & Beattie building as an ideal home for the collection.

WORDS: MARIANNE TREMAINE • IMAGERY: MEGAN GRAHAM

REVVED UP Now home to an impressive collection of vintage motorcycles, a restored Invercargill building is adding to the appeal of the city’s main drag

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BUILDINGS AT WORK

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With only five months until the collection was due to land, the project to turn the building into a home for the motorcycles was on a tight schedule.

The new concept fitted in well with Joc’s position as a director of HW Richardson Group, a flourishing transport business she had managed after the death of her father Bill Richardson. Bill’s involvement with transport had led to the development of Transport World, a museum devoted to the history of transport featuring big trucks and other exhibits.

Both Joc and Scott are eager to see Invercargill gain recognition as New Zealand’s centre for transport history. Both are committed to supporting Southland’s development as a region and Joc served as chair of the Vibrant Urban Centres team as part of the regional development strategy. They could see the potential for a motorcycle museum in Burt Munro’s city, but recognised the challenge of making it happen in such a short time.

Fortunately, a museum qualifies as ‘retail exhibition’ space and is in the same category as ‘retail’ for planning purposes. That meant the museum was not a ‘change of use’ from the drapery and would not, therefore, require extensive modifications other

22 Winter 2018

Without buildings like this one in the city, generations to come won’t see this type of architecture again and appreciate the city’s history

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than those needed to meet basic health and safety requirements to get council approval.

Joc says they were lucky with the great team of builders and their painter, who was so committed to the work that he wouldn’t take a holiday. All the tradespeople were proud to help the museum come into being, she says, and determined to meet the targets needed to make it happen.

Sue Hill, the property manager for HWR Property, says at first the primary concern of the project was speed and the plan was just to “slap up gib board and make it tidy”. But once some of the beautiful tongueand-groove panelling and brickwork were uncovered, the decision was quickly made to restore it.

Despite the challenging deadline and the likelihood of unpleasant surprises, so often part of dealing with an old building, the management team agreed. Most of the building was in reasonable shape, but a lack of structural strength was an issue.

Luckily, when an engineer inspected the building, he mentioned a new product that works like a giant screw, tying brick walls together so that if one wall is without structural support, it is safely tied to the other. Strengthening under the floor was necessary

Heritage New Zealand

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too, because of the weight of the motorcycles. The heavier bikes, especially those with sidecars, were placed on the ground floor and the lighter ones on the second floor, which could not bear a heavy load.

A café was built at the entrance to the museum in the building next door. Stage one of the restoration was finished by November 2015, in time for the opening and the arrival of the motorcycle collection.

Stage two, which includes earthquake strengthening, has yet to be completed. Plans for earthquake strengthening are being readied for council approval and Heritage New Zealand is being consulted on what to do with the unstable façades, which need to be tied to the rest of the building without compromising the building’s heritage values. Lighting experts are designing a scheme that will recreate the look of the exterior of the original building.

Jonathan Howard, Heritage New Zealand’s Otago/Southland Area Manager, believes the building and the motorcycle collection work well together, inspiring visitors with both the building and the bikes.

The project, he says, is a great example of adaptive reuse of a heritage space, and the motorcycle museum

Heritage New Zealand

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1

The museum’s line-up of five Brough Superiors – seen as the Rolls-Royce of motorcycles.

2 The Meccaspresso

café’s interior shows the enthusiasm of the building’s owners for recycling material in the renovation – shown here in the floorboards and the panels decorating the counter.

3 The old lift has been

preserved and is now in use in the museum.

4 The blue bike on the stand

in the Meccaspresso café is a 1937 OK Supreme classic racer.

5 Joc O’Donnell (left)

and Sue Hill amidst the motorcycles on display.

6 The sweeping staircase

was able to be retained in its original form.

is an outstanding amenity for Invercargill that draws people into Tay Street and enlivens the city centre.

People in Invercargill have appreciated the restoration and it is good to have an example like this to inspire others, says Sue, although the cost of the project has been high. Nevertheless, the whole management team recognises that once a commitment is made, there’s no turning back. As Sue says, it’s about giving back to the community and using the opportunity to do the right thing; without buildings like this one in the city, generations to come won’t see this type of architecture again and appreciate the city’s history.

Ultimately, both Joc and Sue say they like the way the atmosphere of the building is in keeping with the ambience of the bikes; each, they say, enhances the other. And not only have the owners either preserved or reused much of the original material in the building, but they’re also conscious of keeping the interior fittings in line with the building’s 1881 birthdate.

As Joc says, owning a heritage building is a completely different proposition from owning a modern office block. With a heritage building there’s a bigger responsibility, a responsibility of care.

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BUILDINGS AT WORK

WORDS: JAMIE DOUGLAS

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At first glance the stone bridge that crosses a small creek between Kohukohu School and the local bowling club green in the tiny settlement overlooking Hokianga Harbour is nondescript; passersby would be forgiven for thinking it’s a culvert. The simple arched stone footbridge, however, is thought to be the oldest surviving bridge in New Zealand. Dating from between 1843 and 1851, this Category 1 structure provided steady, dry footing across the creek and along the thenshoreline for years before it was progressively landlocked into obscurity due to reclamation.

For the small Northland community, the bridge has considerable social, historical and architectural significance. And they’re not alone. According to the Department of Conservation, (DOC) New Zealand has more bridges per capita than any other

24 Winter 2018

CROSSING

OVER With New Zealand having more bridges per capita than anywhere else in the world, it’s little wonder these structures hold a special place in the hearts of many Kiwis

country in the world, meaning many of us have one or two personal favourites and our own associated stories to tell.

“Bridges in New Zealand and all around the world are appreciated for more than their practicality and engineering prowess,” says Heritage New Zealand Heritage Assessment Advisor Karen Astwood.

Karen presented a paper focusing on bridges listed on the New Zealand Heritage List Rārangi Kōrero at the ‘BRIDGE: The Heritage of Connecting Places and Cultures’ conference in the UK in July last year.

Heritage New Zealand

1

Matapuna Bridge, just south of Taumarunui.

IMAGE: PETER ORR

2 The Bridge to Nowhere in

Whanganui National Park is actually a fine place to go.

IMAGE: ROB SUISTED

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Heritage New Zealand

“They are symbols of safety and progress, platforms for political and social messages and ways to connect with and compete on the world stage, and can be significant landscape features in their own right,” she says.

“And some just strike a personal chord for their beauty or a particular connection they have with a person. A personal favourite is the impressive Matapuna Bridge, a Category 1 historic place just south of Taumarunui, which was one of the first bridges I researched for Heritage New Zealand.

“For over 50 years it was both a North Island Main Trunk railway and a highway bridge, so there are many great stories of cars, cyclists and pedestrians, including my grandmother, jostling for position with steam trains. Being on time for school or work depended on getting onto the bridge before the gatekeeper closed it off to road traffic. And it could be a long, frustrating wait if the train was late!”

The political and social connections with bridges are many and varied.

“In Central Otago for example, the Category 1 Daniel O’Connell Bridge conveyed its own commemorative and political message,” says Karen.

“Settlers in the area were predominantly Irish Catholics who wanted to make a pointed remark about their identity by naming the bridge after a politician and Irish nationalist leader who had died 33 years earlier.”

Bridges also feature strongly in music, albeit to extremes.

George Tait’s 1981 The Bridge,

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sung by Deane Waretini, was the first song in te reo to top the charts in New Zealand. The bridge George Tait wrote about is a metaphorical one, connecting Māori and Pākehā cultures at the time of the building of Māngere Bridge. This contrasts with infamous punk group Proud Scum singing around the same time about Category 1 Grafton Bridge as a place a former band member might like to visit for career-limiting purposes.

