Heritage New Zealand magazine, Kōanga Spring 2021

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Issue 162 Kōanga • Spring 2021

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

NZ $9.95 incl.GST

Hall

DONE UP The stunning restoration of a heritage hall

HOME TEAM

Caring for vulnerable items in heritage homes

Heritage New Zealand

RAISING THE BAR

Preserving gripping prison stories

ALL ABOARD

A once-neglected railway station restored

Kōanga • Spring 2021 1

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

NGĀ KŌRERO O ROTO • CONTENTS

48 Kōanga • Spring 2021 Features

Explore the List

12 Lessons learned

8 The Big House

Post the Canterbury earthquakes, Dr Dmytro Dizhur has been studying how best to strengthen our heritage buildings

McLean’s Mansion in Christchurch has been undergoing renovations of a suitably epic scale

16 No regrets

10 Home again

Breathing new life into an icon of Oamaru’s Victorian Precinct

Memories of life in an orphanage offer a personal perspective on an Auckland historic place

20 Window to the past More than a decade after its discovery, an astounding archaeological find is being revealed to the Dunedin public

24 Hall in together

Journeys into the past 42 A fresh flavour Tauranga is finding new ways to share its rich heritage with visitors

A young Auckland family’s stunning makeover of an inner-city heritage hall

24 54

48 Keeping house

30 All aboard A community group’s award-winning restoration of Whangārei’s once-neglected railway station

What it takes to keep the precious items in historic homes spick and span

Columns

36 Behind bars

3 Editorial

The gripping stories of the former Napier Prison continue to be preserved by its kaitiaki

4 Noticeboard

30

52 Books Books exploring love in its many forms

54 Our heritage, my vision Knowing who you are and where you’re from is the heritage that Johnson McKay values most

Heritage New Zealand magazine is printed with mineral oil-free, soy-based vegetable inks on New Silk paper. This paper is Forestry Stewardship Council® (FSC®) certified and manufactured from pulp from responsible sources under the ISO 14001 Environmental Management System. Please recycle.

Heritage New Zealand

16 Kōanga • Spring 2021 1

Members – we’re here to help We want you to get the most from your membership with Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

Our aim is to connect you to heritage in the real world but also online from the comfort of your sofa.

We have a programme of member-only events, tours, articles, webinars and behind-the-scenes digital content.

Along with these benefits, there are new ways to pay for membership, simpler renewal options and new member benefits on the way too.

If you have questions about any of this, or think you may be missing out on any of these benefits get in touch with Laurel and Brendon (pictured), the membership team.

Simply phone us during office hours on 0800 802 010 or email us anytime at membership@heritage.org.nz

THANK YOU We are very grateful to all those supporters who have recently made donations.

While many are kindly acknowledged below, more have chosen to give anonymously.

Mr Dan & Mrs Brenda Oliver Mr Kelvin & Mrs Sue Allen William MacManus & Sally Riches Mr Tom & Mrs Colleen Evans Mr Christopher & Mrs Wendy Carson

Mr Stephen & Mrs Jenny Hart Mrs Robin Wainwright Mr Roger Weston Ms Linda Akers & Mr James Gore Mr Peter & Mrs Trish Woodcock

Mr David Thompson Mr David & Mrs Rita Jennings Mr Michael Hundleby & Ms Jan Etwell Mr Wayne & Mrs Diana Hann Mr Mervyn & Mrs Elizabeth Matthews

Mr Geoffrey & Mrs Judy Wilson Prof Geoffrey Rice & Dr Edwina Palmer

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Issue 162 Kōanga • Spring 2021

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

NZ $9.95 incl.GST

Hall

DONE UP The stunning restoration of a heritage hall

HOME TEAM

Caring for vulnerable items in heritage homes

RAISING THE BAR

Preserving gripping prison stories

ALL ABOARD

A once-neglected railway station restored

Heritage Issue 162 Kōanga • Spring 2021 ISSN 1175-9615 (Print) ISSN 2253-5330 (Online) Cover image: Hall we need

by Jason Dorday

Editor Caitlin Sykes, Sugar Bag Publishing Sub-editor Trish Heketa, Sugar Bag Publishing Art director Amanda Trayes, Sugar Bag Publishing Publisher Heritage New Zealand magazine is published quarterly by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga. The magazine had a circulation of 9,906 as at 30 June 2021.

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

Advertising For advertising enquiries, please contact the Manager Publications.

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

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

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

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

Heritage New Zealand

Magic moments Tēnā koutou kātoa. Welcome to this Spring issue of Heritage New Zealand magazine.

While this month heralds spring, it also brings with it the annual celebration of Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, or Māori Language Week, celebrated this year on 13–19 September.

I love to see the different ways that communities around the country embrace this celebration of the taonga that is te reo Māori, and also the way the celebrations seem to grow every year.

Even last year, amid the disruption caused

by Covid-19, New Zealanders created the biggest te reo event in history.

At midday on 14 September – marking the day and time in 1972 when Māori language champions presented a petition, bearing 30,000 signatures, on the steps of Parliament calling on te reo to be taught in schools – Te Taura Whiri, the Māori Language Commission, called on New Zealanders to create a Māori Language Moment.

Whether it was by starting lunch with a karakia, ordering a coffee in te reo, or singing a Māori language song, one million people – a fifth of the population – heeded the call.

Colmar Brunton polling commissioned by Te Taura Whiri last December showed that more than eight in 10 New Zealanders see te reo as part of their national identity and something to be proud of.

At Heritage New Zealand magazine, of course, we count ourselves among that vast majority, and are always looking at ways to better incorporate more te reo Māori into our pages.

In recent years you may have noticed our inclusion of glossaries of te reo Māori kupu at the end of our stories, for example. We feel this is a way not only to communicate the meaning of te reo Māori words and phrases clearly, but also to make the experience of reading them in the body of stories more seamless.

Crucial on this journey has been (and is) the magazine’s te reo Māori proofreading service, provided by Aatea Solutions (primarily via Maakere Edwards, nō Taranaki; former staff at Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga and member of Te Tira Māori; a proofreader and licensed translator and interpreter). The extensive skills and experience of the Aatea Solutions team have been invaluable over the many years they have worked on the publication.

In this regard, I’d also like to acknowledge the contribution of Arini Poutu (Ngāti Porou, Ngāpuhi), former Kaitohutohu Whanake Kaupapa Māori/Māori Heritage Advisor at Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, and the other members of Te Tira, the Māori Heritage Team.

In keeping with the aspirations expressed through Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, we want to keep pushing forward on this journey and doing better. Please let us know if there are other ways you think we could bring more te reo Māori into your experience of the magazine – we’d love to hear your thoughts.

Kia kaha te reo Māori.

Ngā mihi nui Caitlin Sykes Editor

Join the online story ...

Follow us every day and find news, opportunities, special offers, important celebrations – and share your stories, too! @HeritageNewZealand

@heritage_nz

Kōanga • Spring 2021 3

PAPA PĀNUI • NOTICEBOARD SUPPORTER SPOTLIGHT

Stephanie Pietromonaco is a Wellington-based consultant with AskRIGHT, which recently became a corporate supporter of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

What is AskRIGHT? We’re a fundraising consulting firm, so we do customised fundraising proposals and contracts for clients, covering everything from strategy, campaign planning and implementation, to coaching, grant-application writing and research. We’ve also recently

launched our GrantsWIZ database, which amalgamates all the information on more than 3500 funders we’ve discovered during our research on different projects over the years.

How do you see your support of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga also supporting the wider heritage community?

All of us as consultants have worked on projects for heritage sites, and through that we’ve learnt more about the landscape and gained a better understanding of what it means to have a heritage building and

all the rules around applying for funding.

Now that we've built up experience in this area, we thought it would be good to stay connected to all the work that’s going on in the sector.

I live in Wellington and many of my colleagues are in Christchurch, and the need we’re seeing for earthquake strengthening is quite staggering.

We’ve seen some really special places that seem quite threatened, and as the funding is limited it is really important to find other heritage supporters and make those connections.

What are some heritage places that are special to you?

I first worked in my role as a consultant on my parish church, the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, here in Wellington.

That’s what got me into this work, and where we first found our community when we arrived in Wellington from the US. Also, when I first came here in 2012 on a working holiday and was travelling around, one of the places I visited was Rewa’s Village in Kerikeri. I was really excited to read in Heritage New Zealand magazine [Winter 2020] about the cool restoration that’s happening there and how that’s going to be a living heritage site.

And in terms of the heritage projects that I and my colleagues have worked on, one in particular recently won a Canterbury Heritage Award: the Sacred Heart Basilica in Timaru. We were able to meet the fundraising goal for the restoration of that Category 1 heritage site, so that win was pretty exciting.

Please contact Brendon Veale (below) if you would like to become a corporate supporter.

Brendon Veale Manager Asset Funding 0800 HERITAGE (0800 437482) bveale@heritage.org.nz

Letter to the editor Please congratulate Averil Norman on her happy and praiseworthy response to the psychic nudge [‘A place in the heart’, Winter 2021]. The minute I saw your photo spread of the front of the house, I fell in love with it.

Through Averil’s and Warwick’s loving care, New Zealand now has one more colonial treasure to admire and enjoy.

Pamella Laird

4 Kōanga • Spring 2021

We love to receive letters like these – and we’d love more!

So please get in touch to let us know more about the stories you’re enjoying reading in Heritage New Zealand magazine, and what you like about them.

Likewise, if there’s something you’re not enjoying or think we could be doing more of, or better, we’d like to hear your thoughts (kindly put, of course). Your feedback makes for a better magazine, so drop us an email at heritagenz@gmail.com.

You can also give your feedback on the video stories we now produce alongside each issue of the magazine. Take a closer look at www.youtube.com/HeritageNewZealandPouhereTaonga – Ed.

Heritage New Zealand

Places

BEHIND THE STORY WITH WRITER ATARIA SHARMAN For this issue of Heritage New Zealand magazine, you visited the HQ of the Whangārei Men's Shed at the restored Whangārei Railway Station.

What did you enjoy about taking on this story?

It was a real privilege to write this story. First of all, the Whangārei Railway Station is in the heart of our city, so it’s an important building.

I’d been there before, but at that time I had no idea of the story behind the restoration. So when the opportunity came to write this article, I was quite excited to go beyond that first experience I’d had of the building.

As a young woman, it also felt quite special to peek into the worlds of our older men. I left my kōrero with Duncan Sutherland at the Whangārei Men’s Shed with a real appreciation of the legacy they’ve left, not just for their group but for our wider Whangārei communities. I also felt that my grandpa John Derham – a retired plumber and a real handyman, who passed away many years ago – would’ve loved the Men’s Shed. It felt like my duty to write something that would be a testament to the work they’ve done.

'Freelance writer' is one of a number of hats you wear. What are some of the others?

I’m an editor for online arts journal The Pantograph Punch, the creator of an online magazine called Awa Wahine, and an entrepreneur. I don’t just write articles either – my children’s fiction novel Hine and the Tohunga Portal is available for pre-order now on HUIA's website.

Honestly, I just really love working for myself and being able to pick what projects to work on. Often I get asked to do something and I feel drawn to it, like ‘yes I’d love to do that’. Then when I get into it, like writing this article, it’s really enjoyable. That’s the best kind of work I think, and I’m lucky to get to do it.

What's a heritage place that's particularly special to you?

As I'm of Māori and Pākehā descent, Te Pitowhenua/Waitangi Treaty Grounds is special to me. One year my partner and I stayed at the Copthorne Hotel and Resort Bay of Islands during the Waitangi Day commemorations with all the politicians. It was so busy, and visiting the top marae with the waka in the harbour was awe-inspiring.

we visit

Tauranga, p42

Whangārei, p30

Auckland, p10, p24, p48

Christchurch, p8 Oamaru, p16

Napier, p36

Dunedin, p20

HERITAGE NEW ZEALAND POUHERE TAONGA DIRECTORY National Office PO Box 2629, Wellington 6140 Antrim House 63 Boulcott Street Wellington 6011 (04) 472 4341

wāhi tapu sacred site

KIA KAHA TE REO MĀORI

(04) 499 0669 information@heritage.org.nz

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Visit www.heritage.org.nz (‘Resources’ section) or email membership@heritage.org.nz to be included in the email list.

Heritage New Zealand

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.

wāhi tūpuna ancestral site

Kōanga • Spring 2021 5

PAPA PĀNUI • NOTICEBOARD SOCIAL HERITAGE

... WITH BEC COLLIE Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Marketing Advisor William Morris was once again the talk of the town following our Facebook post in May, which reached almost 20,000 readers. St John the Evangelist Church in Cheviot, Canterbury, boasts some spectacular examples of stained-glass windows produced by William Morris’s company Morris & Co. While you can still quite easily view and purchase textiles and furnishings based on William Morris designs today, there are very few examples of William Morris stained-glass windows in New Zealand. They are certainly worth looking at if you’re in the area.

Did you know Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga is on Instagram? It’s a great place to see visual representations of the work undertaken by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

One of our favourite Instagram posts is from June last year and showcases Māngungu Mission under the Milky Way. We will be building our Instagram over the next year, so make sure you follow us

for a great selection of heritage photos from around the motu.

