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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
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
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
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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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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.”
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, corrugatedmetal 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.”