Stories such as these give greater meaning to bridges beyond their most basic function.

As Karen says in her paper, the connections people have to a place is a significant factor that Heritage New Zealand uses in determining a bridge’s recognition.

“This was illustrated with the Springvale Suspension Bridge, east of Taihape, in the early 1970s.

There was plenty of public debate around the bridge’s future at the

26 Winter 2018

time, when it was closed in favour of a new bridge nearby,” she says.

“The suspension bridge itself is a relatively humble, singlelane bridge with concrete towers, dating from the 1920s, but it was held in high regard by locals – notably Tony Batley, who pursued saving the bridge on behalf of the local farming community. Combined with [the work of ] Ministry of Works architect Geoffrey Thornton, who was a member of Heritage New Zealand [then known as the New Zealand Historic Places Trust], the bridge was not only saved, but acquired by the organisation and eventually recognised with a Category 2 listing. It was the first bridge added to Heritage New Zealand’s property portfolio.”

For Karen, the bridge’s acquisition in 1973 was important because it set a template with which to look beyond engineering features in bridge assessment.

More than 100 are now listed with Heritage New Zealand, not to mention the many more included in historic areas. The Springvale Suspension Bridge was under Heritage New Zealand ownership until 2017, when both it and the Category 1 Clifden Suspension Bridge in Southland were transferred to DOC ownership.

“The beauty of identifying bridges for a range of historical, social, architectural and engineering reasons is that it allows us to recognise the importance of the Kohukohu Bridge as well as the likes of the impressive late-1980s’ Hapuawhenua Viaduct, a towering, curved concrete bridge and a significant landscape and engineering feature of the North Island Main Trunk Historic Area,” says Karen.

There are community battles today over the value and importance of bridges to

local communities. One recent example was the debate over the retention or demolition of the former Kopu Bridge that straddles the Waihou River leading to the Firth of Thames.

The Category 1 bridge, built in 1928, is the last operational swing bridge; it closed in 2011 when a new, wider bridge was built next to it to accommodate heavy traffic flows at peak times. The flow on the old bridge has remained only courtesy of the water beneath it.

In March the NZ Transport Agency agreed to hand over the bridge’s financial responsibility to the Kopu Bridge and Community Trust. Debate had raged in preceding years, with one detractor labelling it a “decaying, decrepit eyesore” and a supporter labelling it as “very important”.

The community group now has a say on the bridge’s future, with a heritage conservation plan its first priority ahead of reopening

Heritage New Zealand

it to the public in 12 to 18 months following repair work.

With a bit of vision, and a leap of faith at times, there is life in old bridges. That faith has made the Kawarau Suspension Bridge in Central Otago a popular spot to leap from with a bungy cord tied around your ankles. The bridge was included as one of 12 sites of significance in the Landmarks Whenua Tohunga programme for Otago late last year.

Another bridge that enjoys a remarkable life beyond its original intent is the Mangapurua Bridge – better known as the Bridge to Nowhere – in Whanganui National Park. It was built to provide access to a government World War I soldier resettlement scheme, which failed

within a decade of the bridge’s construction. Today it is popular with walkers and trampers, proving that it is a bridge offering somewhere to go after all.

“The Bridge to Nowhere serves as a reminder that a significant investment in facilities and infrastructure, like bridges, does not automatically guarantee progress,” says Karen.

“By looking at the range of the New Zealand Heritage List bridges, I found that, while engineering achievement is given its due, the significance of our historic bridges is generally based on people’s interactions with them and the associated aesthetic, historical and social values.

“They are structures people either love or have used as part of their life journeys.”

4

“They are symbols of safety and progress, platforms for political and social messages and ways to connect with and compete on the world stage, and can be significant landscape features in their own right”

3 The Daniel O’Connell

Bridge in Central Otago, named after a 19th-century Irish nationalist politician.

IMAGE: ROB SUISTED 4 This simple stone bridge

at Kohukohu in Northland is now landlocked.

IMAGE: MORIORI VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 5 Springvale Suspension

Bridge, east of Taihape, was saved from demolition by locals.

IMAGE: MARTIN SLIVA

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Heritage New Zealand

Winter 2018 27

EXPLORE BEST SHOTS THE LIST

Fallen for

WO R DS AND IMAG E : ALAN DOVE

Nestled in the foothills of the Hawkdun Range, a stone’s throw from St Bathans, there’s a small lake called Falls Dam. The lake was created during the 1930s when a dam was built as part of the Manuherikia irrigation scheme.

It was while exploring Falls Dam for the first time that I spotted a cluster of cribs at the northern end of the lake

– set a little from the shore, but close to where the upper Manuherikia feeds into the lake (and where it’s best to fish for brown trout).

I’ve always admired the number-eight-wire mentality of earlier generations of Kiwis, and the cribs of Falls Dam are lovingly built in a fashion that I feel exemplifies this.

Constructed using repurposed

28 Winter Summer2018 2014

corrugated iron, windows and doors, and often with an apparently random layout, it’s hard not to be impressed with the character of each crib. I can only imagine the amazing holiday memories they must hold.

And even on a miserable grey day with low cloud – as it was when I took this image – they are still so photogenic.

TECHNICAL DATA: Camera: Nikon D3 Lens: 24-70mm F2.8 Exposure: 1/180th sec at f8

Heritage New Zealand

Heritage New Zealand

Summer Winter 2018 2014 29

BUILDINGS MĀORI HERITAGE ATWORK WORK BUILDINGS AT

HIGH f idelity WORDS: MATT PHILP • IMAGERY: DANIEL ALLEN

1

Winter 2018 30 30 Winter 2018

Heritage HeritageNew NewZealand Zealand

2

After an exacting restoration, a Nelson music institution reopens its doors Bob Bickerton walks to centre stage and pauses.

All around us is construction activity, an aural assault of hammers and saws. A lull, and Bob, who in addition to being a former director of the Nelson School of Music (NSOM) is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, sings into the silence, one note high, one low.

And there it is, that famously resonant acoustic, which experts say makes the Nelson school’s early Edwardian auditorium the best venue in the Southern Hemisphere to play and hear chamber music. At the end of a Herculean, two-year effort to strengthen, restore and improve the school, it’s that ephemeral thing, the preservation of a particular fidelity of sound, that confirms the project as a success.

An unnerving earthquake risk assessment caused the school’s trust board to shutter the doors in 2013.

Exacerbated by board ructions and disaffection about strategy, it was a difficult time for the locally loved and nationally significant institution – “the biggest crisis in 120 years”, according to a letter circulated by some of the then board members.

The crisis turned out to be a godsend – albeit with a

Heritage New Zealand

hefty price tag. In April the renamed Nelson Centre of Musical Arts reopened, earthquake ready and with vastly improved backstage facilities, a state-of-the-art recital building, new roofs, a refurbished organ, 21st-century heating, cooling and seating, an upgraded foyer and a host of other enhancements.

What’s more, the heritage values of the Category 1 auditorium have been not only preserved but enhanced.

Original features stripped from the building as part of strengthening works after the Inangahua earthquake of 1968 have been reinstated. Coming on the heels of the redevelopment of the 1899 Suter Art Gallery and the 1878 Theatre Royal, it gives Nelson a trinity of future-proofed heritage buildings within a stone’s throw of the CBD. “I think there’s been a huge heritage gain here,” says architect Ian Bowman, who wrote the conservation plan for the school and was heavily involved in the restoration aspects.

A bit of history. The school’s origins trace back to a German musician, Michael Balling, a friend of Brahms and Wagner, who in 1893 was invited over by the Nelson Harmonic Society as a guest conductor.

1

The 1913 Cawthron organ has been fully restored.