While we’re talking about Māngungu Mission, have you seen the wonderful videos that follow the wallpaper conservation project currently underway? A series of three videos (with more to come) on our YouTube channel shows how we care for our properties and the process of wallpaper conservation.

Instagram: www.instagram.com /heritage_nz YouTube: www.youtube.com /HeritageNewZealandPouhere Taonga

motu: country

COMMUNITY

In the thick of night in rural Northland, a small group of soldiers was seated at an observation post in the bush, relaying secret messages up and down the east coast.

The year was 1942 and the men were serving in the Home Guard, Northland’s first line of defence in World War II, keeping watch for the enemy who threatened to invade by sea.

One of them was Kaitāia man Tom Trigg, who was aged 20 when he joined the Mounted Rifles platoon, which, along with stints manning the observation post 31 kilometres down the road

at Taipa, required lengthy treks away on horseback.

Tom was based at the nearby Peria camp. More than 75 years later he vividly remembered his sore jaw caused by round upon round of fire from his regulation .303 rifle during training.

Tom was one of more than a dozen people who came forward after Heritage New Zealand called for help to identify military places in Northland associated with the war. He passed away at the grand age of 102, just a few weeks after he told his story to Jack Kemp, a volunteer researcher who, along with

Dr Bill Guthrie, has spent the past two years piecing together the locations of long-forgotten military camps, airfields and other sites.

“It was absolutely incredible to be able to talk to a 102-year-old fit man, and his recall was as clear as if it had happened yesterday,” says Jack.

“This is the history of our area; this is what happened at home while all the soldiers were serving overseas. It just goes to show the importance of getting a story from somebody before it’s too late.”

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, New

Zealand became intensely aware of its vulnerability to Japanese attack. With the fall of Singapore and the bombing of Darwin, New Zealand was thought to be next in line and military attention turned to Northland.

By early 1942 New Zealand’s susceptibility to military attack was acute. Although the role of Northland in military defence is reasonably well known, Bill and Jack have shed new light on the sheer extent of it.

The project came about in 2017 when Heritage New Zealand Area Manager Northland Bill Edwards realised there was much more to

discover about the subject.

Throughout the years of his work around Northland, Bill would hear people mention locations of former military camps.

“It seemed to me like there were military camps everywhere,” he says. “I thought, ‘What’s going on? There can’t be that many military camps in Northland’, but of course there were, as we’ve found out.”

Although most camps were bulldozed flat following the war, there are still traces of physical evidence, including concrete water tanks and roadways connecting army huts, which

can be seen via Google Earth.

Some buildings were repurposed – farmers using huts as storage sheds, for example, or as baches in campgrounds.

Bill talked to Jack, from Kerikeri, and Bill Guthrie, from Doubtless Bay, who jumped on board as volunteers. They were perfect for the job: Jack has a long-held interest in the war, including his involvement with the proposed World War II museum at Espiritu Santo in Vanuatu, while Bill Guthrie is a former professor of anthropology at the University Macau, whose father served as

a master sergeant in the United States Army Medical Corps in India. Heritage New Zealand Archaeologist Northland Dr James Robinson has also been involved, overlaying maps and identifying features in the heritage inventory.

Bill Edwards says there are three sides to the project: the technical details of places and locations via maps and documents; the stories associated with those places that tell the human side of war; and the wider context of what was happening in the world at the time and Northland’s contribution.

“It’s to fill a gap in knowledge that no-one knew about,” he says.

“Our recent past is sometimes quickly forgotten, but World War II is a defining point in New Zealand’s story. Society changed profoundly after World War II ... it’s a story that needs to be told, especially to Northlanders, who had no idea what was going on in their own backyard.”

Calls for information went out via the media, and the resulting discoveries were monumental.

One resident, Kevin Hall, came forward with photographs of HMNZS Killegray clearing sea mines in the Bay of Islands.

WORDS: JENNY LING • IMAGERY: JESS BURGES

MOTHERLODE

Dr Bill Guthrie (left) and Jack Kemp (centre) with Heritage New Zealand Area Manager Northland Bill Edwards at the site of the Waitangi Cactus Camp, wartime host to the 1st Auckland Battalion.

New light is being shed on the extent of Northland’s importance to New Zealand’s military defence during World War II through the stories of those who were there

20 Spring 2019

Heritage New Zealand

Heritage New Zealand

Spring 2019 21

SINCE WE WERE THERE

‘Military motherlode’ SPRING 2019, ISSUE 154

When Jack Kemp and Dr Bill Guthrie began digging deeper into Northland military sites associated with World War II, the sheer extent of what they uncovered – including documents showing the locations of 76 military camps – was staggering.

The findings of the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga volunteer researchers were the subject of a story in our Spring 2019 magazine – and they’ll soon be the subject of a major exhibition.

6 Kōanga • Spring 2021

Opening later this month at Whangārei Museum at Kiwi North, Tora! Tora! New Zealand! will explore Northland’s military reaction to the Japanese threat during World War II. Highlighting Jack and Bill’s research, it will include copies of the Public Works Department maps the pair uncovered, logging the many sites of military camps.

Whangārei Museum Exhibitions Curator Georgia Kerby says the idea for the exhibition was sparked after she invited Jack and Bill to talk about their research at an event a couple of years ago.

“We had such amazing feedback on that presentation we just thought, ‘We have to do an exhibition on this’,” says Georgia.

“A lot of people have memories related to this – they’ll know that next door to somewhere there used to be a camp, or have stories of Americans or of military bikes found in swamps. But I don’t think anyone quite grasped the complexity and extent of the activity in Northland until this research was undertaken.”

The exhibition will also feature artefacts relating to the period – including a Japanese naval uniform and a 1930s American gaming machine believed to have been used at a camp in Kaikohe – which have been sourced from Auckland Museum and museums in the Northland region.

There will also be listening posts where visitors can hear first-hand accounts of the military activity, and a number of public talks are planned for the duration of the exhibition.

Tora! Tora! New Zealand! will run from 24 September 2021 to 28 February 2022 in the Whangārei Museum at Kiwi North: www.kiwinorth.co.nz/whats-on/exhibitions

Heritage New Zealand

MUCH TO LOVE A book filled with gorgeous paintings of native flora, such as those above, is one of many treasures housed at Ewelme Cottage in Parnell, Auckland.

And now, thanks to the marvels of technology, the paintings are accessible to all.

The botanical paintings of Caroline Lush are among the highlights of the Heritage

Heritage New Zealand

New Zealand Pouhere Taonga collection of historic items related to its properties, which are available to explore online.

Ewelme (pronounced ‘you-elm’) Cottage was built between 1863 and 1864 by Reverend Vicesimus Lush. Caroline was the wife of the Reverend’s third son (with wife Blanche), John Martin Hawkins Lush. An award-winning artist

who began painting lessons at age 10, Caroline focused primarily on capturing native flora and fauna in her paintings – 33 of which can be explored in the collection online.

In 1971 the Lush family gifted to the public not only Ewelme Cottage but also its contents. In an arrangement with Auckland Council – which took ownership of the cottage, outbuildings and land – Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga took ownership of Ewelme’s collection items and the day-to-day running of the property.

This year marks 50 years since the cottage was first opened to the public, and Amy Gaimster, Auckland Property Lead for Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, says it’s a significant milestone.

“Ewelme Cottage was the fourth historic building to be opened by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, now Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga,” notes Amy. “It shares with its predecessors – Te Waimate Mission, Pompallier Mission and Old St Paul’s – an ecclesiastical background, having been built by the first resident Vicar of Howick, Vicesimus Lush.

"However, unlike its predecessors it was not a public building prior to its conservation and opening. Instead it was a private home for the Lush family for over a century.”

More than 2,000 collection items are housed at Ewelme, and you can read more about what’s involved in keeping the cottage’s many treasures in good condition in this issue’s feature story on preventive conservation (page 48).

You can also visit the cottage when it’s open to the public from 10.30am to 4.30pm on Sundays.

While you’re there, says Amy, you’ll find much to love.

“I really enjoy being on the verandah, talking to visitors and surveying the lovely garden,” she says. “I am very fond of the kitchen, full of utensils and crockery that would have been used by the Lush family, and also the original wallpaper, now in the lobby of the study, which once adorned the walls of the drawing room.” www.ewelmecottage.co.nz https://collection.heritage.org. nz/highlights/caroline-lush/ objects

Kōanga • Spring 2021 7

The Big House WORDS: KIM TRIEGAARDT

One of the world’s largest Victorian timber houses, McLean’s Mansion has been undergoing renovations of a suitably epic scale

8 Kōanga • Spring 2021

Victorian philanthropist and wealthy farmer Allan McLean had such empathy for “women of refinement or education in reduced or straitened circumstances” that he bequeathed to them his beloved Christchurch mansion as a place of refuge.

Made of kauri, with 53 rooms spread over 2100 square metres, McLean’s Mansion (originally called ‘Holly Lea’ and now known locally as 'the Big House') was the biggest residential building of its kind in New Zealand when it was built in 1899.

Designed by Christchurch architect Robert England, the

mansion embodied Jacobean style with its massive proportions, solid base and tall towers. Its two French-inspired roof domes dominated the Christchurch skyline between Manchester and Colombo Streets and Bealey Avenue.

McLean could hardly have imagined that more than a century later the building that took two years to build would be damaged in the 2010–11 Canterbury earthquakes.

As it sat vandalised, empty and broken, he would likely have been heartbroken to see the Category 1 building in its own straitened circumstances.

However, the building has been able to keep its status as one of the world’s largest Victorian wooden houses thanks to efforts to fight the owners’ demolition plan.

The building’s demolition had been approved under the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act 2011, but Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga refused to grant an archaeological authority to demolish, which was challenged by the owners. The case went before the Environment Court, which ultimately supported the ‘no demolition’ stance due to the building’s outstanding heritage values.

Says Frank van der Heijden, Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Senior Archaeologist: “The court concluded that, even in its present condition, the building ‘has very high historical and cultural heritage value that justifies protection.

The values of the building are such that it is of local, regional, national and international

Heritage New Zealand

IMAGERY: INTEGRUS – TOTAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT

PAPA PĀNUI Tūhuratia te Rārangi • NOTICEBOARD • EXPLORE THE LIST

LOCATION Christchurch is located on the South Island’s east coast, 363km north of Dunedin.

significance, and the building contributes towards Cantabrians’ sense of place and identity’.

“So much of the city’s heritage fabric has been lost as a consequence of the Canterbury earthquakes. The contribution the building makes to the social, economic, cultural and environmental wellbeing of the greater Christchurch community is enduring.”

Following the ruling, the owners put the damaged house on the market as is where is.

This spurred a group comprising businesspeople, art collectors and artists to establish the McLean’s Mansion Charitable Trust to buy and restore the building.

The first stage of the restoration entailed the massive task of stripping the building to its bare bones – hauling out skiploads of trash left by squatters and vandals, and 250 tonnes of bricks and masonry.

Chris Kissling, McLean’s Mansion Charitable Trust Chair, says everything of heritage

Heritage New Zealand

value that could be reused was cleaned, collated and stored.

“Salvaging as much heritage fabric as possible for reuse meant extensive hand labour rather than unforgiving mechanical demolition,” says Chris.

“For instance, all the tonnes of chimney bricks were handpicked from the collapsed heaps and cleaned and stacked on pallets to be available for landscaping.”

McLean built the house when he was 81 and lived in it alone with his servants for just five years before he died. It is in every sense an exceptional example of a 'Big House’ – an outstanding representation of the wealth generated in New Zealand through the early settlement of large tracts of land for pastoralism. (After arriving in Lyttelton from Scotland in 1852, McLean and his brother Robertson bought and leased extensive land holdings across the Waimakariri and then Waitaki regions, where they ran sheep.)

According to a Christchurch City Council history of the mansion, legend has it that when the octogenarian, who was planning his retirement home, was initially shown plans for a typical four-bedroom home, he retorted, “Not four bedrooms – 40!”

The imposing ‘Holly Lea’ was the result. A Frank Films documentary shot at the start of the renovation captures Project Director Richard Herdman’s awe of the scale of the building, from the sweeping central staircase under an enormous glass skylight to the carved kauri skirting boards reaching knee-high from the floor and its four tonnes of lead roofing tiles.

Money was no object for McLean, but 100 years on the trust has its own set of fiscal challenges. It paid $2.5 million for the mansion, and received a $1.94 million Christchurch City Council heritage grant.

However, the trust’s latest

significant application for $4.5 million of funding to meet the expected cost of the restoration was recently declined. And with the mortgage costs being borne personally by five individuals, the trust is appealing for more public support in the way of gifting, interest-free loans and “bridging finance in the form of suspensory loans that use the increasing value of the property as surety”, says Chris.

While funds are tight, Chris is optimistic.

“The trust expects the mansion will generate sufficient income to cover its costs,” he says.

“The intent is that tenanted space, bookable space and café/dining will generate the income to fund the maintenance of the building and grounds, including exhibits of gifted sculptures currently held in storage awaiting landscaping works.

“A considerable collection of original furniture and ornamentation is safely stored ready for reinstatement. We have had a very pleasing number of letters of support and expressed intentions of wanting to use some of the 52 rooms on a bookable basis.

“With the foundations remedied, floors all level and walls strengthened and plumb, the mansion will stand ready for a fit-out to suit a variety of users, including those who may require good soundproofing and climate control,” he says.

