Heritage New Zealand Kōanga Spring 2022

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTUREIssue Kōanga166• Spring 2022 NZ$9.95 incl. GST POWER HOUSE The magnificent Matangireia RIGHT OF WAY betterEnablingaccesstoheritagebuildings FOOTSTEPSTHROUGHTIME themappingCulturalonEastCape BANK ON IT A landmarkWaipūliveson

Māngungu Mission, Northland Historic mission houses, pā sites, grand estates, mining relics and battlefields - Aotearoa New Zealand is bursting with landmarks that tell our uniquely Kiwi stories. Visit them all with Tohu Whenua, a network of our nation’s most treasured heritage places. Visit tohuwhenua.nz or pick up a free brochure today.

Heritage New Zealand Kōanga • Spring 2022 1 Explore the list 8 How convenient Near a busy Auckland intersection stands one of our earliest purpose-built public toilets for women 10 When stars align The restoration of two iconic buildings at The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora signals the near completion of the wider restoration of the Christchurch heritage complex Journeys into the past 44 River city stories Gaining a deeper understanding of Whanganui’s diverse heritage 48 Women’s business The role of historic places in keeping alive the advancement of women’s rights 3Columns Editorial 4 Noticeboard 52 PerspectivesBooks on discrimination, leadership, history and navigation 54 Our heritage, my GrahamvisionJudd on preserving the art of printing 12Features Joy of bees The stories of the North are a passion for te reo Māori translator Joy Ngaropo-Hau 16 Where it all began Parliament’s first dedicated Māori Affairs select committee room celebrates its centenary 22 AthroughFootstepstimeprojectcapturing significant sites on the East Cape is helping realise a wider kaupapa conceived decades ago 30 In good company For almost 100 years, Auckland’s Shortland Flats have been a great place to live 36 Making an entrance What can be done to make our heritage places more accessible? 40 Keep smiling Once suffering neglect, a Waipū landmark building has been brought back to life Kōanga • Spring 2022 1022 44 16 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, manufactured from pulp from responsible sources under the ISO 14001 Environmental Management System. Please recycle. 40 NGĀ KŌRERO O ROTO • CONTENTS

supporters

Mr Peter and Mrs Tori Jackson

give anonymously. Watch this space Urgent repairs are needed and with your support we can get work underway on this Category 1 heritage gem. Want to help? Keep an eye out for your personalised fundraising pack coming soon in the mail.

Mr William MacManus and Sally Riches Mr Bruce and Mrs Barbara Lockett Mrs Tatiana and Mr David Barker Ms Helen Carrad

Mrs Gaye Morton Mr Peter and Mrs Trish Woodcock Mr Stephen and Mrs Jenny Hart

Replace the roof

Mrs Ann Neill Mr Andy and Mrs Sarah Bloomer Mr Jim and Mrs Andrea Hawkless Ms Sheryl Frew We very to all those who have recently made Whilst some are kindly acknowledged below, many more have chosen to

ANTRIM HOUSE, WELLINGTON repair chimneythestacksexterior will be stripped back and repainted Antrim House is a much-loved nationally significant Category 1 historic place that is also the National Office of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

Mrs Tracie and Mr Graham Williams Mrs Gillian Clarke Mrs Christine Wargent

Mr Colin and Mrs Barbara Hickling

Mrs Louise Cornelissen and Mr Glen Kimber Mr Shayne Elliott Mr Kelvin and Mrs Sue Allen Ms Joy Clark

donations.

are

grateful

Heritage New Zealand Kōanga • Spring 2022 3 Town and country Heritage Issue 166 Kōanga • Spring 2022 ISSN 1175-9615 (Print) ISSN 2253-5330 (Online) Cover image: byMatangireiaMikeHeydon 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 7968 as at 30 June 2022. 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 Publishing. 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 heritage.org.nz

In the early hours one morning, Heritage New Zealand magazine art director Amanda Trayes and I drove against the tide of traffic pouring into central Auckland and headed north. Our destination was Ōmāpere, to visit te reo Māori translator Joy Ngaropo-Hau for an interview at her Hokianga home.

We said our goodbyes soon after, the couple loading us up with more delicious bread. Needless to say, as we wound our way back through the verdant landscape, it didn’t last long. That same week I had the privilege of carrying out interviews for another story, a world away from the quiet shores of Ōmāpere. Located on Shortland Street in Auckland’s CBD, Shortland Flats is an almost-century-old apartment building that’s home to a self-described “small community of owners and residents creating a great place to live since 1923”.

I love a road trip, and for this issue I got to go on a goodie.

After the Auckland lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, my joy at being able to travel beyond the city limits still hadn’t dissipated, and turning onto State Highway 12 to head northwest was something I hadn’t done in years. While sailing past roadside signs for kūmara, crossing the Wairoa River and winding through the mighty Waipoua Forest, we solved the world’s problems over coffee and snacks.

After the interview, we sat down to lunch with the couple and their daughter Te Ao Marama. As I slathered butter on the warm fried bread Joy had prepared along with soup, the couple shared more about their ongoing plans for their largely self-sufficient home, which harnesses solar power and harvests rainwater.

Although I state it in the story on Joy, I’ll say it again: the view on arrival at the home she shares with her husband Lou is breathtaking – an uninterrupted and glorious panorama of the entrance to Hokianga Harbour and its northern shores. It was such a pleasure to hear Joy speak of her work, particularly the satisfaction she derives from being able to work from the beautiful place she calls home while using her skills and experience to tell heritage stories relating to Te Tai Tokerau.