2 The 1901 auditorium is

reputed to have the best acoustics for chamber music in the Southern Hemisphere.

Winter 2018 31

BUILDINGS AT WORK

1

“This has recaptured the essence of the place when it was first opened, a really impressive Edwardian building that said, ‘This is a very significant institution, and this is what a significant institution should look like’” While on a hiking break near Mt Cook, Balling’s party became snowed in, and he used the chance to lobby his Nelson businessmen companions successfully on the need for a German-style music conservatory for the city.

In 1901 that school finally got a proper home, an Edwardian classical brick building designed by Frederick de Jersey Clere, with a Marseilles tile roof and decorative pediments, and a handful of studios.

The crowning glory was the 450-seat auditorium, whose barrel-vaulted ceiling delivered such impressive acoustics that the venue was soon attracting leading national and international classical performers.

Over subsequent decades, the balance of performance and teaching has shifted (until the 1950s, the school delivered the music curriculum for Nelson’s secondary schools).

32 Winter 2018

In its 21st-century iteration, it is a regional music hub, providing studio space for private teaching, serving as a venue (most notably for the Adam Chamber Music Festival), and running community choral and orchestral programmes, while maintaining a national, even international, reputation.

“It has always been unique in New Zealand Aotearoa,” says Bob. Hence the expense and effort to save it, beginning in 2014 when the Nelson City Council committed $3 million to the project, subsequently boosted by grants from the New Zealand Lotteries Commission, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, the Rata Foundation, an endowment trust, private philanthropy and public fundraising, for a total budget in excess of $9.5 million.

1

The auditorium (left) and later Kidson Building (right). While the centre’s name has changed, the building is distinguished in that it is being used for the same purpose now as it has had its entire life.

2 Inside the new foyer.

3 Nelson Centre of Musical

Arts Director James Donaldson (left) and former NSOM director Bob Bickerton inspect the new recital building during the finishing stages.

4 The foyer, as viewed from

the entrance.

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3

4

Heritage New Zealand

STRIKING THE RIGHT NOTE Strewn across a trestle table on the Nelson Centre of Musical Arts stage are sandwich bags full of ancient screws – modest but useful ‘heritage’ elements in the reinstatement of the 1913 Cawthron organ following a painstaking restoration by the South Island Organ Company.

As part of that exercise, the sound board has been totally stripped down and the reservoirs releathered, magnets replaced, and new valves put in, all with the objective of returning the instrument to something close to its original state.

In the 1960s a former director had the idea of putting the organ console in the auditorium’s central stalls. Those alterations have been reversed and a new console built based on photographs of the original.

Fortuitously, the Timaru-based restoration company had not only kept the original specifications but also held on to the pipework removed in the ’60s.

They haven’t completely turned back the clock, however. “We’re leaving the modern electronic action, which makes it more versatile for so many more people,” says restoration specialist Mike Young.

So how will it sound? “We’re going back to what the original instrument sounded like – a typically late Victorian [sound], slightly mellow.”

Trust Chair Roger Taylor, who took on the role in 2014, says that it became obvious early in the planning process that there was a lot more wrong with the 1901 building than a simple vulnerability to seismicity, and that a significant intervention was required. “We weren’t going to just patch it up; we were going to do it properly.”

Nelson-based Irving Smith Architects handled the project, in collaboration with Ian Bowman. Principal Andrew Irving highlights the complete overhaul of some “pretty Medieval” backstage arrangements, including neck-breakingly steep stairs immediately off stage, poky studios and corridors, and an absence of green rooms.

“We had a great day where we asked, ‘Well, what if half the NZSO turned up to perform? How do they warm up and get on stage?’ It became apparent really quickly that there was nothing we could do with the existing facilities that would allow that.”

There were four structures on site: the 1901 auditorium; Rainey House, a villa acquired in the 1960s to provide extra studio space; a 1971 addition known as the Kidson Building that housed administration and studios; and a foyer added in 1984 to link the Kidson Building and the auditorium.

Rainey House was trucked away and has been replaced by a striking new recital hall building that includes studios, teaching space and green rooms.

Critically, it connects to the auditorium at stage level, meaning that all back-of-house facilities are

Winter 2018 33

BUILDINGS AT WORK

1

2

“We decided that all the add-ons that had accrued since the 1970s should be stripped away and the focus put on the auditorium” now arranged on the same plane, easing access for performers and for the school’s precious Steinway, now housed in a state-of-the-art, environmentally controlled storage room.

The 1984 foyer had obscured the auditorium’s western elevation and blurred the distinction between the 1970 building and its Edwardian neighbour.

That’s now gone, and in its place the architects have designed a heavily glazed entry that exposes an expanse of 1901 brick wall.

“We decided that all the add-ons that had accrued since the 1970s should be stripped away and the focus put on the auditorium,” says architect Andrew, who describes the process of entry now as like an “exhibition”, with the auditorium’s brick façade exposed behind glass.

“As you approach the building now, you can also see both front corners and get a sense of how big it is.

That had been lost.”

There’s been no attempt to disguise the foyer as anything but a contemporary addition. Likewise with the zig-zagging ‘squeezebox’ form of the new recital

34 Winter 2018

hall. That said, the hall’s black brickwork clearly references the auditorium, without aping it.

What of the auditorium itself? Quake-proofing the building proved tougher and more expensive than anticipated, mostly because of deficiencies discovered in the underground steel beams that had been added as part of the 1970 strengthening works. Once they’d been replaced, a diaphragm was laid over the top of the building to connect everything and hold it square, pulled groundward by visually subtle but powerful steel tension rods.

“The act of pulling the existing bricks together makes them stronger,” explains Andrew, who says the same method was used for the brick wool stores on Wellington’s waterfront. In this case, it takes the auditorium up to 85 percent of the New Zealand Building Code.

Inside, the heritage fabric had been “pretty well butchered” over the years, according to Ian. Vertical wall panelling added in 1970 has been removed, and mouldings restored. Busts of Haydn and Beethoven, discovered in a shed behind Rainey House, have

Heritage New Zealand

4

6

OPENING UP

3

been replicated and reinstated on their plaster wall mounts above the audience.

At the same time, the functionality of the building – now optimised for an audience of 300 – has been vastly improved with the addition of tiered seating at the rear and thick acoustic glazing, plus a sound system and air conditioning (previously, doors had to be left open during performances on hot summer days).

Many of these changes are imperceptible. Not so on the exterior, where the building has essentially been gifted back its identity. Using historical photographs, all the brick and plaster decorative features removed in 1970, including parapets, finials and cornices, have been recreated in lightweight, fibre-reinforced concrete and put back.

Ian remarks that younger Nelsonians won’t have seen any of these features before. In his own case, he took violin lessons at the school as a child and remembers them well. “This has recaptured the essence of the place when it was first opened, a really impressive Edwardian building that said, ‘This is a very significant institution, and this is what a significant institution should look like’.”

An opening celebration for the Nelson Centre of Musical Arts will take place over the weekend 9-10 June.

Heritage New Zealand

5

1

New meets old: the black brick of the recital hall echoes the exterior of the auditorium.

2 3 The foyer entrance.

At back left and up close is the 1901 brick wall exposed by the changes.

4 Rediscovered original

busts of Beethoven and Haydn have been replicated and reinstated in the auditorium.

5 Bob Bickerton.

6 Ticket stubs for

performances at the auditorium dating back to 1904.

James Donaldson empties an envelope of historic ticket stubs onto his desk, in what for now serves as the administrative office of the former Nelson School of Music. The newly appointed director of the 123-year-old school has arrived at a pivotal moment, just as the school is set to reopen.

His mind is on the future, but the past keeps calling: these tickets, discovered when the Cawthron organ was removed from the auditorium prior to restoration, date back to 1904.