While tenants had yet to be signed up at the time of writing, Chris says discussions are underway.

Over the past century, the mansion has been a private residence, a home for ladies, a hostel for dental nurse trainees, and a private tertiary training facility. When its doors open as a centre for community-focused activities, Cantabrians will be the ultimate beneficiaries as the Big House once again embodies the spirit of public good.

Kōanga • Spring 2021 9

PAPA PĀNUI Tūhuratia te Rārangi • NOTICEBOARD • EXPLORE THE LIST

The rear of what was the home's main building and water tower (centre), with staff and children's dining rooms and laundry rooms to the right, and senior boys' block to the left.

WORDS: CAITLIN SYKES • IMAGERY: JASON DORDAY

Home again Memories of life in an orphanage offer personal perspectives on an Auckland historic place

For Raymond Bates, now in his mid-80s, helping to build the archive of a Category 1 historic place started at an early age.

It was around 1947, and Kodak was running a story competition among children at Auckland orphanages, offering one of its latest cameras as the prize.

Raymond, a resident at the Wyllie Road Orphan Home in Papatoetoe, which at the time was home to 110 children, was the overall winner.

The prize came with a single roll of film, but the home’s Matron, Miss Wilbraham, made Raymond a deal.

“She’d long wanted to have a photographic record of the home itself – the kids and everything

10 Kōanga • Spring 2021

else in the home. And every year they used to send a photographer out to take photographs of the kids and buildings and so forth for the archives, but she particularly wanted them taken of the kids just as they were,” recounted Raymond during an oral history interview carried out late last year.

“So she said to me, ‘I will buy the film once a month, you can have three or four photographs for yourself, [and] we’ll take the rest and put them in the archives for the orphan home, for future use.’ Which is what we did. Then years later, when I came to dig up all the information on the home, I got my hands on all the loose photos – a massive great box full. And what do I find? All these

photos that I’d taken as a kid.”

That passion for photography ignited at the home continued, with Raymond going on to work as a professional photographer.

The passion for recording life at the home also lingered.

Raymond has documented pages of memories of the years from 1937 to 1951 he spent at the home, covering everything from daily routines and friendships made to cleaning and personal hygiene regimens, plus his wider research into the historic place.

A desire to pass on the information led him last year to connect with the Auckland office of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, and in particular to administrator

LOCATION Papatoetoe sits northwest of Manukau, 18km southeast of Auckland.

Pauline Vela, who later undertook an oral history interview with him.

Listed as St John’s Home, reflecting a change of the building’s use and name in 1963, the home was built to replace an orphanage in Parnell that had been devastated by fire.

It was designed by architect George Goldsbro, who offered his services for free in memory of his father who had been an honorary medical officer at the institution.

Heritage New Zealand

“I can go out there even now, even today, and I can walk through those gates and I’m home” Informed by studies of similar institutions around the world, the building was configured to benefit the health and wellbeing of children. The historical background in a conservation plan for the building – carried out by Dave Pearson Architects in 2013 for the building’s owner, the Pacific Islanders Presbyterian Church – for example, notes how each dormitory was designed to accommodate 20 beds – 10 each side – with a window in between.

This allowed for plenty of crossventilation and avoided the overcrowded sleeping conditions observed as leading to poor health in other homes.

The foundation stone for the orphanage was laid in December 1907, and it was during this time – before children moved in to the new home in April 1909 – that

Heritage New Zealand

Raymond’s connections to the building first began: his paternal grandfather, William Bates, helped in the building’s first phase of construction, during which he served his apprenticeship as a bricklayer and brickmaker.

Further work and additions at the complex included the construction of St Saviour’s Chapel, opened and consecrated in 1919, and the administration block, where a stone that acknowledged its completion was laid in 1923.

The orphanage was located on a large parcel of land, which allowed it to be largely selfsufficient. It had a farm, which supplied milk and meat, an orchard supplying fruit, and its own bore for water.

Raymond’s notes on the health and cleaning routines at the home

– featuring the liberal use of Jeyes Fluid – offer fascinating insights into the methods the home used to keep children and staff healthy. Raymond notes that, during years blighted by scarlet fever and polio epidemics, “it is quite clear that healthwise we had far better care than the average child who lived outside the orphanage in a private home”.

Pauline conducted her interview with Raymond at his home in December last year, and says it’s important that personal memories connected to our important historic places, such as Raymond’s, are captured.

She reports that the information gathered from the interview will be stored with Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, as well as the National Library, so it can be accessed by others.

Raymond’s recollections provided a great amount of detail on what life was actually like for a child living at the home, she says, and in his case it was a largely positive experience.

“It came across that he felt happy and secure there, even though the staff weren’t able to show particular affection and had to be very circumspect in their behaviour, with everyone treated the same,” she says.

“He was a very inspiring person to talk to because you could tell he had this attitude towards helping others ingrained in him.

For example, as a photographer he had shared his experience with many others over the years, helping them develop their photographic skills.”

Raymond aptly summed up his sentiment about the place in his interview.

“I can go out there even now, even today, and I can walk through those gates and I’m home,” he says. “I’m happy.”

Kōanga • Spring 2021 11

PAPA PĀNUI • NOTICEBOARD WHAKAAHUA • PROFILE

LESSONS LEARNED More than a decade on from the Canterbury earthquakes, much has been learned about how to strengthen our heritage buildings. Structural engineer Dr Dmytro Dizhur has been embedded in that learning journey

12 Kōanga • Spring 2021

Heritage New Zealand

WORDS: LYDIA MONIN • IMAGERY: DAVIDE ZERILLI

“We were inspecting a twostorey masonry house where one of the walls had collapsed into the kitchen and it looked like someone had been cooking their lunch when the earthquake struck. We had to call the fire brigade because we all felt that a person would be under the rubble.”

Dr Dmytro Dizhur had taken the first flight he could get into Christchurch after the 2011 earthquake, to join the emergency teams assessing the damage to the city’s buildings. He and another engineer walked ahead, while two search-and-rescue workers followed behind. As a University of Auckland PhD student researching earthquakestrengthening techniques for brick buildings, he’d witnessed the aftermath of earthquakes before. But Christchurch was “on a different level”.

No-one had been trapped in the kitchen with the abandoned pots and pans, it was ascertained, but it would later be discovered that about a quarter of the 185 people who died in the earthquake had been killed by collapsing masonry buildings.

Dmytro stayed on in Christchurch to discover exactly what had happened to the city’s iconic old buildings. He was joined by researchers from Portugal, Canada, California, Australia and Italy, and they inspected every masonry heritage building in the city to create a database of some 650 case studies.

Born in Ukraine, Dmytro moved to New Zealand with his family in 2001. Working as an apprentice on construction sites led him to study engineering.

“I believe the marriage between hands-on construction experience and a solid understanding of structural engineering concepts is crucial for any practising professional engineer,” he says.

Heritage New Zealand

Kōanga • Spring 2021 13

PAPA PĀNUI • NOTICEBOARD WHAKAAHUA • PROFILE

These days Dmytro can be found on the 10th floor of a new waterfront building in downtown Auckland, with a lobby café and smart lifts that carry visitors directly to their chosen floors at the swipe of a touchscreen.

On his table is Structural Performance, a book he’s written to mark the 10th anniversary of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.

Recently highly commended in the Outstanding Contribution to Heritage Award category, sponsored by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, of the Canterbury Heritage Awards, the book features some of the buildings he studied after the earthquake. All had been

14 Kōanga • Spring 2021

“The marriage between handson construction experience and a solid understanding of structural engineering concepts is crucial for any practising professional engineer”

strengthened before the 2010–11 sequence of earthquakes, but some fared better than others.

The Chief Post Office building in Cathedral Square did well, thanks to strengthening methods that had included fixing steel elements to the original walls.

But Dmytro flicks to the 1930s ‘Joe’s Garage’ building on Hereford Street and lets the photos of bricks carpeting the street “talk for themselves”. Two blocks from Joe’s, a much older building had been strengthened successfully and was quickly open for business again.

At the Carlton Hotel, little or no adhesive had been used to bond key structural elements that had been designed to withstand an earthquake. A 19th-century building on Bedford Row would have survived the shaking if it hadn’t been pounded repeatedly by its neighbour – a tall and flexible concrete carpark.

The Hawke’s Bay and Wairarapa earthquakes in 1931 and 1942 respectively showed that masonry buildings were an issue and parapets were made safer, says Win Clark, a structural consulting engineer with years of experience in heritage buildings.

From the 1980s onwards, guidelines for assessing brick buildings in particular were developed and expanded. But Win explains that it wasn’t until the turn of the century that there was a big push to assess existing structures and carry out more research into masonry buildings.

This led to a six-year University of Auckland research programme headed by then Associate Professor Jason Ingham, in which Dmytro began as a doctoral student and later continued as a key researcher co-supervising local and international students.

The Christchurch research led to further guidelines for strengthening existing buildings.

It also generated international scientific interest, partly because of the data produced by instruments that had measured the ground tremors.

“You could do an electronic model of the building and you could input into it a time history that was appropriate for that site and be able to match the damage observed with the damage that you’re seeing in your model,” says Win. New Zealand companies are now using lessons learned from Christchurch to help the Dutch. The Netherlands’ masonry buildings are of a similar style to New Zealand’s, but its earthquakes are man-made as a result of gas extraction.

Ninety percent of the masonry heritage buildings in Christchurch studied by Dmytro and his colleagues were eventually demolished. Piece after piece of the city’s history was lost. The Press and the Lyttelton Times buildings were grand symbols of a thriving local newspaper industry praised by author Mark Twain. A young Agatha Christie stayed in Warner’s Hotel and the touring Beatles greeted fans while standing on a Clarendon Hotel fire escape. Only the facades of the Clarendon were left in 2011 and now they’re gone too.

Dmytro was in Italy after that country’s 2016 earthquake and says very few centuries-old buildings were demolished.

“We see a crack and that’s a no-no – the whole building has to be pulled down. An Italian looks at a crack and says, ‘We can repair that crack and we know the methodologies and the techniques needed to repair that crack’. So a repair becomes a relatively routine procedure, rather than saying, ‘This building isn’t safe. It needs to be demolished’.”

Win hates the term ‘earthquakeproof’. Not even a modern

Heritage New Zealand

Heritage New Zealand

IMAGE: MARCEL TROMP

building can be earthquakeproofed, he says, because every building has some risk. It’s a matter of working out what that risk is and then upgrading the building if it doesn’t meet the legal minimum of 34 percent of the New Building Standards.

However, being too risk averse can drive up the cost of an upgrade. In Win’s experience, engineers who don’t usually work with heritage buildings tend to over-compensate with strengthening because they don’t fully understand how a particular building is likely to perform in an earthquake.

Dmytro has worked on several Category 1 Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga properties, including Kemp House, the Stone Store and Antrim House, and he owns his own heritage building in Whanganui. His Italian partner, Dr Marta Giaretton, is also an earthquake engineer who works with historic structures, and they recently welcomed a baby boy.

As a young child, Dmytro always wanted to figure out how things worked. He’d pull his toy cars apart and rebuild them with improvements – turning one into a remote-controlled boat – before moving on to VCRs, TVs and computers.

He can’t pinpoint exactly when his love of heritage buildings began, but it intensified after Christchurch. It was the experience of seeing and touching materials, he says, that someone had worked with 120 years earlier – before they were scooped up by a digger to be dumped in landfill.

“I was just imagining a girl born 10 years ago, now walking around Christchurch. She’ll never see or understand how it felt or what it looked like where her granddad used to work or where her mum used to work. That whole connection with a past generation just disappeared.”

Rotorua Museum I first visited Rotorua Museum around 20 years ago. The presence and the features of the building really captured my imagination.

When you go into the beautiful Government Gardens, you see this magnificent building up on the hill with very defined, dark lines and a grand entrance as a focal point. It has a bright-red tiled roof and the dark timber that frames the lighter-coloured infill makes the whole thing stand out, with beautiful windows and joinery that you can see from afar.

As the home of one of the first official bathhouses in New Zealand, Rotorua Museum attracted local and international tourists to Rotorua, so it is a unique piece of history.

The museum stands near the edge of Lake Rotorua in a young volcanic area. As it was built on relatively soft pumice soil, it was a challenge from the very beginning.

Local tōtara was sourced for the timber framing and the museum has some of the earliest pre-cast panels used in New Zealand. Lightweight pumice concrete was poured into moulds lined with newspapers and very thin wire was embedded into the panels as reinforcement.

When the panels were cured, they were removed from the moulds and inserted into the timber frames.

The museum is currently undergoing earthquake strengthening and renovations and the backs of these panels have been exposed. So you can stand in front of a wall and read the newspapers from 1906 – isn’t that fascinating?

Over the years, the museum has undergone many changes, so only a few parts of the building are original.

I hope those parts are preserved with minimal intervention so that someone else in 100 years can read those newspapers, feel the history and be as astonished by it as I am every time I walk into the building. n

Kōanga • Spring 2021 15

PAPAWHARE NGĀ PĀNUI •MAHI NOTICEBOARD • BUILDINGS AT WORK 1

NO REGRETS The Covid-19 lockdown caused many of us to ask what we really wanted from life. For an Oamaru couple, the answer was to breathe new life into a heritage landmark WORDS: NATHALIE BROWN • IMAGERY: MIKE HEYDON

1 The Martins offer bed

and breakfast facilities on the upper floor of Oamaru’s grand old Criterion Hotel.