The residents I spoke with are clearly carrying on that tradition. They described a place where excess produce is left on neighbours’ doorsteps, older apartment dwellers become surrogate grandparents for resident children, and conversation flows freely over the communal rooftop washing line. And they are committed to celebrating and protecting the building’s heritage. The cost of the ongoing maintenance of the building, for example, is factored in to the annual shareholders’ levy, and from this year through to 2024 residents have a number of events planned to celebrate the building’s centenary.

I was also impressed with how, even while living in the most urban of environments, many Shortland Flats residents are committed to building community and living more sustainably. Mik Smellie, for example, co-manages a weekly market to bring fresh produce to inner-city dwellers, while Bruce Ross shared how he no longer owns a car and processes his and some other residents’ food scraps in a worm farm at an inner-city community garden.

This re-emphasised a gentle theme I see running through many heritage stories: treading more lightly on the Earth. At a time when now, more than ever, we need to put such knowledge into practice, our heritage heroes – whether in town or country – are showing the way.

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 @heritagenz RETURN TO CONTENTS

Digging deep Hello, heritage supporters, and welcome to the latest issue of yourAftermagazine!thepast few years, we’ve all been keenly aware that a lot can change in a short amount of time. While 2019 was only three short years ago, we’ve seen so much change in the intervening period due to TheseCovid-19.changes have been felt keenly in the heritage world, where staff and communities have been affected not only by illness but also by properties closing due to gathering restrictions and visitor numbers reducing due to border closures. These disruptions mean it’s also been three years since Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga launched a major fundraising campaign to carry out crucial work on a specific heritage property we care for. That last campaign, called #FOREVEROSP, helped raise the $1.8 million needed to strengthen and future-proof Old St Paul’s, a Category 1 historic place in Wellington. But the need to maintain our treasured heritage places hasn’t stopped. So we’re thrilled to kick off a new fundraising campaign focused on strengthening and reroofing Antrim House in Wellington.

... WITH BRENDON VEALE MEMBER AND SUPPORTER UPDATE BEHIND THE STORY WITH PHOTOGRAPHER JOSIE MCCLUTCHIE Can you tell us about yourself? He uri tēnei o ngā iwi o te Tairawhiti, o Ngāti Porou, Rongomaiwahine, Rongowhakaata hoki. I’m a self-taught photographer based in Tūranga-nui-a-Kiwa (Gisborne). My background is in television and film editing, and photography was a natural crossover for me as both are about storytelling. I realised later in life, right before I had my daughter, that "I want to be a photographer when I grow up". Ten years on, my proudest and most successful production is, in fact, my girl, Areta. She often travels with me on shoots, as she did for this assignment for Heritage New Zealand magazine.

Rongokako, as it is referred to locally, became a marine reserve in 1999 and is jointly administered by the local iwi Ngāti Konohi and the Department of Conservation. Rongokako is now a popular tourist destination where you can snorkel in a protected marine environment. The legendary footprint of Rongokako (Te Tapuwae o Rongokako), an ancestor of the East Coast, is embedded in one of the rocky structures of the marine reserve, close to shore. josiemcclutchie.com hui: gathering kaimoana: seafood kōura: crayfish whakapapa: genealogy

The assignment involved capturing images for a story on the Ngā Tapuwae cultural mapping project. What was the experience like? Initially I thought it would be a routine shoot at a local marae – one I’m not that familiar with – where after the formalities I would set about making myself ‘invisible’ and try not to be a distraction. But when I arrived I was pleasantly surprised to discover that many who’d gathered knew my parents, grandparents and extended whānau members really well. My grandmother was brought up in a valley nearby and my father used to live in the area. So it turned out to be a glorious day of making whānau connections and learning whakapapa that enabled the group to feel a bit more at ease with having a ‘stranger’ move amongst them to record their hui. What’s a significant place to you?

Ngā Tapuwae o Rongokako/Pouawa. These adjoining beaches are on State Highway 35, approximately 16 kilometres north of Gisborne. I went there often as a kid with my father, who would free-dive around the rocks collecting kaimoana – and I would wait for several hours to spot him far off in the distance making the long walk back with a sack full of kina, kōura and pāua slung across his shoulder.

The work involves replacing the building’s corrugated-steel roof, repainting the exterior, seismic strengthening the chimneys and roof structure, improving essential fire safety systems and other related work. This Category 1 historic place is the National Office of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, and we’re excited to showcase how we care for the nation’s heritage through this project. How can you help? You’ll find all the details about donating to this project on page 2 of thisWe’remagazine.soexcited to be launching this campaign and sharing the journey of this next phase in the life of Antrim House with you, our valued heritage supporters. Stay tuned here or keep an eye on the Heritage this Month and Members’ Club e-newsletters for project updates. Brendon Veale Manager Asset Funding 0800 HERITAGE (0800 bveale@heritage.org.nz437482)

PAPA PĀNUI • NOTICEBOARD Heritage New Zealand4 Kōanga • Spring 2022

Heritage New Zealand Kōanga • Spring 2022 5 HERITAGE NEW ZEALAND POUHERE TAONGA DIRECTORY National Office PO Box 2629, Wellington 6140 Antrim House 63 Boulcott Street Wellington 6011 (04) 472 Goinformation@heritage.org.nz4341to www.heritage.org.nz for details of offices and historic places around New Zealand that are cared for by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga. Ngā Taonga i tēnei marama Heritage this month –subscribe now Keep up to date by subscribing to our free e-newsletter Ngā Taonga i tēnei marama Heritage this month. Visit www.heritage.org.nz (‘Resources’ section) or tomembership@heritage.org.nzemailbeincludedintheemaillist. Christchurch, p10 Places we visit Wellington, p16 Auckland, p8, p30 Waipū, p40 Ōmāpere, p12 Whanganui, p44 Nevis Valley, p28