James, previously head of Auckland Grammar School’s music department, has his own history with the school: as a student he attended an early Adam Chamber Music Summer School.

“It really impresses me how Nelson has got behind a project that has not only restored such an important building but extended it in such a sensitive way,” he says of the redevelopment. “It’s going to be a much more functional space, for both concerts and education.”

The question is, what to do with it? “We have a wonderful opportunity. The school’s been running with reduced forces for the last four years, and we could make this as big or small as we want.

How do we make use of it? How do we make it available to our community, and also to the rest of New Zealand?”

He has been in discussions with Victoria University and other tertiary music institutions about collaborating. He also sees scope to host more music festivals and has been talking to the likes of national classical guitar and viola organisations.

“When we open those doors,” he says, “we need it to be busy.”

Winter 2018 35

MĀORI HERITAGE

Mapping the East Coast site of a defining battle in New Zealand history is helping to unlock stories of the past for generations to come

WORDS: JACQUI GIBSON • IMAGERY: BRENNAN THOMAS

36 Winter 2018

Heritage New Zealand

In 1862 Ngāti Porou chief Mokena Kohere was an ordinary man living in extraordinary times.

Life had changed irrevocably since 1840 with the arrival of Pākehā and the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. But it wasn’t all bad. The colonisers had brought technology and new trading opportunities. And the treaty, signed by the chief’s brother, still held the promise of partnership and security of Māori land ownership.

So when Mokena was asked

by Crown agent Governor George Grey to become a

Heritage New Zealand

local lawman (alongside fellow chiefs Iharaira Te Houkamau and Wikiriwhi Matauru), he embraced the role without hesitation.

On the one hand, the invitation showed Crown respect for an existing model of Māori self-governance. On the other, it cemented a political alliance between the East Cape tribe and the Crown against anti-government unrest that was gaining steam in Taranaki.

The best course of action for the people, figured the chief and many of his peers, was to stay true to the treaty, stay out

of the conflict and trust in God. It turned out that the chief’s resolve would be tested on each count within just three years, as one of New Zealand’s most dramatic chapters in history took place on the East Cape.

In early 1865, as the New Zealand Wars were peaking, a battle would take place that would pit Crown against Māori, Māori against Māori, and family member against family member.

It would start in Ōpōtiki with the murder of missionary Carl Volkner by followers of the politically driven

faith known as Pai Mārire or Hauhau, of whom some were Ngāti Porou. It would end with a Hauhau surrender inland from Te Araroa in the Karakatūwhero Valley at a fortified stronghold called Hungahungatoroa Pā.

The bush pā was the last line of defence for the Hauhau, who, upon surrendering to combined government and Ngāti Porou forces, were made to either swear allegiance to Queen Victoria and return home or face punishment, such as imprisonment on the Chatham Islands.

Winter 2018 37

MĀORI HERITAGE

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ABOUT NGĀTI POROU It was a peacekeeping deal brokered by Mokena in a bid to appease government soldiers and save the lives of Ngāti Porou Hauhau fighters at the same time.

Ngāti Porou tumuaki (principal) Campbell Dewes, whose kura (school) is based in Hicks Bay, a few kilometres east of the pā, says the historical events of that period live on today.

“That battle, that pā – both are hugely important to Ngāti Porou and to the children and young people of our school. Some are direct descendants of the men and women who fought in that last stand at Hungahungatoroa Pā.

“In fact, some of our kids are related to people on both sides of the conflict – the 500 or so Ngāti Porou warriors fighting for the Hauhau and Māori independence, as well as Ngāti Porou [people like Mokena] who represented the iwi’s allegiance to the Crown.”

Campbell says it’s the history of the pā and its relevance to his school, Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Kawakawa mai Tawhiti, that made him jump at the opportunity to visit the site in February last year.

Te Runanganui o Ngati Porou Cultural and Ecological Advisor Hal Hovell invited two schools to the pā site – Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o

38 Winter 2018

n n

One of the largest iwi in New Zealand with 72,000 members comprising 58 hapū and 48 marae.

The marae are located around the East Cape from Potikirua in the north to Te Toka-a-Taiau in the south, covering an area of about 400,000 hectares.

2

Heritage New Zealand

“Now it’s time to come together and share what we know – to gain a deeper understanding of what went on, so these stories aren’t lost” 3

1

Karakatuwhero Valley, Te Araroa, East Coast.

2 On site at the pā.

3 4 Rangatahi en route

to the pā.

5 Students learning the

history of the pā.

6 A number of site

visits and wānanga have been carried out to record the site’s oral history and scientific data.

4

HUNGAHUNGATOROA PĀ: A SAFE HAVEN? “The history of Hungahungatoroa Pā goes back centuries, and much further back than the 1860s, when it became the site of the Hauhau’s last stand in the New Zealand Wars. In fact, the first people to use it were Ngāti Rakimatapu, the original people to inhabit this area. To them, it was one of three pā they used, but it served a special purpose. It was a place they retreated to in times of trouble – a safe haven.

You can see why. Set deep in the bush, it is surrounded by cliffs. To many, it was thought to be unassailable.” – Hal Hovell, Te Runanganui o Ngati Porou.

5

Heritage New Zealand

Kawakawa mai Tawhiti and Te Waha o Rerekohu Area School – as part of a post-treaty-settlement mapping project.

Hal, who worked for the Department of Conservation (DOC) at the time, explains: “I wanted the schools to visit the site and get involved. I felt it was important for our kids to see it for themselves and know they’re a part of its story.

“I also wanted them to learn the technical skills and tools we’re using to map and protect the site for future generations.”

In 2010 Hal had begun mapping the layout, size and features of Hungahungatoroa Pā as part of a larger exercise to map 36 protected pā sites from East Cape to the Pukeāmaru Range.

The project followed a treaty settlement with the Crown that same year, which returned the Pukeāmaru Scenic Reserve and all 36 pā sites to Ngāti Porou under a strategic partnership with DOC. To map Hungahungatoroa Pā, Hal organised a bush-clearing crew to rid the site of overgrowth, expose its features and make it more accessible.

Hal estimates that approximately 75 percent of the site is now clear. He also organised a number of site visits and wānanga to record the site’s oral history and scientific data.

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Winter 2018 39

MĀORI HERITAGE

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ABOUT THE HAUHAU MOVEMENT In February 2017 Hal invited more than 20 students and several government agency experts to visit the site over four days. Heritage New Zealand Director Regional Services Pam Bain was there.

“It was an incredible experience,” she says. “We started with karakia and waiata and finished with a lot of sharing of valuable information and skills.”

Pam showed visitors around the site, pointing out artefacts still sitting on the surface, including rusted metal gun barrels and cooking pots dating back to the 1860s, and physical features such as defence and kumara pits.

Meanwhile James Robinson, Heritage New Zealand’s Northland Archaeologist, demonstrated the manual surveying process and the tools he uses to survey sites like the pā.

Heritage New Zealand is currently compiling findings from the visit and will formally present a completed survey map to iwi later this year.

During the site visit, students also learned how to use software to create a 3D map of the site, from Land Information New Zealand’s Duane Wilkinson.

“It was a fully integrated learning experience,” says Campbell. “It was a science and technology class, a history and social studies class, as well as a cultural class. And it was so much richer than anything else you might teach in NCEA history. It was relevant to rangatahi because it’s their story.

“One of the big themes we discussed was that there are two sides to this story and our people were

40 Winter 2018

n n n n

Flourished in the North Island from about 1863 to 1874, comprising members from different tribes.

Followers of a religion founded in 1862 based on the principle of pai mārire – goodness and peace. Also called ‘Pai Mārire’.

Eventually known for the rise and spread of violence in response to European sovereignty and land confiscation.