2 Costumes? What cos-

tumes? This is the way the hotel hosts, Graeme (Herbert) and Marise Martin, have dressed for 20 years.

16 Kōanga • Spring 2021

Heritage New Zealand

Ask Marise Martin what motivated her and her husband, just months out of the Covid-19 lockdown, to take on the lease of the Criterion Hotel, an Oamaru heritage landmark, and she tells it straight.

“It was sheer madness,” she says. “We took it on because no-one else was doing it and it had sat idle for 12 months.”

Marise and Graeme (known as Herbert) Martin leased the 1877 Category 1 Criterion Hotel from its owner, the Oamaru Whitestone Civic Trust, in October 2020. With its balustrade festooned with urns, pinnacles and tympana, it is one of the most distinctive buildings in a town that is celebrated for its gorgeous architecture.

“Herbert and I both recognise the importance of maintaining the town’s European built heritage. It is so historically recent that we believe there is a need to keep the best examples of the way we were. We value old buildings for the craftsmanship and the stories they tell.”

Marise says the couple looked at taking over the ‘Cri’ a year before lockdown, but for a number of reasons it wasn’t the right time.

“However, Covid-19 was our catalyst,” she says.

“We reflected on the tenuous grip we both have on life. The virus might take us out tomorrow, so we asked ourselves, ‘What is the one thing each of us would regret not doing if that happened?’ And for both of us it was not having brought the Cri back to life. Restoring her was of great significance for both of us.”

Last year Marise gave up her 43-year career as a senior social worker, while Herbert resigned from his position in healthcare management.

“We picked up the lease four weeks before we opened the doors for the [Oamaru] Victorian Heritage Celebrations on 9 November 2020,” says Marise.

“It was a tight timeframe for renovation and restoration, but I like a nice tight deadline. It means you get it done.”

While they made no structural changes, they did a floor-to-ceiling renovation – scrubbing, sanding, varnishing, painting, laying new carpet and installing new lighting.

The public bar is a salute to Herbert’s aesthetic precision. He painted its walls in Resene colours Buff and Dragon – colours that convey a slightly dirty and smoky look, which appears so authentic that many outof-town patrons believe it’s the original 1877 decor.

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Heritage New Zealand

See more of the story on our video: www.youtube.com/HeritageNewZealandPouhereTaonga

Kōanga • Spring 2021 17

NGĀ WHARE MAHI • BUILDINGS AT WORK He stained and varnished the wooden floor and bar several shades darker to achieve an aged look. Then the couple dressed the bar with original paintings by artist Watts Davies featuring misty images of the Cri, alongside entertainment posters, crocks, books, bottles and taxidermy.

Restoring the Cri also involved presenting the snug, dining room and ‘gentlemen’s lounge’ (ladies most welcome) as gracious spaces while keeping the upstairs accommodation rooms simple, with new iron beds and quality bedding.

“We wanted the hotel to have wide appeal and be accessible to families and older people and a place where women could feel safe,” explains Marise.

While some who had previously frequented the Cri found the changes a little too refined and took their custom elsewhere, many new patrons have been captivated by the revived atmosphere and the events the couple have staged in keeping with the style and atmosphere of the Cri. It’s here where Marise is clearly in her element.

“We ran a series of Victorian-style Christmas banquets in November and December and called it the Colonial Christmas Table. Then there was the Robbie Burns night in late January. Tartan galore!

[The event included] a grand ‘Address to a Haggis’ and other appropriate Scottish recitations.

“We’ve had high teas – morning and afternoon – for fundraisers. Our Pink Ribbon Day event drew in scores of people and later on the same day the Southland Jaguar Club booked out the dining room for lunch.

“Family groups from out of town have hired costumes from the Victorian Wardrobe around the corner in Harbour Street and then come here to eat in the dining room... I give a 15-minute address about the historical highlights of the hotel.

People are more interested in the history than I would have guessed.”

Graeme Clark is Chair of the Oamaru Whitestone Civic Trust, which owns another 15 heritage buildings in Oamaru’s Victorian Precinct alongside the Criterion Hotel.

“The trust has always considered the Cri the jewel in the crown within the precinct – a Victorian experience,” he says. “It’s the only one of our buildings still in original use.”

The frontages of the Cri, Harbour Street and lower Tyne Street are often used as locations for advertisements, television programmes and films.

1 In 1877 the architectural

firm Forrester and Lemon designed the Criterion Hotel to be the grace note in a town already celebrated for the splendour of its buildings.

2 Guest accommodation

includes a breakfast room and a private sitting area on the upper-floor landing.

3 The Martins’ aim was to

make it look as if nothing had changed in the Cri since the 1870s, no matter how hard they had to work at it.

4 Herbert rarely takes a

break, but when he does he is always on the lookout for new patrons.

5 The Cri specialises in

regional craft beers and locally sourced provisions such as haggis, bangers, artisan meat pies and hearty vegetarian options.

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18 Kōanga • Spring 2021

Heritage New Zealand

2

3

4

5

As for the heritage values developed under the Martins, Graeme says, “Their tenancy is a perfect fit for the trust’s vision for the building and its role in the wider Victorian precinct. It’s exactly what we would have wanted. It gives the whole area a point of difference.

“The major challenge faced by Herbert and Marise, and also by the trust, is that, since the coming of Covid-19, people don’t want to share bathrooms with strangers. This means that the accommodation can’t be used to the best advantage as there are six bedrooms but only two bathrooms upstairs.”

However, says Graeme, there are a further eight rooms behind a walled-up hallway upstairs, which he says may be possible to restore and install with en-suites.

“The derelict space is lined in lathe and plaster and it is the only part of the precinct yet to be restored. So a new project would be great, ideally within the next five years,” beams Graeme.

“We’ve had plans drawn up. We could restore that part and open up the stone wall that separates it from the main body of the Cri. Might even have to put a lift in.”

Heritage New Zealand

OAMARU VICTORIAN HERITAGE CELEBRATIONS 17–21 NOVEMBER 2021 ‘All things Scottish’ is the theme of this year’s Oamaru Victorian Heritage Celebrations, with a packed calendar of events on offer over five days.

These include annual activities such as the Garden Party in the Oamaru public gardens, a colourful street procession, penny-farthing cycle racing, and the Victorian Ball (or the Servants’ and Swaggers’ Shindig, as a more rustic alternative).

Lectures, walking tours, horse and carriage rides, croquet in the gardens and choral singing are also on the programme. The celebrations culminate in Sunday’s Victorian fête, where shoppers will find useful and beautiful things to give as Christmas presents.

No Victorian garb? No problem. The Victorian Wardrobe in Harbour Street was established to cater for just this type of occasion. www.vhc.co.nz. n

To see more of the Criterion Hotel, view our video story here: www.youtube.com /HeritageNewZealand PouhereTaonga

Kōanga • Spring 2021 19

PAPA TE MĀTAI PĀNUI WHAIPARA • NOTICEBOARD TANGATA • ARCHAEOLOGY

1

Window

WORDS: ANNA KNOX

to the past

After more than a decade of work by a team of experts, an astounding archaeological discovery is being revealed to the Dunedin public

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20 Kōanga • Spring 2021

3

Heritage New Zealand

“It was the middle of winter in Dunedin, 2008. Wet. Dark. We had snow days.”

It almost sounds like the start of a tall story – the kind a verbose goldminer might have told, evening getting on, the hard day’s work done. But archaeologist Dr Peter Petchey is talking about his intermittent year-long project excavating the site where Dunedin’s Wall Street Mall now stands.

“It was the last day of the excavation. I’m not kidding, the final day,” he goes on.

“There were just two of us working that day. Myself, and Mark Hall on the digger. And we were digging this hole and then… we saw something.”

In some ways, Peter’s fieldwork is not so different from that of an old-time goldminer. The slow excavation of earth; the careful combing through its layers in search of treasure. Rather than gleaming metal shining through the mud’s meniscus, however, Peter’s ‘gold’ is any physical item that tells us about the past.

In this case, it was a pair of sticks.

“You get old timbers all the time,” he explains, “but these were lying side by side, parallel.”

Mark and Peter quickly found several more pieces of timber side by side, then one perpendicular, supporting the others.

The timbers were sitting about 1.3 metres below the current street level and it was obvious they had

been cut with metal tools but no nails had been used, indicating that the structure had been built by very early Scottish settlers in Dunedin.

“So it turned out not to be our last day after all,” says Peter.

Six weeks after the initial discovery, Peter’s team of four, along with several volunteers, finished uncovering what turned out to be the earliest known example of a corduroy road – a timber pathway across a swampy area of ground – in New Zealand.

Built sometime between 1849 and the early 1850s, the 12-metre-long, four-metre-wide pathway has also proved to be the earliest structural evidence of settler Dunedin found to date.

It was a significant find, archaeologically and historically, because it revealed so much about the way early settlers adapted to their environment.

“The causeway represents the early settlers’ physical efforts, their growing awareness of the landscape, the establishment of the city as an agent of colonisation, and the acquisition of knowledge from local Māori, who were, perversely, being displaced by the same process,” Peter writes in an academic paper he subsequently published about the finding.

Dunedin at that time was known as ‘Mud-edin’, the area north of Bell Hill/Ngā Moana e Rua consisting largely of mudflats and swamps.

1 The first discovery of

the causeway timbers, showing their axe-cut ends.

2 Jason Gay and Jenep-

her Glover excavating the causeway after the top metre of fill had been removed with a digger.

3 The excavation of the

causeway, almost complete.

IMAGERY: PETER PETCHEY

4

Heritage New Zealand

Kōanga • Spring 2021 21

TE MĀTAI WHAIPARA TANGATA • ARCHAEOLOGY

1

“It’s all about discovery. You never know what’s down there” A tidal inlet also extended as far north as what is now Albion Place, adding to the boggy nature of the area. A vivid description in a 1911 book by the notorious George Hamilton-Browne, quoted in the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero report on this Category 1 historic place, conjures the “rain, that not only drenched us but turned the soft loamy bush soil into liquid mud, in which we sank nearly to the knee”.

By all accounts, George tended towards exaggeration, although probably not this time. It was the mud, he explained, that “forced us to corduroy the path so as to enable the wretched pack-horses to get any footing”.

Judging by the tōtara roofing shingles that had been dropped nearby, Peter theorises the causeway was constructed in part to transport timber being felled in the bush on nearby hillsides and carried down for use in building houses in the new settlement.

“These early settlers were literally cutting a new life out of undeveloped bush,” he explains. Without the causeway, the work of transporting heavy timbers through mud would have been near impossible.

Other items were recovered from the overall site, including a badge commemorating the All-England

22 Kōanga • Spring 2021

cricket tour of 1864 (the first international sporting tour of New Zealand), a Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce bottle, which looks almost identical to those on supermarket shelves today, and something that Toitū Otago Settlers Museum curator Seán Brosnahan says is “most likely a toy dog”.

Seán curated the ‘Ghosts of Wall Street’ display located at the museum, which features some of these finds as well as several hauntingly narrated stories of imagined people from the era and area. The anaerobic conditions of the site, caused by the airless mud, enabled the items’ remarkable preservation.

After the site had been fully excavated, the next stage was to remove the timbers – no simple job. Many were substantial, some weighing more than 50 kilograms.

After extensive discussions with the experts who were in consultation on the site, it was decided to uplift 40 percent of the causeway, leaving the remaining fragile timbers in situ beneath the foundations of the Wall Street Mall complex. These are now recognised within the extent of the Category 1 listing.

Next on the agenda for the uplifted timbers was a bath – and not just to clean off the mud. The goal

Heritage New Zealand

was to stop the degraded wood elements falling apart, explains University of Auckland wet organic conservation expert Dilys Johns.

“Oxygen accelerates decay,” she clarifies. “If the waterlogged wood is allowed to dry out without treatment, cell collapse occurs, and this is irreversible.”

The timbers were transported to a local warehouse where Dilys began her slow and careful conservation work, ensuring they would remain stable for future generations. That meant more baths, this time over several years in a synthetic, non-toxic, water-soluble, reversible wax called polyethylene glycol, which gradually replaced the water inside the degraded wood cells, allowing the timbers to be control-dried and subsequently stabilised for display and storage.

In 2018, when former archaeologist Andrea Farminer joined Dunedin City Council as Heritage Advisor, she heard of the causeway timbers, which were by then being stored in their preserved state in a warehouse outside Dunedin. Immediately, her creative neurons fired.

“I started to imagine what might be done with those timbers, in a way that would bring history alive for people,” she says.

Andrea learned that, as part of an earlier agreement between Dunedin City Council and Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga following a non-compliance case on the site, the council had agreed to display the timbers in the mall, but the project hadn’t yet progressed.

Andrea picked up the cause and ran with it. “‘Accessible’ is my keyword,” she says, referring to the potential the installation had for the public to engage easily with their heritage.

“Although,” she adds, “normally I take things out of the ground, not put things back in!”