BEHIND THE STORY WITH WITH ROBYN HUNT Writer, disability consultant and commentator Robyn Hunt writes this issue’s story on accessibility and heritage buildings (page 36). It’s not often we have a writer for Heritage New Zealand magazine who actually lives in a notable ModernistTowers,youthemselves,buildingbutliveinJellicoealandmarkbuilding in central Wellington. When and how did you come to live there? We moved here in the early ofdownsizing.2000s,Neitherusdrivesand we wanted to live somewhere central. So many apartments were claustrophobic and sunless, and I fell in love with the light, the views and the wide skies. There are no internal bedrooms and we have a whole floor to ourselves. What do you love about living where you do? It’s quiet yet close to all the action. I can see greenery and we get the sun. You write about accessibility in heritage spaces in this issue. How does Jellicoe Towers stack up in terms of accessibility? Most buildings of the time weren’t built with accessibility in mind, so there’s no accessible entry. There are a couple of steps, good entry doors, and a decent-sized (if old) lift, but I suspect the apartment entrances would be too narrow and there would be difficulty widening them because of the thick concrete walls. The building’s smoke-control doors are heavy, but I suggested marking the fire escape steps, which was duly done – there are always some access improvements possible. Wheelchair-using friends, however, can't visit. For more on Jellicoe Towers, visit nzia.co.nz/awards/local/award-detail/9221

4-83COLLECTIONSHERITAGELIBRARIESAUCKLANDIMAGE:

PAPA PĀNUI • NOTICEBOARD Heritage New Zealand6 Kōanga • Spring 2022

“Honey is an ancient food. It originates from Canaan – a land renowned for the flowing of honey. It is delicious, hence the words in this song: ‘Honey is sweeter than the honeycomb’.”

Through Joy’s translation of Ko Nga Pī , Revd Cotton’s affection and admiration for bees is evident, as in this passage where he writes: “Bees are intelligent and very industrious ... They enjoy making honey. They don’t like how some people work, sitting around lazily during the day. Created by God, they have the intelligence and the persistence to do what works best for them.”

The archaeologists were in a stormwater drain in Auckland when they first noticed something unusual. To the untrained eye it wouldn’t have looked like much – just a pile of rubble dumped against the ... WITH PAUL VEART Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Web and Digital Advisor SOCIAL HERITAGE remains of a basalt wall. But to Dr Sarah Phear, the deposit held something more: iron nails, alloy fittings and chunks of masonry – and the unmistakable marks of fire. The discovery sent Sarah, an Auckland-based archaeologist, on an immediate search for answers, including an exploration of one of Auckland’s most prominent 19th-century newspapers, The Daily Southern Cross. In an edition from 20 November 1872, she found what she was looking for: an article titled ‘Destructive fire’. The article told how a huge blaze had broken out on the corner of Fort Street and what is now Jean Batten Place. The flames had spread quickly, consuming the customhouse building, provincial government offices and the post office. Repairs were estimated at £46,000 – a phenomenal amount at the time – and many buildings were uninsured. The 1872 fire was a pivotal moment in the history of Tāmaki Makaurau – the type of event that can reshape a city’s selfimage. Yet to most modern-day Auckland residents, the incident was unknown. Sarah wanted to change this. To help spread the word, we recently featured the story of the fire on the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Facebook page. The post drew immediate interest, with 20,000 impressions and 351 reactions. There was also significant engagement with Sarah’s Archaeology Week webinar, which gave context to the 2010–13 Fort Street excavations in which evidence of the fire was first unearthed.Wanttoknow more? Delve into the digitised pages of The Daily Southern Cross via Papers Past: DSC18721120.2.17govt.nz/newspapers/paperspast.natlib.

What information does Ko Nga Pī cover? While the book is brief, Revd Cotton ranges over many aspects of beekeeping, including the benefits and qualities of honey, “the bee and its protocols” and how to work with beehives, including how to build a beehive and position it correctly.

The sweetest thing

Joy, who is a Hokianga-based te reo Māori translator, recounts her recent experience of translating the text in the context of her wider career in this issue’s profile story (page 12).

So begins Ko Nga Pī , as translated by Joy Ngaropo-Hau.Printedin1849 by St John’s College Press, Ko Nga Pī is a 21-page book that explores the “customs and processes around caring for bees, processing honey and their wax”, written in te reo Māori by the Revd William Cotton, who was chaplain to Bishop Selwyn at St John’s College.

SUPPLIEDIMAGE:

Revd Cotton had strong ties to Te Waimate Mission and Māngungu Mission – Category 1 historic places in Northland now cared for by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga. And he was a passionate apiarist who is largely credited with introducing the skills of beekeeping in the North Island.

Harvesting the fruits of the bees’ labour is the focus of much of the text, which also covers everything from extracting and processing honey to preparing honey and wax to sell.