Faced a Crown campaign of suppression in 1865 launched by Governor George Grey.

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Heritage New Zealand

3 1

Some of the faces of the Hungahungatoroa Pā mapping project, which included students from Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Kawakawa mai Tawhiti and Te Waha o Rerekohu Area School (from left to right): Danielle Ruha, Raiha Taylor-Luke, Romeo Schumann, Tiera BrownBiddle, Campbell Dewes, Te Koha Turner Houkamau, Trudi Ngawhare, Te Aho Haenga, Kiwa Gibson-Haig, Maximus Torrey and Keeti Ngatai Melbourne.

2 Students are creating a 3D

4

map of the site.

3 The mapping exercise

includes marking the site’s boundaries and the artefacts found on site.

4 An old rifle barrel

is evidence that the pā was the site of gunfighting in 1865.

5 The project is part of the

local school curriculum.

6 The pā was considered

impregnable because of its location and design.

involved in both. Each side had their reasons, but there was a split in our people and that’s the true pain of war and conflict. That’s why so many of our old people encouraged intermarriage between the sides after the battle had ended. Like cultures all over the world, they wanted to mend the wounds of conflict through relationship repair.”

Both Hal and Campbell agree that by building on the local knowledge and information gathered as part of the treaty settlement, the mapping activity was ultimately an exercise in uncovering the stories of the pā so that it might be treasured and looked after for generations to come.

Hal says: “I grew up coming to this site and hearing some of the stories from my father. I remember seeing some of the Hauhau muskets among the leaf litter. But for a long time these bits of information were all I knew because very little was told of Hungahungatoroa and the civil war. There was such deep family hurt.

“It’s different now. Now it’s time to come together and share what we know – to gain a deeper understanding of what went on, so these stories aren’t lost. For iwi, we need ongoing co-operation and willingness from agencies like Heritage New Zealand and DOC, our treaty partner in this work.

There’s a hell of a history in this place. To us, it’s wāhi tapu. We don’t want to lose it. It’s an important part of us.”

A WAIATA AROHA FROM THE PAST: E MURI AHIAHI “Last year’s February visit to Hungahungatoroa Pā by students and agencies was special,” says Hal Hovell, the main organiser. “It gave us all an opportunity to share our knowledge and tell our stories. One of the highlights, for me, was the waiata the students sang. It was a waiata from the 1860s – a waiata aroha or love song written by Te Paea, of Rangitukia. She wrote it in defeat, as a member of the Hauhau, for her Taranaki lover forced to return home after the last stand at Hungahungatoroa Pā. Hearing it was like taking a step back in time.”

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Winter 2018 41

DOMESTIC TRAVEL

THE STYLE FILES

WORDS: CLAIRE MCCALL • IMAGERY: MARCEL TROMP

A walking tour takes in central Auckland’s fashionable past

The owner of the Man Yuan Restaurant on central Auckland’s Victoria Street West, where faded photographs of hand-rolled soup noodles and dumplings draw in only the most enlightened locals, doesn’t know whether to look bemused or confused as a small group of women, bright Blunt umbrellas set against the rain, peer intently at the shopfront from the kerbside.

Where now the ambience is unremarkable and the tiled floors and pink walls utilitarian, there was once a fashion store that caused much ado with its on-trend clothing and novel approach to retailing. Hullabaloo had a very dark, calm interior, spot-lit with Tiffany lamps and decorated with black French wallpaper festooned with birds and magnolias.

It was the ‘Swinging Sixties’ and owner Isabel Harris had emulated a moody style that had blown her away in Sydney. Hullabaloo was a raging success.

“It was so cool, it was ultra. I ate Marmite on toast for months to save up for one of their dresses,” remembers Helen Cunliffe Garner, one of the hardy souls who braved the weather to participate in a walk around Auckland’s inner city, stopping at properties that played a key role in our fashionable past.

‘Walk the Walk: A history of fashion in the city’ guided tours are hosted by fashion historian Doris de Pont ONZM, former designer and founder of the New Zealand Fashion Museum. She has put together a collection of 33 stops on an hour-long walking route that travels through the once-bustling couturier and manufacturing area centring on Queen and Elliott Streets as well as the High Street district – and from a post-war era right up to the 1980s.

42 Winter 2018

Heritage New Zealand

“I see clothing as a lens that can teach us more about how our world was and is organised” — Doris de Pont

Heritage New Zealand

Winter2018 201843 43 Winter

DOMESTIC TRAVEL

1

“I see clothing as a lens that can teach us more about how our world was and is organised,” she says.

“Looking through it helps us understand society, technology, culture and identity.”

Today, as the tour arrives outside the District Court to stand across from the El Jay building – a family business that held the licence to manufacture Dior couture in New Zealand – Doris spots a smart black Stetson abandoned on the pavement. She can’t help but pick it up. A quick glance at the label confirms it as the genuine article. “Who wouldn’t notice that you’d lost a hat like that?” she asks despondently as she places it back on the footpath.

For many, the former El Jay premises in Kingston Street is the highlight of the walk. Set up in 1938 by Louis Jacob Fisher (hence the name El Jay) and then run by his brother Gus, it was the jewel of elegant, high-quality fashion for 50 years.

The somewhat dilapidated building was closed up in the ’80s but remains in Fisher family ownership.

Beyond the flaking soft-grey paintwork of the window joinery, if you stand on tiptoes you can see into the salon where there are still gilded mirrors, crystalline door handles, boxes of time-worn fabrics, and a large

44 Winter 2018

white porcelain dog that awaits the showing of the latest Parisian collection.

Doris brings each one of these locations alive with well-researched history (she has a degree in anthropology) and anecdotes that make the experience personal. The tour is a natural extension of the Fashion Museum, a charitable trust that she set up to tell just such stories.

“As it turns out, it became something of a feminist project because they are often women’s stories,” she says. The museum, a pop-up, has no permanent location and the trust owns no garments, which is why they are drawn from personal collections and how Doris has such a repertoire of tales to tell.

Through the walks, which have been operating since March 2017, she hopes to create more awareness of the city’s forgotten history and open up a perspective that takes in the alleyways and buildings where once the fashionable flocked and workers machined and hand-stitched garments that lasted longer than just one season.

“I hate fast fashion because it deprives people of the opportunity to have long-standing relationships with their clothes,” she declares.

1

Fashion historian Doris de Pont leads a group to the humble Asian eatery in Victoria Street West that in 1970 was Hullabaloo, a store at the epicentre of a fashionforward generation.

2 The walking tour moves on

up the stairs of the former home of T&G Insurance on the corner of Elliott and Wellesley Streets.

3 The tour continues into the

grand hall, home to the original Liz Mitchell salon.

Heritage New Zealand

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FASHION ON THE MOVE

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‘Walk the Walk: A history of fashion in the city’ was part of the New Zealand Festival 2017 and is now back by popular demand as a free monthly event hosted by Doris de Pont. For information on dates and times, visit www.nzfashionmuseum. org.nz/walk-the-walk.

A booklet that lists the 33 locations on the walk and discusses their history is available for $15 – proceeds go to support the museum. A free self-guided app is also available for download on iTunes or Google Play or by visiting https://57.myt.li.

In the 1800s immigrants to New Zealand unpicked their best dresses to pack, then sewed them together again on arrival. Lace was taken off worn-out garments and repurposed.

Even up until the 1930s and ’40s, when fabrics were still expensive, people would unpick garments to reuse the material.

In the 1950s clothes were superbly structured with detailed seaming and handmade buttons. It was only in the 1960s, with the introduction of cheaper synthetic fabrics and the rise of ‘young’ fashion, that clothing became a consumable commodity.