Andrea’s initial suggestion was an installation in the ‘set down’ of the mall – a sunken area where people have coffee. Then it occurred to her that the timbers might actually be incorporated into the floor, and the floor levelled with a section of glass over the reinstated causeway, so that the public could really get a sense of walking on the causeway itself.

It’s a brilliant concept – a literal ‘window to the past’ vividly communicating the fact that our past always informs our present, although often invisibly.

Months of collaborative effort followed, with the heritage project bringing together architects, engineers, project managers, designers, research specialists and artists in what Andrea describes as “a real team effort”.

One of the most challenging jobs was to reassemble the timbers temporarily, based on Peter’s original drawings of the site, in preparation for the final installation.

“It was nerve-wracking; we didn’t want to damage anything,” says Andrea.

Scenic artist Andy King was engaged to create the mud-like setting in which the timbers would be placed.

“Andy did some amazing things in creating the backing mould,” says Andrea. “We said the wood needed to look like it was back in its mud, and that’s exactly what he’s managed to do.”

Heritage New Zealand

2

3

1 The causeway was

reinstated in the Wall Street Mall in July 2021, with the tiling still to be completed.

2 A close-up of the con-

served timbers and the fake mud created by artist Andy King.

3 The preserved section

of the causeway in place and awaiting its glass cover.

IMAGERY: ALAN DOVE

“And there’s a really great last touch,” she adds, explaining how the floor tiles adjacent to the sunken timbers are etched with the outline of the buried part of the causeway, symbolically reuniting the timbers and allowing pedestrians to walk the causeway’s full length.

At the time of writing, a tent sat over the site at the busy Wall Street Mall intersection where Andy was putting the finishing touches on his ‘mud’, evoking the slimy damp of the bog in which the timbers once lay.

All those who contributed to the project were awaiting with great anticipation the day they would be able to see the causeway for themselves.

“It will be very good to see it finished, and to see this public recognition of the value of archaeology,” says Peter. “It’s all about discovery. You never know what’s down there.”

Although in this case, of course, we do.

The preserved Dunedin Corduroy Causeway was finally reinstated in a sunken glass display in the floor of the Wall Street Mall in mid-2021, allowing pedestrians to walk over the structure almost exactly as it had been laid more than 150 years ago.

Kōanga • Spring 2021 23

PAPA TE WĀHI PĀNUI • PLACE • NOTICEBOARD

Hall

IN TOGETHER Through years of hard work, upcycling efforts and staying true to a vision, a young Auckland couple have proven themselves worthy custodians of an inner-city heritage hall WORDS: CLAIRE MCCALL • IMAGERY: JASON DORDAY

24 Kōanga • Spring 2021

Heritage New Zealand

For a girl who was born in a converted stable, Jessica Britten has come a long way. She may have moved north from the Christchurch property originally built, brick by brick, by her dad John, but her father’s love of heritage buildings and his ability to redesign just about anything have followed her.

Some might say she inherited his fearlessness too.

When Jess and her husband Warren Durling took on the renovation of a 1907 hall in Ponsonby, Auckland, they were wading into waters they admit they knew little about.

The building came on the market in 2015, and was just around the corner from where the couple was renting. The hall – built by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF), then owned by the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes – was a local landmark.

Known as the Forresters’ Hall, it is included in the Renall Street Historic Area and is identified as Category A in Auckland Council’s heritage schedules.

“We were curious to see inside this beautiful old building and had been looking for somewhere to buy for two years,” says Jess.

From the exterior, its two-storey brick-and-plaster face was a solid example of symmetrical design – straight and simple with only a hint of decoration: a parapet with the IOOF insignia formalising its provenance. Inside, it had its issues.

“The floor just beyond the entrance was so spongy it was like a trampoline,” recalls Jess.

The front part was divided into two rooms: one contained a tiny kitchenette with a Formica bench and five beer fridges, the other a bathroom with urinals.

Beyond this was the hall itself, a cavernous space with a 5.8-metre stud, the walls lined top to toe with memorabilia. Of course, Jess and Warren loved it.

The couple had six weeks to do due diligence and began to research the potential and pitfalls of its heritage classification.

“We spoke to a family friend who had developed heritage projects, we talked to Heritage New Zealand [Pouhere Taonga] and we consulted Auckland Council,” says Jess.

Good information came from all quarters, but the path was not clear cut.

“There is no black-and-white rulebook that tells you what you can and cannot do. We realised we’d have to figure it out alongside the experts in the field.”

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Kōanga • Spring 2021 25

TE WĀHI • PLACE

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26 Kōanga • Spring 2021

They put in their tender bid and crossed their fingers.

“We were so passionate about the hall that we included a letter explaining that we wanted to raise our family here; we promised to honour its heritage and its history.”

When the good news came in, they felt like they had won the lottery. Itching to get started, they asked architect Sam Atcheson for a topline concept to transform the turn-of-the-century space, once redolent with regalia and tradition, into a forever home.

The plan was to turn the former kitchen and bathroom on the northern elevation into two bedrooms with en-suites, make the existing meeting room on the upstairs level a main bedroom suite, and locate the kitchen within the lofty volume of the hall.

“We never thought about partitioning off spaces within it – that would have been criminal,” says Jess.

But before they could get stuck in to the modernising, work was needed to repair the leaking roof and gutters and cracks in the façade.

To understand the complexities, and wanting to do right by the building, they commissioned conservation specialists Burgess Treep & Knight Architects for a full report. It detailed the heritage fabric of the hall, from footings to rafters and everything in between, and assigned a weighting to each part in terms of what was most important to save.

After this, a four-year haul began.

“We had to redo the foundations at the front of the building and replace the floor throughout, which was a patchwork mess,” explains Jess.

Once the diggers had been in and a new roof was on, they reinstated the windows to the street and a set of original double doors, complete with brass handles, that divide this space from the main hall.

The quadruple-brick dividing wall was stripped back to its raw form and a pokey staircase that led upstairs was moved from the entrance to the main body of the building.

Jess says: “We’re both six-feet tall so it just wouldn’t work, but it’s the only structural change we made.”

As Robin Byron, Senior Conservation Architect at Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, remarks: “The commitment that Jess and Warren put in to the conservation and adaption of the hall, with some guidance from conservation architect Graeme Burgess, is impressive.

“The challenge of living in the place during most of the upgrade work is a testament to their determination and resilience. It was a true labour of love.”

Although the pair relied on the expertise of skilled builders and engineers for the fundamental part of the journey, they weren’t averse to getting hands on with the tools.

Jess, with occasional assistance from the couple’s daughter Stevie (now 2), was like a bloodhound in her mission to source fixtures and finishes to co-ordinate with the character of the hall. She is a great believer in upcycling, can’t tolerate waste and has an aesthete’s appreciation of materials.

Heritage New Zealand

DOCUMENTING THE JOURNEY Jess started the Instagram page Hall We Need (www.instagram.com/hallweneed/) in 2015 as a visual diary of the restoration, renovation and decoration of the heritage-listed hall. The page now has more than 11,000 followers.

“People were fascinated by the project, and it just grew naturally,” she says. Jess thinks the popularity of the page is an encouraging sign: it shows that a younger generation has a respect for and interest in breathing new life into these types of heritage property.

“We weren’t experts. It’s real and uncontrived and people responded to that,” she says.

The story behind the logo for the hall, on the website and Instagram page, is interesting. Very early on, Jess and Warren received a letter from Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga discussing their proposed plan.

“I immediately noticed the incredible handwriting on the letter. I was enchanted (*cough* obsessed) with it as I thought it would make an amazing typeface/‘logo’,” says Jess. She contacted the letter writer, Robin Byron (Senior Conservation Architect), who kindly wrote ‘Hall We Need’ a few dozen times on a piece of paper, one iteration of which ultimately became the logo.

“It might not be a significant or noticeable detail to others, but I love knowing the story and connection behind it,” says Jess. n

The kitchen, which sits to one side of the open-plan space, is a case in point. The couple bought it secondhand and have relocated it twice since then. Jess painted the solid tawa cabinetry, used leftover oak from the new staircase to build a breakfast bar, and added some brass panels to the front of the island, which she had rescued from a refit of a restaurant where she’d once contracted as a communications specialist.

“One of the builders said I could get a new MDF kitchen for less, but why would I want that when I can have something with integrity?” she asks.

Choosing materials with character and depth was important – even if that meant Jess had to rummage around in the off-cut bins.

That’s where she found the broken tundra stone that features on the floor of the main ensuite. She repurposed it ‘crazy-paving’ style, saving the planet and on the budget like a DIY superhero.

Sometimes though, repurposing materials can prove the expensive choice – like reusing ceiling rafters as shelving. But it was worth it: “You only have that opportunity once,” says Jess.

When it came to furnishing the hall, the same philosophy applied. “Dad’s ethos was to take something old and broken and make it beautiful. He removed the

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fear of getting it wrong and encouraged us to give it a go,” says Jess.

And she did, reupholstering a vintage sofa and ottoman herself, making the coffee table by pouring concrete cylinder legs to support a recycled marbleslab top, and sanding back a black-painted, bobblefooted bed bought on Trade Me. Jess and Warren say the finished result is a privilege to live in; they don’t miss a garden with so many green spaces nearby to visit, and they’re justifiably proud of their hard-won achievement.

“We love sharing this building with others; we are only custodians after all,” says Jess.

If you ever spot Jess and little Stevie sitting on the front steps eating ice cream as they watch the world go by, stop and say hello. You might just be invited for a peek inside.

1 The hall, built in 1907,

stands proudly next to typical Ponsonby cottages.

2 The main bedroom was

once a meeting room for the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes.

3 An office nook.

4 The new staircase leading

from the main hall.

5 Graeme Burgess helped

the couple to identify the most important heritage features.

6 A quadruple-brick wall

stripped back to reveal its beauty.

Kōanga • Spring 2021 27

PAPA WHAKAAHUA TINO PĀNUI • NOTICEBOARD • BEST SHOTS

Seeing the light “If we get one shot of the aurora, our job will be done and we can go home,” Dr Rangi Matamua said to me as we were flying over the Southern Alps on our way to Invercargill.

We were on our way to Murihiku, where Rangi was to present a wānanga about Māori astronomy, star lore and, of course, Matariki, before we went to the Takitimu Mountains to host another wānanga with several Ngāi Tahu members (I was there to take photos for his book Matariki: The Star of the Year).

Rangi was telling me about how he had looked up the weather and it was supposed to

28 Kōanga • Spring 2021

WO RDS AND IMAG E : E RICA S INCLAIR

be quite cloudy, but he was still holding out hope for the ‘money shot’. I was sceptical, but we had two nights in Bluff, therefore two chances to catch it.

So that same evening Rangi, associate professor Dr Hemi Whaanga and I set out to take photos of the sunset from Bluff Hill. Hemi and I wandered around the different areas of the hill, taking snaps of the harbour and town lights below.

Meanwhile Rangi stood at the lookout gazing south, hoping for the aurora to appear and saying things like, “It looks green over there”.

We scoffed at him – “No, you want it to look green over there”

– and carried on meandering about the hill. Then we began to notice other people arriving with their cameras and pulling out their phones.

Rangi was getting really insistent now – “Hey guys, I think it really does look green over there!” – and we heard a few of the other people mentioning the Southern Lights and magnetic somethings.

So we ran back to the top, pointed the camera south and took a long exposure.

He was right! The green and purple peaks were bright and luminous and glowed on the back of my camera screen, and as the night went on they got brighter

and brighter to the naked eye.

We got so carried away taking photos of the aurora that we stayed out until 3am.

This is my favourite image from the night: Te Rau Aroha Marae – the world’s southernmost marae, with its unique design by the late Cliff Whiting – and the Southern Lights.

So of course, we got the money shot, but we didn’t go home; we stayed and completed our commitments.

TECHNICAL DATA Camera: Canon EOS 7D Lens: 13mm Exposure: 10sec, f4.5

Heritage New Zealand

Heritage New Zealand

Kōanga • Spring 2021 29

PAPA TE HAPORI PĀNUI• •COMMUNITY NOTICEBOARD

Duncan Sutherland (left) and Jack Freeman proudly display the 2021 Rail Heritage Trust Restoration Award.

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Heritage New Zealand

WORDS: ATARIA SHARMAN • IMAGERY: MARCEL TROMP

ALL ABOARD It took more than $1 million and seven years, but the Whangārei Men’s Shed has given the city’s once-derelict railway station an awardwinning new lease on life

Heritage New Zealand

Duncan Sutherland laughs as he shares the story of a potential funder who cheekily asked him why they should provide money to “renovate this building for a bunch of grumpy old men”.

‘This building’ is the 1925 Whangārei Railway Station, and Duncan is a committee member of the Whangārei Men’s Shed, the organisation that restored it. Today the heritage building not only accommodates

the group but also has created a community space for all ages, and stands as an example of community collaboration.

But keeping the project on track wasn’t always easy for those “grumpy old men”.

With around 80 members, the Whangārei Men’s Shed offers men of all ages and backgrounds a place to work together on projects and socialise.

Kōanga • Spring 2021 31

PAPA TE HAPORI PĀNUI• •COMMUNITY NOTICEBOARD

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“Matua are … restoring a building that contributes to the community, [and] the knowledge that the Men’s Shed members hold is being passed down to young people” Incorporated in 2012, the group met temporarily at the Kiwi House at Kiwi North in Whangārei while they looked for a new site where they could create a workshop for their members.