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Heritage Zealand

SUPPLIEDIMAGERY:

New

WALL FLOWERS

New Zealanders love to bring the outdoors into their homes and, as these wallpapers show, the trend is nothing new. A veritable meadow of blooms adorns these Colin McArthur & Co wallpapers, which are highlights of the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga online collection. The iconic Colin McArthur & Co wallpaper was manufactured in Canada, and the firm produced a wide variety of patterns from 1874 to 1927, many of which were imported into New Zealand. Prior to moving to Canada around the turn of the 20th century, Colin McArthur managed the Glasgow firm of Wylie & Lochhead, which introduced papers with machineprinted metallic colours from the US – an influence evident in McArthur’s own early wallpapers. These examples were produced before 1914. They are part of one of the largest collections of historic wallpapers in the Southern Hemisphere and are cared for by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga. To see more, visit colin-mcarthur/objectscollection.heritage.org.nz/highlights/

TŪHURATIA TE RĀRANGI • EXPLORE THE LIST

Auckland became New Zealand’s largest city in 1891, and by 1910 Symonds Street was an important arterial route for trams ferrying people to and from the city centre. So the purpose of constructing the toilet building at the new intersection with Grafton Bridge was actually twofold: to

This Category 2 historic place, with its terracotta brick façade, arched porch and symmetrical columns topped with small finial balls, has a compelling narrative that also reflects the societal changes of its time. Auckland city engineer Walter Ernest Bush designed the toilets in the Edwardian Baroque style, which was developed during the reign of King Edward VII (1901–10). Edwardian (or Imperial) Baroque drew upon Classical, Renaissance and Baroque architectural languages and was, in part, influenced by the works of acclaimed architect Sir Christopher Wren (also a noted astronomer, anatomist, mathematician and physicist). When New Zealand changed from being a colony to a dominion in 1907, Edwardian Baroque buildings served as a reminder in the public eye of New Zealand's continued connection to the British Empire as the country moved to greater self-governance. The trees that today frame the toilets with their overhanging branches began as seedlings in Symonds Street Cemetery, which accommodated burials from 1841. A Category 1 historic place, the cemetery fans out along both sides of Symonds Street and under Grafton Bridge. Directly behind the toilets is the Wesleyan and General burial ground, with the oldest part of the cemetery (converted from a general to an Anglican graveyard in 1842) also nearby. From the toilets, the vista through the trees skips over gravestones and is arrested by the bridge’s elegant concrete central arch. Also completed in 1910, the Category 1 historic place was an audacious project – at the time it was claimed to be the world’s largest single reinforced-concrete span – and unlike the ornamental toilets, embodied an emerging change in aesthetics towards a more industrial, cleaner architecture.

Near a busy central-Auckland intersection stands one of New Zealand’s earliest purpose-built public toilets for women

WORDS: CHRIS VAN RYN • IMAGERY: TRACEY HARTLEY

convenientHow

Nestled against variegated green foliage and next to the busy central Auckland intersection of Symonds Street and Grafton Bridge is one of New Zealand's more notable heritage public conveniences, the 1910 Bus Shelter and OriginallyToilets.called the Grafton Bridge Conveniences, it’s a diminutive building, but one that encapsulates the architectural spirit of much larger public buildings of its era, such as the Auckland Town Hall, Wellington’s (former) Public Trust Office, and many further afield in Britain and other parts of the former British Empire.

Heritage New Zealand8 Kōanga • Spring 2022

details/561heritage.org.nz/the-list/

constructed in 1863, so this milestone building came nearly 50 years later. A further 27 years on, in 1937, there were just six public toilets for women in Auckland, but 20 for men. Used by about 100 women per day, the entrance to the women’s toilet was inconveniently located inside the tram shelter, while the men’s was more discreetly located around the side. This meant women had to push past waiting passengers before they could spend a penny. In 1922, following complaints and campaigning, a new door was created to “... alter the entrance to the ladies’ convenience to agree with men’s entrance”, according to the City of Auckland Engineers Department. No remnants of this original door, however, were identified during site investigations and other work undertaken during the building’s recent restoration, which included a seismic upgrade. The toilets went through several iterations and upgrades over the years, but during the most recent decade in particular the building fell into disrepair. The reality of public toilets is they are subject to high activity and Grafton,LOCATIONasuburb of Auckland city, is characterised by its many historic buildings.

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The building was Auckland’s first designed for this dual purpose, and it was the first in the city to serve another function: providing the earliest standalone public conveniences for women. It remains one of the earliest purpose-built public toilets in the country to accommodate women.

floor featuring a reddish border with bronze trim, and a dark cream for the main space. The seismic upgrade involved strengthening the roof into a structural diaphragm tied to the walls, which were in turn anchored to the floor. Discreet steel sections secured the parapet and were embedded in the walls. So meticulous was the restoration that parts of the original timber framing in the ceiling work were uncovered and salvaged. A mural painted inside the shelter around 2010, depicting a fairytale-like forest scene, was retained as part of the restoration. And a narrow bench now spans the shelter entrance in a nod to its original seat for passengers.

The same trees that filtered and romanced the light over the building had also shed their leaves and blocked an ill-equipped internal gutter, forcing overflowing water into unwanted areas. That the building also served as a refuge for those facing housing insecurity was another facet that informed itsInrestoration.2019,with support from the Waitematā Local Board, the restoration process began with an initial site and heritage investigation. Contractors commenced on site in May 2021 and the restoration was completed 11 months later. During the work, wall tiles from 1940 were discovered and restored, and a small section of the original flooring made from arkalite (an aggregate composite concrete much like terrazzo) was uncovered. This informed the colour palette of a new replica provide public conveniences and a tram shelter that served electric tram routes until the late 1920s, and then buses.

Heritage New Zealand Kōanga • Spring 2022 9

The city’s first public toilets for men, at Queens Wharf, were

“Our approach was to treat the toilet fittings as modern additions to the heritage space,” says Tracey Hartley, the heritage consultant from Salmond Reed Architects who was responsible for the design and management of the project.