Doris says: “With full employment, women were starting to work more and they had more money to spend.”

She maintains that although sustainable fashion is back on the radar, it’s unlikely our sartorial exploits will swing full circle. All we have to remind us of such a creative and productive past are the few buildings that remain.

“I want to encourage people to look up when they wander through the city,” says Doris. That way the façades and washed-out signage of a modish and industrious history will not disappear from memory.

Heritage New Zealand

Winter 2018 45

DOMESTIC TRAVEL

1.

3.

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Some highlights of ‘Walk the Walk: A history of fashion in the city’ include:

1.

El Jay: 6-12 Kingston Street

The building was purpose fitted out in the 1960s for the company, which still holds the licence to produce Christian Dior originals.

(Look out for the cartouches on the exterior and the remaining ‘a’ of the name on the façades.) “El Jay used exactly the same materials and patterns as Christian Dior and even the same instructions, which were written in French,” says Doris.

46 Winter 2018

2.

Hullabaloo: 39 Victoria Street West

Established by Thornton Hall designer Isabel Harris in the late ’60s, the shop décor was based on the House of Merivale (Sydney) store, which revolutionised the Australian fashion industry. It sold a range of cuttingedge clothing, along with accessories such as bags, belts, hats and jewellery to complete the look. The concept was so successful that it opened a shop at 222 Queen Street in 1973.

3.

Smith & Caughey’s: 253-261 Queen Street

On the top floor of this property, which is now an icon of Auckland’s main street, is a destination that once operated as a business women’s club. Doris says: “The Lyceum Club was a place where business women could have meetings. There was a reading room as well as a telephone cubicle for important phone calls.” Smith & Caughey’s (established in 1880 by drapery entrepreneur Marianne Smith) is New Zealand’s longest-surviving department store. When you are on the ground floor, look up to the ceiling and you’ll notice that it is actually four buildings in one; an extension, designed by American Roy Lippincott in 1927, can be described as early Art Deco.

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5.

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Milne & Choyce: 131-141 Queen Street

Auckland’s first department store (1909) grew out of a millinery and drapery business founded by sisters Mary Jane and Charlotte Milne. Later Mary Jane’s husband, Henry Choyce, joined as a partner. “It was located ‘between the banks’, which was an ideal place to attract the moneyed folk in a burgeoning city,” explains Doris. With choreographed parades (including a morning tea) showing Balenciaga and Dior just three months after the Parisian season, this department store was ‘the’ most fashionable in the city. In the 1950s the introduction of ‘teen’ departments caused quite a stir. Designer Bruce Papas produced an exclusive range for the store and Milne & Choyce garments and hats were often photographed across the road by fashion photographer Clifton Firth (another stop on the walking tour).

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5.

Ninette Gowns: 114 Queen Street

Before Flora MacKenzie became known as the ‘madam’ of Auckland, she trained as a nurse and, in between, spent three decades as a successful fashion designer. Her salon on the top floor of the Vulcan Buildings where she moved in the 1930s featured exotic chinoiserie, drapes with dragons and furniture embossed with mother of pearl. She was the first woman to draw up an official ‘apprenticeship’ agreement (for designer Bruce Papas, who began work there at the age of 15).

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Emma Knuckey Gowns: 18 Darby Street

At the ripe old age of 37, Taranaki farmer’s wife Emma Knuckey established her first salon here in the 1950s with a business partner Betty Clark. She had sent her fashion illustrations to London designer Frederick Starke, who recognised her talent immediately and encouraged her to go for it.

Recognising his wife’s talents, her husband, unusually for the time, left the farm to relocate to the city. “He drove taxis and looked after the children so that she could fulfil her ambition,” explains Doris.

Winter 2018 47

INTERNATIONAL

WORDS: SHARON STEPHENSON

SWEET

WATERS Heritage is the goose that lays the golden egg of tourism income in the English city of Bath, so its careful management is key to visitors enjoying its healing waters for centuries to come

48 Winter 2018

Heritage New Zealand

One of the finest historic sites in Northern Europe is the well-preserved Roman Baths, containing possibly the greatest religious spa of the ancient world.

IMAGE: KAREN ASTWOOD

Heritage New Zealand

It sounds like the beginning of a joke: what do a herd of pigs, a prince and a bad case of leprosy have in common?

Quite a lot, it turns out, if you’re the English city of Bath – and it’s no laughing matter. Roll the clock back to 836BC when Prince Bladud, father of the unfortunate King Lear, contracted leprosy while studying in Athens. Bladud, so the story goes, was subsequently banned from the Court of England and forced to take a job as a swineherd.

He was in good company because the pigs in his care also suffered from a terrible skin disease. But one day, while crossing the River Avon, the pigs wallowed in the hot and mucky water and were cured. So Bladud did the same and was also cured.

Naturally, he went on to be king and, in gratitude, founded the city of Bath on the site of the mineral-rich waters.

It wasn’t until 43AD, when the Romans gatecrashed the party and discovered that water bubbling out of the ground was just the thing to cure their ailments and ease aching muscles, that Bath’s currency as a spa destination really gained traction: cue a programme of draining the surrounding marshland and channelling the waters into a series of baths that the toga-wearers named Aqua Sulis, after the Celtic sun goddess Sulis.

More than 3000 years later, we arrive in England’s most perfectly preserved Georgian city on a spring day when the sun seems to have forgotten to shine. With so much history and architecture crammed into such a compact space, it’s no surprise that Bath is like catnip for visitors. Around five million people a year come to gaze at its sights, and Caroline Kay, Chief Executive of the Bath Preservation Trust, says that balancing the needs of heritage buildings and tourists can be an issue.

“The number of people visiting Bath is a challenge, particularly in terms of transport and street cleanliness,” she says. “Bath’s tourism strategy is to attempt to increase the quality (and duration) of stays while reducing, or at least not seeking to increase, the number of day visitors.”

Winter 2018 49

“The whole city is a World Heritage Site, and therefore the criteria that make the city of Outstanding Universal Value have to be protected” 1 2

50 Winter 2018

It helps that much of Bath’s heritage is protected by law. “Around 60 percent of the city is a Conservation Area, a statutory designation requiring care about how change takes place. The whole city is a World Heritage Site, and therefore the criteria that make the city of Outstanding Universal Value have to be protected.

Around 5000 properties in Bath are also listed, placing obligations on the owners to care for them and seek special permission for making changes.”

The crown in the city’s heritage jewel, the Roman Baths, is run as a profit centre by the Bath & North East Somerset Council, with the profits going into general council expenditure, including looking after aspects of the heritage and historic environment.

“Our heritage has also been well preserved because of the activities of independent charitable organisations such as the Bath Preservation Trust,” says Caroline.

“Since 1934 the trust has been involved in the direct restoration of particular historic assets, as well as campaigning for saving certain aspects of the heritage.

This has prevented the worst excesses of post-war redevelopment from damaging Bath too much.”

New Zealand might be a heritage minnow compared with Bath, but Caroline believes that a local and national planning policy that supports the protection of heritage buildings is also relevant here. “It’s key that there’s strategic management of both the tourism offer and the way in which tourists are managed once they are on site, which isn’t always easy. It helps to have good communication between all parties so that there’s an appreciation of each other’s concerns and needs. In Bath, at least, the heritage is the goose that lays the golden egg of tourism income, so it makes sense to ensure that the one does not damage the other.”

After foolishly tangling with peak-hour traffic on the A4 motorway, we arrive in the only entire English city to receive UNESCO World Heritage Site status, desperate for a soak in Bath’s healing waters. Luckily our guide, Maeve Hamilton-Hercod, tells us that the water gurgles out at a rate of 1.3 million litres a day, so it’s been changed a few times since the Romans wallowed in it.