The city’s derelict and empty railway station was offered to them as a place to store their tools and materials. But gradually they made a few changes: the building was reconnected to power; a water connection was added; an old sink and a couple of workbenches were set up. The Whangārei Men’s Shed was moving in.

In July 2013 Whangārei District Council agreed to sell the Category 2-listed building to the group for $1, with the deal sealed in December 2014.

By that time, years had passed since the station’s heyday. Once a community hub, alive with the bustle of railway guards and passengers, the station now had holes in the roof, black mould, missing steps, boardedup doors and windows, and a rabbit warren of small internal rooms.

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“With the restoration, we wanted to recreate that community hub,” says Duncan.

The vision for the project was to fix the neglected building and make it available for use by both the group and the community. But renovating the large building was a massive undertaking for the volunteer-run organisation.

Instead of the planned three years, the renovation project ended up taking seven years. This was partly due to the building’s size – bigger than many other stations of its era – and also Covid-19, as most of the group’s members are retired and at high risk in a pandemic.

During the restoration, the group pulled down unnecessary walls to create large, open interior spaces, and the roof was replaced with new iron and spouting.

But wherever possible, the volunteers worked hard to restore, rather than replace, original materials – and if replacement was required, it was done with a detailed likeness to meet heritage building standards.

For example, some walls in the space that’s now the

See more of this story on our video: www.youtube.com /HeritageNewZealand PouhereTaonga

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group’s machine room retain the original tongue-andgroove match lining, painted white, but one had to be replaced with a replica lining. A commitment to sourcing local materials meant the volunteers developed close relationships with local suppliers.

Funding the project was also a challenge. There were different dates and deadlines among funders, multiple applications, and other requirements the group had to satisfy. At times work had to stop because there was no money to continue.

The station’s relatively large size was also problematic, as it made the project appear more

expensive than many other station restorations.

Ultimately the group raised around $1.1 million, including contributing $50,000 of its own funds, with other main sources including the Lottery Environment and Heritage Fund, the Lottery Community Facilities Fund, Foundation North and Pub Charity.

Now fully restored, the station is open on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 8.30am to 3pm. The group used to open the space at 9am, but by that time carloads of men would already be waiting to get into the workshop.

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Heritage New Zealand

1 The late afternoon sun

hits the front of the restored railway station.

2 Old railway rails support

the roof of the platform.

3 The view from the

platform looking across the old railway yard.

4 A sound equipment test

panel on the platform awaiting repair.

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Kōanga • Spring 2021 33

TE HAPORI • COMMUNITY

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LESSONS FROM THE SHED Be prepared to discover more work needs to be done Even with architects and engineers involved, you don’t always know what you’ll find – things like rotten wood under GIB plasterboard, which needs to be replaced. Even when you think you have everything covered, with these kinds of restoration project, things always come up.

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DIY saves dollars After receiving a high quote for interior painting, a volunteer learned to spray paint by watching YouTube videos, then showed others how to do it. Buying a compressor kit and a spray gun with an extension to reach the high roof, they did the job themselves, saving tens of thousands of dollars.

(SOURCE: DUNCAN SUTHERLAND) 1 Equipment and tools in the machine room. 2 Jack Freeman assembles his miniature wooden

car. 3 Tools hanging from the wall in the engineering workshop. 4 Men’s Shed members discuss their projects. 5 Duncan Sutherland (left) with Harry Hexstall, displaying his Garden Woodies.

6 Morning tea time in the dining room area of the restored kitchen. Members use their own refurbished chairs and tables. 7 Kurt Terpstra (left) and Bob Boud measure up the plans for their

project. 8 Mike Collins (left) and Jorgen Owre construct rat traps for Northland Regional Council.

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Heritage New Zealand

Entrance to the wooden villa-style station is through its red front door (the restored original; all interior doors were replaced with versions built by the volunteers) leading into an elegant entranceway. To the right is the kitchen, which, on the day of Heritage New Zealand magazine’s visit, was abuzz with men taking a morning break, congregated around a long wooden table amid members’ projects: a repurposed railway sign, handmade cabinetry, refurbished furniture and joinery.

Due primarily to age-related health issues, not all members can use the tools or go into the workshop, but they still come in weekly to catch up with fellow Men’s Shed members. The kitchen space is also used for men’s health workshops, speaker sessions and monthly member meetings.

To the left is where the group assembles. At work benches, members are putting together the pieces to construct rat traps for Northland Regional Council – one of the many projects they do to support the community. Members have also built mud kitchens for kindergartens, mentored home-schooled children and run sessions for women.

Beyond this area is the machine room, containing woodworking machines and table saws, which members are using to cut wood for the traps. Beyond this is the engineering room, housing more wellorganised tools and equipment, and a small side room with metalworking equipment and safety gear.

Most metalworking is done outside, but the room is a boon when it’s cold or raining. Originally built to house the heavy luggage of passengers before they boarded trains, the engineering room has a hardwood floor, as does half the machine room.

Housed at the front of the long building is the first organisation to share the restored station with the Whangārei Men’s Shed – Creative Northland, which supports and develops the arts and cultural sector.

Led by General Manager Hinurewa Te Hau, the team’s office is decorated with the work of Te Tai Tokerau-based artists and attendees of its annual youth summit. Creative Northland and Men’s Shed members often come together for social events, where everyone brings a plate.

Duncan reiterates that the purpose of restoring the heritage building was to see it widely used – “that it is a working building”. The kitchen can be hired by community groups; until recently a choir practised in the space due to its excellent acoustics, and even vintage car meets have been held at the station.

Bill Edwards, Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Northland Area Manager, says the success of the project is testament to the hard work of Duncan and his team, and their sensitivity to the building’s heritage features.

“The railway station was in danger of becoming a wreck,” says Bill. “But where others see something old, like the old station and the Men’s Shed members, it’s exactly the opposite – old mātua are getting out there and taking an active role in contributing to their community, and restoring a building that contributes

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to the community. And it’s a full cycle too; the knowledge that the Men’s Shed members hold is being passed down to young people.”

The group’s vision for the restored station continues, including a desire to see it part of a Whangārei heritage trail, to showcase the building’s history and restoration.

And in June, some welcome recognition was bestowed on the group of “grumpy old men”, with their work on the station receiving the 2021 Rail Heritage Trust Restoration Award.

“The team at Men’s Shed are thrilled to receive the award,” says Duncan, “which is major recognition for the seven years and thousands of hours of hard work by the members.”

1 Hinurewa Te Hau (left)

and Olivia Garelja from Creative Northland at the entrance to their office.

2 Olivia, Hinurewa and

poet Piet Nieuwland are surrounded by colourful artworks by local artists.

mātua: fathers/men

See more of this story on our video: www.youtube.com/HeritageNewZealandPouhereTaonga

Kōanga • Spring 2021 35

PAPAWHARE NGĀ PĀNUI •MAHI NOTICEBOARD • BUILDINGS AT WORK

See more of the former Napier Prison on our video: www.youtube.com/HeritageNewZealandPouhereTaonga

36 Kōanga • Spring 2021

Heritage New Zealand

WORDS: VENETIA SHERSON • IMAGERY: MIKE HEYDON

BEHIND BARS

The stories – both gripping and macabre – contained within the walls of the former Napier Prison continue to be preserved and told by its kaitiaki Within the formidable 5.5-metre sandstone wall fronting Napier Prison are carved pieces of art – tiny and intricate. One is a winged cross; others include a small boat, half a horse’s head, a dolphin, and miniature stonemasonry tools.

Some artworks incorporate tiny fragments of bone and fossilised shells, adding a mosaic texture.

There are initials too, recording for posterity the craftsmanship of the prisoners who built the

Heritage New Zealand

wall. More than 115 years later, the wall remains a testament to their skills as stonemasons, but the artistry within it also stands in deep contrast to the grim scenes that took place inside.

The contrast hints at the breadth and depth of history held within the bounds of the former prison, which has recently been recognised as a Category 1 historic place.

And for almost two decades, sharing its stories has been the passion of a couple dedicated to its kaitiaki.

Kōanga • Spring 2021 37

PAPAWHARE NGĀ PĀNUI •MAHI NOTICEBOARD • BUILDINGS AT WORK

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The former prison is sited on Bluff Hill/Hukarere, at the northeastern end of Napier Hill/Mataruahou high above the bay overlooking Napier/Ahuriri and the wider expanse of Hawke’s Bay/Te Matau-a-Māui. It is a site of cultural, historical and spiritual significance to Māori; the place where tohunga once observed the stars and established times for fishing, and for planting and harvesting, especially kūmara.

It was also the site of Tūhinapō, the most sacred spot in the district where the first fruits of the seasons were offered to the gods. Archaeological records indicate pā sites, Māori terracing and midden deposits on the steep surrounding slopes.

The area appealed to early European settlers for very different reasons, however. A new prison was needed to replace the existing primitive lock-up in the township, from which prisoners reportedly came and went at will.

Hukarere, which had been part of the Crown purchase of the Ahuriri block in 1851, was deemed ideal, being atop a precipitous hill on the outskirts of the town.

From 1853 the newly formed provinces became responsible for prison administration, and in 1861

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“Its special aesthetic qualities and completeness, authenticity and integrity make it one of our key heritage sites”

Hawke’s Bay Provincial Council set aside £800 for the new prison. The building – designed initially to accommodate 14 prisoners, a jailer and police – was gazetted in June 1862. A further wing was built the following year, and in 1869 a lunatic asylum was added to separate the prisoners and the mentally ill who had previously cohabited.

The prison remained functional until late 1993. The last 56 inmates and 19 staff transferred to Mangaroa Prison (now Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison), south of Hastings. That could have been the end of its chapter in modern history except for the interest of two people.

When Toro and Marion Waaka first set eyes on the prison in 2001, ivy was growing through the roof and tumbleweed was clogging up the courtyards.

“It was like The Day of the Triffids,” Marion says.

“Opposing gangs met there on alternate nights, homeless people slept in the cells, and there was drug paraphernalia strewn about.”

The couple wasn’t daunted. Marion, an adventurous Scot who moved to New Zealand as a 19-year-old with just £35 in her pocket, has a fascination with stories

1 The Royal Coat of

Arms above the main prison entrance.

2 Part of the 5.5-metre

sandstone wall built by prisoners, of whom some were stonemasons.

3 A corridor flanked

by cells.

hapū: sub-tribes kaitiaki: guardians/ guardianship kaumātua: elder tohunga: priests

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Kōanga • Spring 2021 39

PAPAWHARE NGĀ PĀNUI •MAHI NOTICEBOARD • BUILDINGS AT WORK

1 Marion Waaka saw the

derelict prison as an opportunity to preserve the stories of the past.

2 One of the prison

courtyards.

3 Prison tours are popular

with visitors.

4 A typical cell on the

prison’s north wing. The barred windows let in very little light.

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from the past. Toro Waaka of Ngāti Pāhauwera, a confederation of hapū with interests in northern Hawke’s Bay, is a past director of NZ Māori Tourism and has been awarded an MNZM (Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit) for services to Māori across a range of initiatives, including tourism.

The couple saw the prison as a potential tourism site, and also a way to preserve the stories of those who were incarcerated and those who worked there.

In 2002 they leased the property, first as backpackers’ accommodation and now as a prison tour operation in which visitors can learn about what was widely described in 1909 as “New Zealand’s worst prison”.

The stories are both gripping and macabre.

The listing of the Category 1 heritage site was recently reviewed by Joanna Barnes-Wylie, Senior Heritage Advisor for Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, who notes the prison has outstanding significance for its reflection of New Zealand’s 19thcentury penal system and treatment of mental illness.

“Its special aesthetic qualities and completeness, authenticity and integrity make it one of our key heritage sites,” she says.

The grimness of that penal system is apparent as soon as visitors walk through the imposing kauri prison door, now stained black. Above it is painted the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom, reportedly completed in anticipation of a royal visit in 1906 that did not eventuate.

Immediately inside the gate is ‘The Pound’, in which a prisoner could stay in solitary confinement for up to two weeks with only a Bible for company.

The tiny window with a decorative grille admits minimal light. Names have been etched into the walls.

“It gets worse,” says Marion, pointing to a small cave carved from rock and now filled with rubble from a recent earthquake. “Prisoners could be kept here for three days on a diet of bread and water.”

40 Kōanga • Spring 2021

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The cells, measuring 2.7 metres by 1.9 metres, in which prisoners double-bunked, bear witness to prisoners’ fury and frustration. On one wall are marks from toothpaste having being spat on the walls; on another a prisoner has notched up his sentence in years; on others are racist graffiti and ‘intel’ on other prisoners.

There were many suicides, unsurprisingly, since the cells for those at risk contain protruding nails, accessible light fittings, external wiring and wire-wove beds. The accommodation for female prisoners in an adjoining wing was no better.

Four people were hanged at the prison. One was Pai Mārire leader Kereopa Te Rau, who was convicted of the murder of German missionary Carl Völkner in 1872 and pardoned posthumously in 2014 as part of the settlement of the Ngāti Rangiwehiwehi Treaty of Waitangi claim.

Another was Rowland Herbert Edwards, a railway employee convicted of murdering his wife and four children. He is buried in the prison yard, along with two others.