The toilet’s new interior fittings, however, are a striking departure from its original porcelain fittings: the stainless-steel toilets and urinals are utilitarian and robust.

“We were given the brief that they had to meet the most robust standards on the market because of the wear and tear of a public facility. We always saw them as replaceable items in the years to come, as distinct from the heritage interior.”

often harsh treatment. Decades of minor ground shifts had also culminated in cracks beginning to spider-web across the walls and façade, and a self-seeding tree in the cemetery had sent a network of roots under the building, undermining its foundations.

Robin Byron, Senior Conservation Architect in the Northern Regional Office of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, says the organisation is delighted with the result.

“The care and thoughtfulness with which the project was executed, and the nimble responsiveness part way through the works to retain portions of uncovered original fabric and modify the design based on these discoveries, added to the historical richness of the place,” she says.

PAPA PĀNUI • NOTICEBOARD Heritage New Zealand10 Kōanga • Spring 2022

Carving curved walls using basalt and Oamaru stone was a challenge for the specialist stonemasons working on the Observatory Tower; rebuilding the tower’s dome, which was originally topped with canvas and wood, was another challenge

“Overall,restoration.it’sahuge success story that we were able to go so much further than we initially thought we would,” says Philip.

Once significantly damaged by the Canterbury earthquakes, the Observatory Tower and the Biology building at The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora have been restored

WORDS: KIM TRIEGAARDT • IMAGERY: MIKE HEYDON the stone columns and across the quadrangle. This is the community engagement he is so excited to see coming back to The Arts Centre precinct in “It’sChristchurch.thatmuch closer now that we have finished the bulk of the restoration work,” he says. The complex of Gothic Revival buildings was once home to the region’s first higher education facility, Canterbury College, which evolved into the University of Canterbury. More recently it has been the scene of one of the world’s largest and most complex restoration projects after the buildings were damaged by the 2010–11 Canterbury earthquakes.

Philip Aldridge, Director of The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora, grins as we dodge youngsters on a school activity hurtling around

Canterbury College’s School of Engineering, will be earthquake strengthened and then left for future

“Every project we’ve done has come in on budget. We were able to raise enough money, including $10 million from the Observatory Tower’s ‘Be a star’ fundraiser, to complete 20 out of 22 of the buildings.”

When stars align

In what would turn out to be Mountfort’s last contract with Canterbury College, he designed the tower specially to house the Townsend Teece Telescope – an equatorial telescope built in Britain and donated to the college by early settler James Townsend in 1891.

The last of the completed work has been on the Observatory Tower and Biology building, which wraps around the tower. It feels like a natural end point for the project, as the Observatory Tower became one of the most visible signs of the damage wrought by the quakes when it collapsed onto the South Quad.

ChristchurchLOCATIONislocated near the southern end of Pegasus Bay in the South Island.

The remaining two buildings, which originally housed

“We did manage to bring that cost right down,” says Philip.

TŪHURATIA TE RĀRANGI • EXPLORE THE LIST

The buildings – the first of which were designed in the Gothic style by Benjamin Mountfort in 1873, with additions embracing the Gothic style and made in the first quarter of the 21st century by a series of architects – were well insured. However, the $168 million payout didn’t come close to the $290 million the restoration was originally scoped to cost.

It could be a remake of that classic scene from the 1980s historical sports drama Chariots of Fire. Students are racing around a Gothic cloister, but the Vangelis soundtrack is replaced by the excited shouts and boisterous laughter of children.

The 18-metre-high Observatory Tower and adjoining buildings have been restored using as much of the original material as could be salvaged, with the project team able to go back to Mountfort’s original external plan.

HeritageNewZealandyoutube.com/PouhereTaonga

For both Philip and Christine, there has been a silver lining to the rebuild. “The restoration mana whenua: those with tribal authority over land or territory by virtue of possessionoccupationand/or

See more of The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora:

has given us the opportunity to weave in te aō Māori, the Māori worldview, which was not a strong feature in this complex of colonial buildings, into its future,” says“WhatPhilip.previously was silent in the landscape, we are now able to express in our built environment as well,” says Christine. Visitors will be able to look down from the Observatory Tower balcony onto the picturesque South Quad, which has new paving that tells the story of Ngāi Tūāhuriri as mana whenua of the site.

“People talk about the Town Hall being the living room of the city, but The Arts Centre has always had a vibrancy that makes it another one of those spaces. It’s the place you can hang out and enjoy a range of activities.”

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details/7301heritage.org.nz/the-list/ painstakingly repaired the telescope in a job that turned out to bookend his career. Not only did one of his first jobs at the university involve working on the telescope, but his final task after restoring the quake-damaged telescope was to hand-stitch the leather cap that goes over the lens. Reinstating the 154-year-old Townsend Teece Telescope is the final step in the observatory project. Once the telescope is back in place, regular free public viewing sessions on clear Friday nights will again become part of the city’s weekend activities.

Christine Whybrew, Acting Director Southern for Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, is a Cantabrian with fond memories of the Observatory Tower. “It was where we went on Friday evenings,” she says.

Heritage New Zealand Kōanga • Spring 2022 11

With a nod to the economic realities of the ongoing funding of the precinct, The Arts Centre has turned the Biology building adjoining the observatory into the 33-room Observatory Hotel. What were once the prep rooms and senior laboratory on the ground floor are now the Observatory Hotel’s drawing room and library bar. Upstairs, the former professor’s room is now a business centre, for the project team. When Mountfort’s plans eventually came to light, the restoration team was pleasantly surprised to find the specifications matched almost exactly the metal dome they had built.Storyboards in the tower now tell how it took a week to sift through 35 tonnes of rubble to find the remains of the telescope. Miraculously, the lens was intact, which meant the telescope could beThereconstructed.lateGraeme Kershaw, a technician in the University of Canterbury’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, and the lecture room will become a public exhibition space.