The Thermae Bath Spa is one of three sites in the city in which the famous water rises to the surface.

The jury’s out on which is better: the 45°C water in the rooftop pool or the panoramic views over the city and adjacent abbey, which you can almost reach out and touch.

Ironically there were no public baths in Bath for more than three decades. But in 2006, amid major budget and deadline blowouts, noted British architect Sir Nicholas Grimshaw waved an NZ$80 million restoration wand over the 18th-century building. Since then, an average of 260,000 visitors a year have come to see what all the fuss is about.

To see where this whole bathing business started, however, it’s necessary to head to the Roman Baths.

Here it’s easy to image what life was like for the revolving cast of characters – Romans, Celts and Saxons – who frequented this maze of bath houses. At the heart of the complex is the Great Bath, a large, leadlined pool

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3 1

The Palladian-style Pulteney Bridge, which dates from 1774, flings itself across the River Avon and is exceptional because it features shops on both sides.

IMAGE: ISTOCKPHOTO.COM 2 Bath Abbey, one of the largest

examples of Perpendicular Gothic architecture in the West Country, as viewed through the Palladian Arch in York Street.

IMAGE: ISTOCKPHOTO.COM 3 A defining feature of Bath, the

Royal Crescent’s 30 terraced houses are some of the finest examples of Georgian architecture to be found in the UK.

IMAGE: ISTOCKPHOTO.COM 4 Architecture lovers are spoiled

in historic Bath, where there are fine examples of buildings chiselled out of Bath stone at every turn.

IMAGE: KAREN ASTWOOD

whose green water doesn’t look particularly inviting; thankfully it’s off limits to modern-day bathers.

We admire the series of ancient steam rooms, gendersegregated baths, and even some of the original Roman plumbing and central heating systems. Particularly fascinating are the displays, which demonstrate how the Romans used the springs not only to cure their leprosy and other ills, but also as a centre for worship, to conduct business and, rather less wholesomely, to sacrifice small animals. One of the best bits is the audio guide, narrated by best-selling author Bill Bryson, which really brings the complex to life.

Bath is a city that appears preserved in time, from the enormous abbey that looms over the city, the last great medieval church built in England, to possibly the most gracious stretch of road in the world, the Royal Crescent.

This iconic half-moon is what most often springs to mind when people think of Bath. The 30 Georgian houses, hewn out of honey-coloured Bath stone, are particularly striking because of their near-perfect symmetry and the distinctive Ionic columns topped by scroll-shaped ornaments.

Designed by architect John Wood and his son to underscore the prestige and wealth of their owners, the elegant townhouses are still privately owned, except for No 1 Royal Crescent, now a museum, which was gifted to the city by shipping magnate Major Bernard Cayzer and sympathetically restored using only 18th-century materials. Among the rooms on display are the drawing room, several bedrooms and a huge basement kitchen that looks much as it would have back in the day.

You can’t come to Bath and not cross the famous bridge that flings itself across the rushing waters of Pulteney Weir. Built in 1773 and now Grade I listed, Pulteney Bridge is one of only four in the world with shops spanning both sides (another is Florence’s

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Ponte Vecchio, which is believed to have inspired Pulteney Bridge).

We’ve just got time to pop up the hill to the Jane Austen Centre, a museum celebrating one of Bath’s most famous residents. Although the author only lived in the city for five years (between 1801 and 1806), she set two of her novels here and this museum houses a small but perfectly curated selection of memorabilia relating to her life in Bath. The adjacent Regency tearoom, which serves crumpets and cream teas, isn’t bad either. Austen, and even Prince Bladud, would no doubt have approved.

4

Winter 2018 51

BOOKS

WORDS: M A RI A N N E T R E MAI NE

Assume nothing Bringing alive the sensations of the past Preconceptions often limit the ideas we have about places and people. Leonard Bell’s Strangers Arrive: Emigrés and the Arts in New Zealand, 1930-1980 (Auckland University Press, $75) exposed my limited awareness of how much change refugees from Nazism, communist countries and wartorn Europe brought with them to New Zealand from the 1930s through to the 1950s. A wave of artists, musicians, architects and photographers brought new ideas and knowledge and reshaped the development of the arts in New Zealand.

Not only did their work show examples of abstraction, symbolism and creative concepts that allowed New Zealanders to see with different eyes, it also encouraged our artistic community to be more adventurous. Reading this book shows how much all our

52 Winter 2018

lives have been expanded by the knowledge and attitudes introduced by people like Gerhard Rosenberg, an architect who lectured at the University of Auckland, and Harry Serensin, who established The Settlement, a coffee bar, art gallery and restaurant in Wellington and a venue for book launches, poetry readings and concerts. Photographers among the arrivals enabled a new appreciation of nature and the built environment, but not without obstacles. The Government had introduced the Aliens Emergency Regulations 1940, limiting the movement of ‘aliens’. Although one photographer, Richard Sharell, was exempt from the regulations at first and could travel up to 64 kilometres from his Wellington home without a police permit, this leniency was withdrawn when the Under-

Secretary for Justice pointed out it was an unsuitable time for an enemy alien to travel about with a camera.

This book’s effectiveness comes from Leonard’s ability to communicate complex ideas with impressive clarity in just a few words. He uses photographs to show exactly what makes the work of each artist so distinctive and exciting. With its captivating insights and absorbing overviews of people’s aesthetic work, reading this book is like taking a tour. But this tour shows you not only each artist’s work, but also the way their committed encouragement for each other, the arts and New Zealand artists transformed a conservative, introverted New Zealand into a country with a broader view of culture as an essential part of life.

Fearless: The Extraordinary Untold Story of New Zealand’s Great War Airmen, by Adam Claasen (Massey University Press, $59.99), also shook my complacency about fighter planes in World War I. Firstly, the planes depicted in the book looked disconcertingly like larger versions of the balsa wood models my brothers used to make – scarily insubstantial.

More astonishing still are the feats that these men

The idea of flying captured the imagination of the New Zealand public from its very earliest beginnings, but for the New Zealand airmen it was an obsession: they lived to fly.

accomplished in them. They are terrifying even to read about.

For example, the book opens with a story about a plane hurtling down after a collision in mid-air and the pilot – Caldwell, an Aucklander – standing up with his foot on the rudder, guiding the plane back to the Allied trenches, jumping out at the last moment, rolling on the ground, and emerging with only bruises and a bleeding lip.

With delightful understatement, Caldwell writes afterwards in his log, “Very lucky”. This book is gripping reading. As Adam shows, the idea of flying

Heritage New Zealand

GIVEAWAY

captured the imagination of the New Zealand public from its very earliest beginnings, but for the New Zealand airmen it was an obsession: they lived to fly.

Preconceptions also affect attitudes towards islands.

Some see them as magical places that offer an escape from the mundane, but to others they are inconvenient locations without the takenfor-granted facilities of the mainland. Islands: A New Zealand Journey, by Bruce Ansley, writer, and Jane Ussher, photographer (Random House NZ, Godwit, $80), leans towards the magical point of view. They illustrate the variety of New Zealand’s many islands by giving a visual tour with historical summaries of selected island groups from the far north to the far south.

Beautiful photographs and interesting, pithy historical backgrounds.

Place names, including those of islands, make you wonder about the meanings and events behind the names. With Place Names of Banks Peninsula and the Port Hills, by Gordon Ogilvie (Canterbury University Press, $59.99), any mysteries about names in this part of the country will be solved. Gordon

Heritage New Zealand

says the book was a labour of love; he wanted to share his knowledge of and enthusiasm for the area with others. He undertook the task of compiling a comprehensive successor to Johannes Andersen’s Place Names of Banks Peninsula, first published in 1927 but long out of print. Anyone with a connection to the area should buy this book: impressive research, wonderful illustrations and an extraordinary breadth of information. Gordon’s hope for the book is to give readers “the excitement of discovery” and it can be relied on to give places, which before seemed known and familiar, many more layers of richness and significance.