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The last two executions took place in 1889. They were 28-year-old Haira Te Piri for the murders of storekeeper Frank Pook, and his wife and child, and Makoare Wata for the murder of shepherd Robert Gollan. One of the hangmen was Irishman Tom Long, himself a repeat offender.

In more recent history, some of New Zealand’s most infamous convicted criminals spent time in the prison, among them Jules Mikus, convicted of the murder of Teresa Cormack; ‘Mr Big’ Terry Clark, head of the Mr Asia drug syndicate; and recidivist prison escapee George Wilder.

Marion says former prisoners and their relatives still visit. One, who spent 15 years inside, tried to souvenir the bed he had slept in.

She and her staff are respectful of the events, and deaths, that took place there. Napier kaumātua, the late John Hohepa, blessed the building when the couple leased it 20 years ago.

“We think of ourselves as kaitiaki,” says Marion, “preserving the building as it was, rather than coming along and turning it into a winery.”

To see more of the former Napier Prison, view our video story here: www.youtube.com /HeritageNewZealand PouhereTaonga

Kōanga • Spring 2021 41

PAPA PĀNUI • NOTICEBOARD KŌPIKOTANGA • DOMESTIC TRAVEL

fresh

A FLAVOUR Famed for its sunshine and beaches, Tauranga is now finding new ways to share its rich heritage with visitors WORDS: JACQUI GIBSON

42 Kōanga • Spring 2021 2020

Heritage HeritageNew NewZealand Zealand

IMAGE: TOURISM BAY OF PLENTY

Heritage HeritageNew NewZealand Zealand

Kōanga Kōanga••Spring Spring2021 2020 202143 43

PAPA PĀNUI • NOTICEBOARD KŌPIKOTANGA • DOMESTIC TRAVEL

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Located on a sunny sweep of coast and marked by white sand beaches, a twinkling harbour and lush rainforest, Tauranga is so much more than its stunning good looks would have you believe.

That’s what recently retired history teacher and Western Bay of Plenty Heritage Trust Chair Bruce Farthing tells me on a brief visit to Ōtūmoetai Pā Historic Reserve, just a few minutes’ walk from his clifftop home.

I’ve flown to Tauranga from Wellington, swapping a merino jacket and stockinged feet for a t-shirt, sunnies and sandals.

Over three days, I plan to winkle out the city’s rich history by talking to those in the know, and Bruce, a history teacher for 45 years, reckons piecing together Tauranga’s layered past shouldn’t be too hard.

As we enter the roadside park on Levers Road, he tells me: “It’s crazy. This wonderful reserve was opened a decade ago, but so few people visit or really understand its significance.”

As Bruce talks, we pass seven carved posts representing historic figures of Ngāi Tamarāwaho, a hapū of Ngāti Ranginui and one of three mana whenua tribes who occupied the land prior to government confiscation in 1864.

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Carved by Damien Kohu and Whare Thompson for the reserve’s official opening, the gateway pou whenua reflect the site’s past as a fighting pā and the point in New Zealand’s history when this harbour-facing hilltop operated as the district’s capital.

As Bruce walks ahead, I stop to read a plaque explaining how the historic site eventually passed into the hands of settler farmer Robert Matheson in 1870.

It remained in Matheson family hands until it was remodelled and launched as a community reserve in 2012.

“This region’s rich heritage goes back as far as the first waka arriving from East Polynesia in the 13th century,” says Bruce, pausing beside the original gateposts of the Matheson family’s Fairview Farm incorporated into the reserve’s design.

“It was deeply impacted by inter-tribal warfare during the Musket Wars. You have the arrival of the Church Missionary Society in the 1830s. A decade later, chiefs here refused to sign the treaty [Treaty of Waitangi]. And, of course, Tauranga was the site of a significant defeat for the British military, acting for the government of the day, at the hands of local Māori in the 1860s.”

Gesturing east towards his Ōtūmoetai Road home, Bruce says: “This land is alive with the past. Dig in my garden and it’s possible you’ll unearth a skeleton or two.

1 Buddy Mikaere at

Ōtamataha Pā.

2 Bruce Farthing at

Ōtūmoetai Pā Historic Reserve.

3 Pou at Ōtūmoetai Pā

Historic Reserve.

4 Pou at Gate Pā.

5 IMAGERY: JACQUI GIBSON

Heritage New Zealand

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“This land is alive with the past ... In Tauranga, it feels like you’re living on top of history itself”

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Heritage New Zealand

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Kōanga • Spring 2021 45

PAPA PĀNUI • NOTICEBOARD KŌPIKOTANGA • DOMESTIC TRAVEL

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1 Walking the track on

Mount Maunganui/Mauao.

2 Clarence Hotel.

IMAGERY: TOURISM BAY OF PLENTY 3 The Elms/Te Papa

Tauranga.

4 Raupō whare, The Elms/

Te Papa Tauranga.

IMAGERY: JACQUI GIBSON

46 Kōanga • Spring 2021

I’m not kidding. In Tauranga, it feels like you’re living on top of history itself.”

In 1998 Bruce helped spearhead a campaign to build a museum for the Bay of Plenty region, located in downtown Tauranga.

His vision, as chair of the original museum board, was to create a central hub from which the region’s bicultural heritage could be easily celebrated and shared with the community, schools and tourists alike.

In the decades that followed, however, the idea of building a museum repeatedly failed to garner enough community support to secure council funding.

Seeing the writing on the wall, Bruce went back to the drawing board and in 2017 formed a region-wide trust known as Taonga Tū, Heritage Bay of Plenty.

The goal? To keep the heritage hub concept alive while coming up with new ways to share the region’s 800-year-old heritage in an accessible, co-ordinated way.

I meet historian and former Waitangi Tribunal Director Buddy Mikaere, of Ngāi Tamarāwaho, on the grounds of Tauranga’s Gate Pā Memorial Reserve to explore the park and discuss his role in Taonga Tū.

Says Buddy, standing beside the reserve’s flagstaff on the hill: “The Bay of Plenty has an extremely important story to tell – regardless of how we decide to express it. And Tauranga is unique in that it has an actual battlefield in the middle of the city.

“We have a parcel of land available for development nearby. Why wouldn’t we take advantage of that? Sure, we could focus on upgrading and linking key sites like

Gate Pā and Te Ranga – that makes sense. But why not think even bigger? Why not have a national centre for the New Zealand Land Wars right here?”

Joining us on our tour is Tourism Bay of Plenty Destination Marketing Manager Loretta Crawford.

She says domestic travel data shows that 42 percent of New Zealanders spend their holiday cash on culture and heritage experiences, but in places such as Tauranga they typically don’t know how or where to find them.

That’s why her team has designed a range of online itineraries focused on key culture and heritage sites throughout Tauranga and the broader Te Moana a Toi, Coastal Bay of Plenty region.

In Tauranga, says Loretta, visitors are encouraged to tour sites such as Gate Pā and The Elms/Te Papa Tauranga and stay at the city’s heritage-listed Clarence Hotel. Completely refurbished in 2018, the hotel is an Edwardian Baroque-style building on Willow Street that dates back to 1906. Once Tauranga’s post office, today it is a 10-room boutique hotel, featuring a popular finedining restaurant, bistro and bar.

At The Mount (Mount Maunganui/Mauao), she says, Mauao Adventures takes visitors on guided walks, sharing stories of the sacred maunga.

Cyclists, meanwhile, can explore historic Ongarahu Pā with Te Ara Tourism, guided by Paula Beilby, a descendant of the hapū who once occupied the site.

Ben Pick, Lower Northern Area Manager for Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, believes demand for heritage tourism is at an all-time high among Kiwis.

Heritage New Zealand

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“As a result of Covid-19, and since lockdown, New Zealanders have been holidaying in heritage places in greater numbers than ever. You only have to look at the Tohu Whenua sites buoyed by Tourism New Zealand’s recent campaigns,” he says.

“The Coastal Bay of Plenty is an incredibly interesting part of the country. A lot of our archaeological resources and landscapes are so prominent – Mauao and the Pāpāmoa Hills Regional Park, for example. They’re amazing places to visit. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to come here for the beautiful beaches and sunny days and also to learn the incredible history of this region?”

On my last day in Tauranga, I join historian Debbie McCauley and Tauranga Historical Society Chair Julie Green at the Brain Watkins House Museum, a heritagelisted settler property on Cameron Road built in 1881.

As we sit around the dining room table, Debbie tells me that one of the challenges for Taonga Tū is to help the local community realise that celebrating the region’s rich heritage isn’t about getting stuck in the past.

“We need to understand our history in order to develop as a modern city with our own unique flavour, otherwise there’s a danger we’ll succumb to bland uniformity.

“I’m optimistic when I look at the younger generation coming through.

“They’re open. They’re curious. They want to know who they are and where they’re from.

“Let’s give them access to the stories, people and places to do that. And then let’s join them on that journey of discovery as local residents and tourists in our own backyard. I mean, why not? Really, what have we got to lose?”

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Heritage New Zealand

hapū: sub-tribe mana whenua: those with tribal authority over land or territory by virtue of possession and/or occupation maunga: mountain pou whenua: post markers of ownership

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Kōanga • Spring 2021 47

PAPA MĀORI TE WĀHI PĀNUI HERITAGE • PLACE • NOTICEBOARD

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48 Kōanga • Spring 2021

Heritage New Zealand

1 L-R: Deborah Chandler,

Sheila Mickleson, Wendy Glynn, Wendy Dickinson and Jane Finnemore are part of a dedicated group of volunteers working on preventive conservation for Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga in Auckland’s historic homes, including Ewelme Cottage.

2 Ceramic eggs, once used

to encourage chickens to lay, are set on the kitchen table at Ewelme Cottage.

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KEEPING HOUSE Unlike objects housed in traditional museums, items in historic homes can be subjected to conditions more like those of an everyday household. What does it take to keep them all spick and span?

WORDS: NICOLA MARTIN • IMAGERY: MARCEL TROMP

Heritage New Zealand

On a Tuesday afternoon in the kitchen of Ewelme Cottage in Auckland’s Parnell, Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga volunteer Jane Finnemore is busy helping to preserve the stories of a Victorian clerical family.

Working alongside a team of fellow specialist housekeepers, ceramic jugs and earthenware crocks have been carefully polished. A set of ceramic eggs, once used by the family to encourage their hens to lay, has been delicately cleaned and surfaces brushed.

The items that live within the kauri walls of the Category 1 cottage are those you would have expected to find amid domestic life in the 1800s. From the teacups on the shelves and linens on the beds to the pictures on the walls, everything helps to tell a story.

Ewelme (pronounced ‘you-elm’) Cottage, which is open to the public every Sunday, appears as if its owners, the Lush family, have just stepped out for a moment. It acts as a museum of sorts, except it is not, which is why the housekeeping work that Jane and her fellow volunteers do is so vital.

Unlike objects housed in the highly controlled environs of traditional museums, items in historic homes such as Ewelme can be subjected to conditions more like those of an everyday household. People and visitors come and go, and with them comes dust, dirt, grit and moisture.

The volunteers – first profiled by Heritage New Zealand magazine in 2014, soon after the group was established – work in a discipline known as preventive conservation. They were trained through a programme started in New Zealand in 2013 by conservator and heritage housekeeping expert Madelaine Abey-Koch.

Kōanga • Spring 2021 49

PAPA TE WĀHI PĀNUI • PLACE • NOTICEBOARD

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One day a week, over two years, two groups learned the minutiae of cleaning every type of household item, from ceramics to metals, textiles, fabrics and wood.

After leaving New Zealand for her overseas experience, Madelaine trained as a conservator in London. She worked at the British Museum and eventually for the National Trust and English Heritage looking after 15 heritage homes, before returning to New Zealand with a wealth of knowledge and a desire to help improve our heritage housekeeping skills. Madelaine also contributed to The National Trust Manual for Housekeeping – still considered the bible for housekeeping in historic homes.

Belinda Maingay, Collections Advisor for Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, says the manual provides the foundation for heritage housekeeping in New Zealand too. There are now 24 properties across the country that house collections, amounting to more than 70,000 items that require care.

“We have come a long way since 2014, but we still have a way to go,” says Belinda.

In the UK there is a well-established group of conservators with specialist knowledge on the needs of collections with heritage buildings, giving the National Trust a large body of expertise to call on, and Belinda says this is something to which Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga eventually aspires.

For now, the way forward is to continue increasing the base level of training in all Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga properties.

Belinda says they are looking at using a range of methods, from creating some in-house videos to using existing online resources from the likes of the Museums Association and developing printed materials based on best practice.

50 Kōanga • Spring 2021

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“You take your heart into your hands because you know the importance of the history and how old the piece is”

“Ideally we’d like to replicate the group we have in Auckland in Northland and the South Island, but it is baby steps,” she says.

Now retired, Madelaine says the major consideration when dealing with an historic home is that it is not a museum providing a controlled environment for the treasures housed within.

“We have to look at it holistically. The building itself is part of the collection. Everything from the number of people coming into the house to how often and what route they take is critical to the state of the collection,” says Madelaine.

“As soon as the front door opens, you’re changing the humidity and air circulation through the house. People walk over historic carpet. There is vibration wear and tear on staircases. The watchful eyes of the housekeepers will notice someone has leaned on the back of a chair.”