Built at the height of the Arts and Crafts movement, the refurbished rooms echo that era with William Morris prints and local handcrafted furniture and fittings. Features like a centuryold bricked-up window and most of the tower’s original staircase, which was meticulously restored, have been left in place. Within the fabric of the building and well hidden are state-of-the-art seismic strengthening, Wi-Fi and artesianChristineheating.says the heritage restoration has been exemplary: “They have done a remarkable job with limited means.” Now the public finally has the opportunity to see it first-hand.

The Canterbury Astronomical Society, which meets monthly at the university, hosted a Matariki event in June and is planning a Pacific wayfinding exhibition.

Heritage New Zealand WHAKAAHUA • PROFILE

WORDS: CAITLIN SYKES • IMAGERY: AMANDA TRAYES

Heritage New Zealand Kōanga • Spring 2022 13

As part of his efforts to promulgate beekeeping skills among Māori and Pākehā in New Zealand, Cotton also published several works, including the 1848 A Manual for New Zealand Beekeepers , which ran to more than 100 pages, and Ko Nga Pī Joy understands Cotton began learning te reo Māori on his voyage to New Zealand, taught by a Māori deckhand. However, after undertaking the translation of Ko Nga Pī , which was commissioned by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, she considers his education in te reo was incomplete.

Sydney in 1844. (Cotton had tried to transport hives on his voyage from England to New Zealand, but unfortunately the bees didn’t survive the journey.)

Joy

Pulling up at the home that Joy Ngaropo-Hau shares with her husband Lou is an immediately arresting experience. Beyondthe expansive lawn in front of the couple’s distinctive octagonal house lies the most spectacular view, with the head of Te throughouthavetodeterminationrecentsemi-retirement,TestoriesonaworksadvisorhakaworkingHokiangaWaihouharbour’swasbeyond.belowHokianga-nui-a-KupeandtheendlessseaJoy(NgātiTeReinga)bornandraisedonthenorthernshore,atnearPanguru,andisherhome.She’swornmanyhatsinherlife–teacher,kapaexponent,TVtereoMāoriandpresenter–andtodayfromherŌmāperehomeastereoMāoritranslator,mainlyprojectsthathelptelltheofherbelovedHokianga,TaiTokerau. AlthoughJoyisnowinoneofherprojectsexemplifiesaandopennesscontinuedlearningthatbeencommonthreadshercareer.

BEESOF

Telling the stories of the North is a passion for te reo Māori translator Joy Ngaropo-Hau, whose recent work has included unravelling the mysteries of a 173-year-old text on bees and beekeeping

It was here that Cotton – a passionate apiarist who had developed a strong interest in bees and beekeeping from childhood – received his first hives in New Zealand from

“There were wrong words used; there were words that didn’t make sense, so I got a bit hōhā with it,” she says. “But when things get tough, I’m not one to give up.”

Joy is a lifelong speaker of te reo Māori. She recalls that “It was the biggest challenge I’d ever faced in my translation work, and my biggest learning curve,” she says, of her work on Ko Nga Pī Published in 1849, the 21-page book explores the “customs and processes around caring for bees, processing honey and their wax” and was written in te reo Māori by the Revd William Cotton.  While he wasn’t the first to introduce honey bees to New Zealand, Revd Cotton is largely credited with introducing the skills of beekeeping to the North Island. Cotton was a friend of George Augustus Selwyn, and after Selwyn was appointed the first Anglican Bishop of New Zealand, Cotton joined him as his chaplain in the missionary party that landed here in 1842. Selwyn initially set up residence at the Te Waimate Mission, now a Category 1 historic place cared for by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, which had been established more than a decade earlier by the Church Missionary Society.

Heritage New Zealand14 Kōanga • Spring 2022

“I didn’t know any of the processes to do with beekeeping. I had to get books from the library – manuals in English for beekeeping – which I found helpful, but it was still difficult, especially with the age of the book,” she recalls.

“There are many people whom I regard as our experts in te reo. However, [I work] on good advice from one of them who says, ‘Always work with another translator for quality assurance and to ensure excellence’.”Joydrewparticularly on this advice when tackling the challenging Ko Nga Pī , enlisting translation assistance from her son-in-law Adam Whauwhau, who is kaiako of te reo Māori and head translator at Te Kura, formerly The Correspondence School. The book’s subject matter added another layer of complexity to translating the text, says Joy.

WHAKAAHUA • PROFILE

her parents, who had been punished for speaking the language, didn’t directly speak te reo Māori with her and her siblings growing up as they wanted to spare their children that same ordeal.

“She is our Karani,” says Joy. “Tainui [film producer Tainui Stevens] wanted someone with the same dialect as Whina and I enjoyed being able to use the dialect that I’m familiar with and is from my home.”

“But they used the language when they wanted to speak about something they didn’t want us to know about – and weJoyunderstood.”studiedte reo Māori at secondary and tertiary levels, and her approach to the language and its translation has been influenced by many experts. At secondary school, for example, she was taught by renowned writer and teacher Arapera Blank.

“But between Adam and I we got the translation to a point where we were really satisfied. And at the end of the project I was so proud that I hadn’t given up, which ultimately gave me more confidence in myself as a Joytranslator.”alsorecently translated the script for Whina , the biopic of Dame Whina Cooper starring Miriama McDowell and Rena Owen. Despite the script running to 120 pages, she says the project was a far simpler undertaking and gave her the cherished opportunity to honour Dame Whina, who she connects with through whakapapa on her father’s side.