Assigning categories to familiar objects can encourage a lack of curiosity. For example, looking at a house and recognising it as a ‘railway house’ usually seems not to require any further thought. The history and purpose behind railway houses are seldom considered.

However, Railway Houses of New Zealand by Bruce Shalders (New Zealand Railway and Locomotive Society Inc., $49), changes that mindset. Bruce has compiled an overview of the history of railway houses, explaining the need to house railway staff to avoid resignations when men

transferred to different parts of the country and could not find accommodation. The New Zealand Railways’ scheme provided the first workers’ housing in New Zealand.

This book is illustrated with photographs and plans of houses throughout the country, alongside specific details of the houses built in each era.

Even the layout and facilities in the houses are explained.

One chapter deals with life in a railway house and another takes us through a typical railwayman’s day. Bruce writes so clearly and takes such good photographs that you feel you have absorbed – effortlessly – a great deal of information about New Zealand history.

Good-bye Maoriland: The Songs and Sounds of New Zealand’s Great War, by Chris Bourke (Auckland University Press, $59.99), is a reminder of the power of music to stir the emotions. Brass bands playing to soldiers leaving the country, soldiers singing together as they marched, fundraising concerts at home – music helped to boost morale at home and abroad. Chris has documented the music that made a difference for New Zealanders: the songs they wrote, the songs they sang and the songs they adapted,

We have one copy of Lucy Goes to the Lighthouse 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 June 2018. The winners of last issue’s book giveaway (Aotearoa: the New Zealand Story) were Claire and Craig Radford, Dunedin.

for example “It’s a long way to Invercargill, but my heart’s right there”. This is an intriguing book, a very different and utterly absorbing war history.

Lucy Goes to the Lighthouse, by Grant Sheehan and illustrated

by Rosalind Clark (Phantom Tree House, $25), cleverly succeeds in linking the present and the past. Lucy is enjoying her new birthday iPad so much that she decides not to go on a bike ride with her mother. But her mother’s disappointment changes her mind. They take a picnic and set off to Pencarrow Lighthouse. While they eat their picnic, Lucy’s mother tells her about Mary Jane Bennett, who lived in a cottage there with her family and how a chain of events led to her becoming the first and only female lighthouse keeper in New Zealand.

Beautiful illustrations and an interesting story.

Winter 2018 53

WW100

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WORDS: KAY BLUNDELL • IMAGERY: ROGER DANSEY FAMILY COLLECTION

Giving voice A new book tells previously untold stories of Māori in World War I In hunting down precious photographs and diaries of Māori soldiers who fought and died for their country in World War I, historian Monty Soutar in his latest book gives voice to many soldiers’ untold stories.

Whitiki! Whiti! Whiti! E!: Māori in the First World War, to be released before Anzac 2019, is being published as part of the First World War Centenary History Programme. Monty, who is Senior Historian at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, says the book will feature more than 1000 portraits of soldiers, many of which have never been published before.

“Many are from private collections handed down through the generations, often treated as jealously guarded heirlooms by soldiers’ descendants.”

Both Monty’s grandfather and his wife’s grandfather served in World War I. “My grandfather was awarded a Military Medal, and until I started this research I had no idea what he went through.”

Sir Peter Jackson, whose grandfather served with the British at Gallipoli, had the cover image colourised and offered a number

54 Winter 2018

of other colourised images of Māori soldiers for the book.

Monty’s acclaimed previous book, Ngā Tama Toa: The Price of Citizenship, features the 28th Māori Battalion, which had a reputation as a fine fighting force during World War II. His latest book is aimed at telling people the Māori story of World War I, he says. “Many of those stories have not had a lot of coverage. I thought personal accounts should be included in as much detail as possible.”

His research was made easier

by Archives New Zealand digitising its World War I personnel files and making them available through the internet.

The Papers Past website allowed him to search quickly through thousands of 1914-18 newspapers.

Extensive advertising helped him track down hundreds of soldiers’ photographs.

Around 2200 Māori and over 200 Pacific Islanders served in the Māori Contingent and Pioneer Battalion. When contacting more than 100 families, Monty was amazed that some still had diaries after 100 years.

On a visit to a Bay of Plenty home, he says, the grandson of a soldier pulled out from under a bed an old suitcase that contained bundles of letters sent by his grandfather to his fiancée – his grandmother – during World War I. “All the bundles were tied with ribbon and string. He had written a letter almost every second week for the duration of the war and placed a leaf in each envelope from Belgium and France. They were shrivelled but still there.

“Reading all the letters gave me a real appreciation of what the war looked like through a soldier’s eyes. When the book comes out, people will realise the trauma these men went through and what they must have brought back in their minds.”

While in the Somme region, the New Zealand Division moved forward and took German trenches.

“The whole area had been shelled many times and corpses blown apart. Digging trenches, they came across body parts.

They’d be digging away and a skull would be unearthed or bones would be seen in the wall.

“Soldiers wrote home saying they were so used to death that they just shrugged their shoulders and carried on.

“But the majority of men didn’t explain the horrors they were going through to their families.

Some told fiancées, but they wanted their families, especially their mothers and fathers, to think they were fine.

“I hope this book gives a voice to soldiers in photographs just sitting on a wall,” he says.

1

Sir Joseph Ward (opposition leader of the Liberal Party) speaks to B Company of the Māori Contingent on the occasion of his and Sir James Carroll’s visit to Avondale camp on 11 January 1915.

In August 1915 Ward accepted a proposal by Massey and the governing Reform Party to form a National Ministry for the duration of the war. Ward became Deputy Prime Minister and also held the Finance portfolio. Left to right: Sir Joseph Ward; Capt Pitt; Capt Ennis; possibly Tuahae Carroll, who enlisted in the contingent on 29 January; Sir James Carroll; obscured; Chap-Capt Wainohu; Col Arthur Myers MP, exmayor of Auckland; obscured; Capt Arthur Cleave, Motor Reserve.

2 The company’s haka party responds.

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

Highwic

Mt Albert, Auckland

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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

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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

56 Winter 2018

Programme 2018/2019

South Canterbury Spring Tour

CHRISTCHURCH - MID & SOUTH CANTERBURY Governor's Bay - Timaru - Waimate - Geraldine - Mesopotamia -Rakaia Gorge Monday 19 November to Saturday 24 November 2018

Autumn Southern Colour Tour CHRISTCHURCH – CENTRAL OTAGO & THE SOUTHERN LAKES

Lake Tekapo - Lake Wanaka - Lake Hawea - Clyde - Queenstown Monday 22 April to Sunday 28 April 2019 For further information of any of the above tours please contact – Rachel Harper, HOMESTEAD TOURS 80 Main North Rd, Geraldine 7930, New Zealand.

Tel: 64 3 693 9366, Mob: 027 292 4480, Email: info@homesteadtours.co.nz

Website: www.homesteadtours.co.nz

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some heritage heritagetrails trailsthis thisautumn winter and Hit some and explore our path to nationhood 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.

FREE to download, the

Heritage Trails app (Apple and Android) and our first six tours are our gift to everyone who cares about New Zealand’s heritage.

Heritage New Zealand’s other free apps:

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Explore the Waikato War (186364) with our free driving tour www.thewaikatowar.co.nz and explore the battle sites for yourself. (Apple and Android) • Visit highstreetstories.co.nz for over 90 stories, histories and anecdotes of life in Christchurch’s High Street precinct from before the quakes. Download the app and ‘walk’ those streets once more.

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