Madelaine says one of the most important jobs that preventive conservation volunteers do is monitoring.

Their planned cleaning cycles may sometimes see them revisit items only every two or three years.

Before an item is even touched, the team fully records its state, looks at its surface and decides whether it can withstand any cleaning. They then think about what type of cleaning they can do, depending on the material and its current state of deterioration.

Textiles are one of the hardest to clean as they are particularly vulnerable to light damage. They also degrade faster and change colour, making them much more difficult to clean without damaging them.

In recent years, specialist vacuum cleaners made in the UK that provide exceptionally low suction have been helping to manage the task. The fabrics are also protected with mesh to moderate the cleaning process.

Heritage New Zealand

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Madelaine says methods are being refined all the time.

“When I returned to New Zealand there were no staff to do the work required. My premise was we needed to train carefully selected volunteers to a very high level, and that’s the way it has been done, very successfully.”

Wendy Glynn is another volunteer who trained under Madelaine. The former HR manager says when entering retirement she sought volunteer work in an area she was interested in that would put her around people.

After living with her grandparents for a period during her childhood, Wendy was used to the utensils and objects of the previous generation – including coal ranges and cast-iron gem pans, and many other items still evident in the kitchen at Ewelme Cottage.

“It is detailed and intricate work – particularly when dealing with something damaged. You take your heart into your hands because you know the importance of the history and how old the piece is,” says Wendy.

She remembers a small china plate, its lattice edging crumbling as she picked it up one day.

A devastating moment.

Wendy had done everything right. The failing was just a symptom of the deterioration and damage that can seep into household objects over many years.

Light, dust and humidity and the combination of these three threats readily destabilise objects. Mould growth will damage the surfaces of objects and may permanently discolour the materials, while high humidity in combination with light, oxygen and dust can accelerate the corrosion of metals.

The volunteers follow a strict regime. Once an item has been assessed for its ability to be cleaned and its condition has been recorded, it is uplifted at its strongest point and placed in a tray to be cleaned.

Heritage New Zealand

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1 Wendy Glynn cleans the

lid of a jar in the kitchen.

A repurposed cotton reel has been used at some point in history to repair the lid of the jar.

2 Wendy Dickinson cleans

a small chest made from native New Zealand timbers.

3 A china dish is brushed

before the delicate process of cleaning starts.

4 After being gently

brushed, ceramics are cleaned using distilled water containing drops of conservation-grade detergent.

5 Jane Finnemore,

Preventive Conservation Team Leader, cleans a decorative china ewer.

6 Wendy Glynn cleans a

photograph of Partingtons Mill that hangs on the wall at Ewelme Cottage.

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Ceramics and glass are treated in a similar way.

After an item is brushed with a goat-hair brush, cotton wool swabs moistened with distilled water containing a drop of conservation-grade detergent are rolled over the surface. The process is repeated with distilled water only, and the item is finally left to air dry.

Whether the item is glazed or not, or has been hand painted, determines its treatment.

“If there are chips or if the glaze is damaged, you can’t put water on it. We need to do the full inspection first to know what is safe to do with the item. It’s not a case of filling up the sink and tipping it in,” says Jane.

Jane remembers cleaning some lace curtains at Alberton in Auckland, a Category-1-listed homestead.

The process took two days. The curtains were fully supported by Mylar, a polyester film, and placed in a purpose-made shallow bath where they were gently agitated in distilled water and conservation detergent.

This removed much of the acidity and dirt.

The distilled water was then changed and the curtains were finally air-dried using dehumidification.

The whole process was completed under the watchful eye of Madelaine.

The volunteers have uncovered a few items the different families have repurposed in resourceful ways.

The earthenware crock they were working on in the kitchen at Ewelme Cottage, for example, had a cotton reel screwed in place for a handle that had obviously broken over time.

“It’s interesting because somebody made this a very long time ago,” says Jane, “and they resolved a problem.

It all helps to build a picture of how the people in these homes lived. In working to preserve these items, we are also working to preserve their stories.”

Kōanga • Spring 2021 51

PAPAPUKAPUKA NGĀ PĀNUI • NOTICEBOARD • BOOKS

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

Love is in the air Books exploring love in its many forms Because different people care about different things, the books in this column deal with the love and affection felt for places, activities and objects. For example, Tableland: The History Behind Mt Arthur, Kahurangi National Park, by Ray Salisbury (Potton & Burton, $59.99), details the history of the people who have been involved with the dramatic landscape of the Tableland. Ray’s strong family ties to the area have encouraged his thorough overview of people who have been part of the history and his commitment to making the book one that allows the reader to experience the Tableland for themselves.

Ray is a professional photographer and writer and a keen tramper, which explains why the photographs in this book are so exceptional. You can feel the cold of the mountains and imagine yourself standing in the landscape. His historical research has been thorough and his maps show the relationships between the landmarks in different parts of the Tableland as he takes you

52 Kōanga • Spring 2021

through changes in tramping huts, fascinating natural features such as the caves, and the varied occupations practised here over the years, such as goldmining, grazing and hunting.

This is an absorbing book – so much so that you feel you should be reading it in your bush shirt because it almost feels like being there.

Sometimes intense commitment to an activity can border on obsession, as it was for New Zealand aviator and horticulturist Oscar Garden. His fascination with flying was so intense that he bought a plane at Selfridges, the London department store – before learning how to fly. As his daughter Dr Annamaria Garden writes in her biography, Oscar Garden: A Tale of One Man’s Love of Flying (Mary Egan Publishing, $45), Garden immediately named his new Gipsy Moth Kia Ora and decided to fly from England to Australia.

When he succeeded – after learning to fly – he was the fifth

person to navigate the journey solo, and the youngest of the five.

Garden began working for British Airways, later becoming the Chief Pilot for TEAL, the New Zealand airline. He introduced the idea of employing nurses as stewardesses, recognising their competence in dealing with passengers’ health emergencies.

However, he resigned later because of a disagreement with management.

A tale of one man’s passion, Oscar Garden’s story also provides information on the way in which aviation developed in New Zealand.

In Me, According to the History of Art (Massey University Press, $65), Dick Frizzell writes about his life in art in a novel way. Dick tries to make sense of himself as an artist by taking readers on a trip through art history at what feels like breakneck speed.

The text is written in a relaxed, conversational tone. Dick copies the artworks he needs to show his readers to illustrate his place in art history and what has influenced him. He considers the history of art to be a serious business because it’s “the story of my life and yours”.

His tone seems irreverent, but this is at least partly because he does not want people to feel distanced from art. He wants them to begin to look and trust

their ability to see what is there, rather than feeling awed and ignorant. He says, “The idea that art helps us to keep ‘seeing’ the world anew (and hence continuing to value it) is probably my bottom line.”

After a frenzied trip through the more distant past, Dick shows you some of his own work so you can see where art history has taken him. I was particularly impressed with his 1987 painting, The Magpies Say. The magpies are set against the broken-down farm of Denis Glover’s The Magpies poem.

Going on an art tour with Dick Frizzell is definitely to be recommended. You can always have a coffee break halfway through, or come back for a second or third viewing.

The next book tells the story of a very important teddy bear.

My Name is Henry Fanshaw: The True Story of New Zealand’s Bomber Squadron, written by Gillian Torckler and illustrated

by Adele Jackson (Bateman Books, $24.99), introduces Henry Fanshaw, the mascot of the RNZAF’s No. 75 Squadron.

Before his retirement to Wigram Air Base, Henry lived a very adventurous life. He remembers the London Blitz and the bombing of Cologne. He also tells the story of a particularly courageous squadron member who crawled out onto the wing

Heritage New Zealand

GIVEAWAY We have one copy of Tableland: The History Behind Mt Arthur, Kahurangi National Park to give away.

To enter the draw, send your name and address on the back of an envelope to Book Giveaways, Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, PO Box 2629, Wellington 6140, before 30 September 2021.

The winner of last issue’s book giveaway (Karl Maughan) was J Irving, Christchurch.

of a plane to put out a fire in the engine and was later awarded the Victoria Cross.

In spite of dealing with the reality of the events of World War II and the loss of life, the book shows the comradeship of the men and the bonds that grew from adversity.

Just as Henry Fanshaw, the teddy bear mascot, symbolised the bonds the men felt with the squadron, a coal range can magically transform a house into a home. Admittedly, as those who have lived with a coal range will know, it can be a love/hate relationship. Coal ranges can have a somewhat malevolent streak.

Nevertheless, having had many years to recover from attempts to bend the Shacklock Orion of my Invercargill family home to

Heritage New Zealand

my will, I experienced a sense of nostalgia when reading The New Zealand Coal Range Handbook, compiled by Brendan Gaffney (Brendan Gaffney, $50).

Brendan has brought together information on the many different models of coal ranges along with historical notes, old advertisements and memories.

Before the electric stove was introduced, coal ranges provided heating for the home and the hot water and an oven for cooking, as well as a stovetop surface for cooking pots of soup, porridge and stew. The coal range was the heart of the home, particularly in the winter, but at some stage the ugly task of cleaning out the flues had to be faced. Those memories are an effective antidote for any excessive nostalgia.

Another deep source of nostalgia centres on the car. Many New Zealanders will have allegiances to one or another, or perhaps several models of the Ford motor car. John Stokes has followed his first volume, Ford in New Zealand: Putting the Car Before the Horse with his second volume on the history of Ford in this country, Ford in New Zealand, Volume 2: Driving Ahead – 1936 to 1997 (New Holland, $59.99).

This hardback book has the research, photographs and detail to satisfy even the most besotted enthusiast. The book covers the establishment of the assembly industry in New Zealand, the model launches, the mechanical advances, the competitors and the arrival of cheaper Japanese imports, which brought the end of the Ford assembly plant in New Zealand.

Many of us remember the Anglia, Zephyr, Cortina, Laser, Escort and Falcon, along with the Sunday drives, the family holidays and the thrill of owning one of these cars.

The cars will come alive as you read this book and experience the personal histories that John recounts of people who have lived with and loved one or more of the vehicle models belonging to the Ford family.

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

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

Kōanga • Spring 2021 53

PAPA Ō TĀTOU PĀNUI WĀHI • NOTICEBOARD INGOA-NUI, TAKU KITENGA • OUR HERITAGE, MY VISION

Doing things differently Knowing who you are and where you come from is the heritage Johnson McKay values most

INTERVIEW: JACQUI GIBSON

54 Kōanga • Spring 2021

Heritage New Zealand

I’m Ngāti Porou, with whakapapa links to the US and Scotland.

Mum’s people are from Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, Dad’s Scottish ancestor, John McKay, migrated to Aotearoa in the 1800s, marrying a daughter of Waikato chief and first Māori king, Pōtatau Te Wherowhero.

One of their grandsons went on to marry my ancestor, Ngāti Porou wahine Riria Paniora.

That whakapapa link to Riria is why I think of a small marae about 10 kilometres southwest of Ruatōria as my cultural home.

The marae is called Penu. It’s one of the marae of my hapū, Te Aitanga a Mate. I love the fact that the identity of Penu is associated with a strong Māori woman. It’s a beautiful marae too. It was carved by master carver Pineāmine Taiapa, one of the first students of the Rotorua

School of Māori Arts and Crafts, with support from Ngāti Porou leader and politician Sir Apirana Ngata. So it feels special in many respects.

I hadn’t visited Penu until about five years ago. I grew up in Manurewa listening to Dad tell me the old stories. But I could never place them. Exploring my cultural identity is something I’ve done later in life, with a law degree under my belt, as a husband and father of five, and as a business owner keen to better align my 16-year-old brand and creative agency, Fly, with my values and purpose.

It’s been a journey. In 2016 I realised I wanted to support the Māori cultural renaissance I saw going on around me. I wanted to be part of normalising Māoritanga – from the language to our cultural knowledge or

mātauranga Māori, to our unique spiritual values.

So I enrolled in a full-time, year-long total immersion te reo Māori course at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa. The course led me home to Penu, it reunited me with my culture, and it helped me completely change my business. Today, Fly is all about elevating Māori perspectives.

When I started Fly in 2005, we had no Māori clients. We weren’t working on any kaupapa Māori. Through my journey, I realised I needed to find some different clients. It was time to do things differently.

Johnson McKay (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Rongomaiwahine and Tainui) is the founding director of Fly, a purpose-driven creative agency based in Auckland.

It’s been a journey. In 2016 I realised I wanted to support the Māori cultural renaissance I saw going on around me Heritage New Zealand

Hōtoke Kōanga••Winter Spring 2021 55

PAPA PĀNUI • NOTICEBOARD

Consider leaving a gift that will last forever

Stay informed with our monthly e-newsletter, covering the latest heritage news and events membership@heritage.org.nz

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

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

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

Tours for 2021/2022

South Canterbury Spring Tour

CHRISTCHURCH - MID & SOUTH CANTERBURY

Governors Bay - Timaru - Waimate - Geraldine - Mesopotamia -Rakaia Gorge Monday 22nd - 27th November 2021 - SOLD OUT - Taking bookings for 2022

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

Lake Tekapo - Lake Wanaka - Lake Hawea - Clyde - Queenstown Monday 25th April to 1st of May 2022 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

56 Kōanga • Spring 2021

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