Joy is a passionate advocate for the language of the North. She worked as a translator, advisor, subtitler and presenter (on the show Kuia ) for many years at Māori Television and is a certified translator through “It was the biggest challenge I’d ever faced in my translation work, and my biggest learning curve”

Determined that their four children would be fluent in te reo Māori but aware of a shortage of teachers, Joy and Lou trained to become teachers themselves. Joy commuted to Auckland from their home in Kaikohe for the year of training when their youngest child, Te Ao Marama, was still a baby; Lou followed several years later. In 1995 Joy spent a year in night classes undertaking Dynamics of Whanaungatanga, a programme that was pioneered by the esteemed Hokianga and Catholic Church leader the late Pā Henare Tate and provides a framework for wellbeing based on te ao MāoriRecentlyprinciples.Joytranslated 12 storyboards that form part

“So I waited another two years, and then I challenged Te Taura Whiri. I said, ‘I’m not coming back to sit the test again until you get an assessor from my area’, because none of the assessors were from Northland. I said, ‘It’s not fair, because some of the words I used, they were not familiar with’,” she recalls. “So then I had two assessors who were familiar with my mita, hence I passed.” Joy gained her translation certification at 60, in keeping with a life spent learning.

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Te Taura Whiri i Te Reo Māori (the Māori Language Commission). However, she narrowly missed passing the written section of the commission’s certification assessment on her first attempt.

“We’ve come home; it’s beautiful and we love it. My heart is in the stories of where I come from” award-winning group’s 50th jubilee celebrations last year.  Keeping your mind on work in such an idyllic spot, admits Joy, takes discipline. Warmer than the sun shining outside on the day of our visit is the aroha, manaakitanga and stories the couple share with their many and frequent visitors.  “We’ve come home; it’s beautiful and we love it,” she says. “My heart is in the stories of where I come from.”

Another privilege of translation work, says Joy, is being able to do it from the Ōmāpere home she and Lou made their permanent base around five years ago. The couple first met 50 years ago in Christchurch as foundation members of the kapa haka group Te Kotahitanga, and Joy and Lou were there for the aroha: love hōhā: annoyed, fed up kaiako: teacher Karani: Granny manaakitanga: respectful care mita: dialect pī: bees te ao Māori: the Māori world view Te Hokianga-nui-a-Kupe: Hokianga Harbour Te Tai Tokerau: Northland whakapapa: line of ancestry, genealogy

Heritage New Zealand Kōanga • Spring 2022 15

of the interpretation at the Raiātea Motuti Resource and Archive Centre, which houses a collection of Māori and Polynesian artefacts, and objects relating to the history of the Catholic Church in New Zealand – most of which were collected by Pā Tate.  “That project felt like an opportunity for me to give back,” she says. “It was a privilege.”

NGĀ TAPUWAE O NGĀ TŪPUNA • MĀORI HERITAGE

For 19 years, Jim has tutored small groups as an advisor for the Māori Built Heritage Team at Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga. A former schoolteacher of Te Arawa descent, he travels the country from his home in Rotorua, passing on knowledge and techniques learned from his late mum and master weaver, Emily Schuster.

Parliament’s first dedicated Māori Affairs select committee room, Matangireia, celebrates its centenary

WORDS: JACQUI GIBSON • IMAGERY: MIKE HEYDON

Today’s tutorial at Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne, Wellington’s urban wildlife sanctuary, is a particularly special one.

A half-day practical lesson for around 30 invitees, it’s also the first-ever cultural harvest for Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne and a major milestone in a three-year conservation project led by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga. In 2019 Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga was asked to assess and report on the condition of Parliament’s first dedicated Māori Affairs select committee room, known as ‘Matangireia’ (or ‘House in the uppermost heaven’). The then Māori Development Minister Nanaia Mahuta wanted to check on the state of the 97-year-old room in her care, given that more than 25 years had passed since conservator Jack Fry had carried out any repairs. Had Matangireia been damaged since then? Was more repair work required? Officially retired as Parliament’s select committee room in 1991, Matangireia features 110 carvings showcasing the mastery of Te Arawa craftsmen from Rotorua. On the walls are 16 tukutuku panels and several photos of prominent Māori MPs, including Sir Apirana Ngata and Sir Māui Pōmare, who were responsible for the establishment of the room in 1922.

It’s a bright autumn day in Karori as Jim Schuster explains the steps involved in harvesting wild kiekie to the small crowd gathered around him.

ITWHEREALL BEGAN

1 Jim Schuster, an advisor for the Māori Built Heritage Team at Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, and wānanga attendee Louise Wright Matangireia.inside

Jim’s workshop, which upskilled attendees and sourced valuable plant material for the tukutuku repair work, is just one example, she says; the project featured many more.

Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Service Te Ratonga Whare Pāremata curatorial team, led by Tasha Fernandez, reframed and repositioned the photographs in the room and used Matangireia as their inspiration to commission an artwork by Zena Elliott now on display.

“In the very early days, Matangireia would’ve been something of a touchstone to the MPs and communities who went there to lodge petitions and discuss issues of

Heritage New Zealand18 Kōanga • Spring 2022

Between May and July, conservation wānanga for five architects and artists were held to pass on best practice and get them involved in the room’s conservation.

In May, Rotorua tohunga, whose tūpuna had blessed the room when it opened in 1922, were invited to travel to Wellington to close the room spiritually for conservation work and return to reopen the room when the work was completed.

2 The room’s plaster cornices by James McDonald were modelled on those found in the Dominion Museum and were painted black and red in 1955.

A five-by-two-metre copy of Te Tiriti o Waitangi was installed on the east wall in 1955. Kōwhaiwhai cornices adorn the ceilings. The south wall, meanwhile, depicts the entrance of a wharenui to give visitors the sense of sitting in a traditional courtyard, or marae ātea, where important discussions typically take place.

3 Wānanga conservation.learnandarchitecture,representingattendees,Māoridesign,maraearts,abouttaonga

“It’s been great to see the different ways people have connected with Matangireia throughout this project,” says Dean.

Māori Built Heritage Team Director Ellen Andersen wrote the 2019 Taonga Conservation Condition Assessment Report. And together with Dean Whiting, Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Deputy Chief Executive Kaihautū, and Jim, she led the staff and volunteers who implemented its recommendations over four months this year. In the report, Ellen noted that up to 10 hours of restoration work was needed to repair broken kiekie stitches on the room’s tukutuku panels. All up, she estimated it would take up to 210 hours of restoration work to bring the room up to scratch. “With projects like these, our role isn’t simply to find out what work is needed and to do that work,” says Ellen. “It also involves passing on what we know and helping others to connect with the taonga through wānanga and getting involved in a more hands-on way.”

NGĀ1 TAPUWAE O NGĀ TŪPUNA • MĀORI HERITAGE

Heritage New Zealand Kōanga • Spring 2022 19 the day. It would’ve been a place that, while looking familiar and feeling comfortable, was also an environment where Māori could assert their political ambitions and stand strong,” says Dean.

And it’s this rich heritage that continues to make Matangireia an important place today.

Labour’s Te Tai Tonga MP Rino Tirikātene agrees.

“But to me, every Māori in Aotearoa connects to this room in some way, be it through the legislation debated here or the tūpuna represented on its walls. We all stand on the shoulders of those who’ve gone before us.”

2 3

“It’s my ‘go to’ room when I need to greet special visitors such as kura students, for example, or when I need an extra-special place to make an announcement.

“Sure, I have a personal connection to Matangireia through my grandfather Eruera Tirikātene and my aunty Whetū Tirikātene-Sullivan, who were both MPs and feature on its walls. And, yes, I remember coming here as a child and sitting on the beautifully carved chairs and, years later, being awarded a cultural ambassador certificate by the then trade minister Mike Moore for playing in the Rātana band.

Funded with the help of the Judith Binney Trust, Ellen’s book explores themes such as the room’s design features, the political and cultural aspirations behind the Māori built heritage within the room and Matangireia’s relationship with its larger replacement, Māui Tikitiki-a-Taranga, built in 1991.

“It’s the effect of all the tūpuna who’ve set foot in there over the years. That’s what makes Matangireia special in my eyes. And then, for me, knowing kuia had their hands on the same tukutuku panels that my mum worked on and that I’ve been able to introduce to a whole new generation. Well, that’s another thing altogether. It gives me that same feeling I get when I walk into a wharenui. It’s that feeling that, at last, I’m home.”

21 NGĀ TAPUWAE O NGĀ TŪPUNA • MĀORI HERITAGE

“Through that school, Ngata was able to successfully revitalise Māori arts and craft, which led to the wonderful range of styles you see in the new select committee room. Matangireia is where it all began,” saysForEllen.Jim, whose great-great-grandfather Tene Waitere was a Ngāti Tarāwhai master carver, the past four months spent working in Matangireia and handing on his skills and knowledge to others have been pretty special.

4 Jim Schuster with harvested kiekie. IMAGE: JACQUI GIBSON

Heritage New Zealand

2 Hand-coloured photographic portraits of the first Māori MPs to receive knighthoods were hung in Matangireia in 1955. Pictured is Sir Apirana Ngata.

1 Conservation design notes.

In 1926 Ngata went on to establish the Rotorua School of Arts and Crafts with one of the same master carvers who had worked on the room, Te Ngaru Ranapia of Ngāti Pikiao.

3 Jim Schuster and Pouārahi Jasmine Hemi examine the tukutuku panels mended during conservation wānanga.

But there’s even more to it, says Jim.

In part, it’s this legacy that Ellen captured in a new book on the 100-year history of Matangireia published in time for the Parliamentary Service centenary celebrations around the room’s reopening in September.

“If you look at the records of the time, Ngata and Pōmare were saying things like: ‘Let’s see whakairo in the debating chamber. Let’s see it on the desks.

To achieve their goals, she says, the pair became members of the then Furnishings Committee at Parliament, which enabled them to decorate the room in a Māori way, using Māori carvers.

Hey, what about the Speaker’s chair?’”

“Matangireia is very much a single-style room, representing Ngāti Tarāwhai carving of Te Arawa,” says Ellen. “It was created at a time when people like Ngata were deeply concerned about the loss of the traditional arts and were advocating the use of Māori art and craft in Parliament.

“To me, walking through Parliament can feel a bit intimidating, if I’m honest,” he says. “You have to be vetted. There’s security scanning. Doors lock fast behind you. In contrast, Matangireia feels like a break away from all that. You can breathe easy in there because it looks and feels like home.”

Heritage New Zealand Kōanga • Spring 2022 21

“It was fantastic to get out on the boat under this huge cascading plant and watch Jim [Schuster] do his thing. It really was beautiful.” n kiekie:nativefibrousvine kōwhaiwhai: painted ornamentationscroll kuia: female elders kura: school mana whenua: those with tribal authority over land or territory mātauranga: knowledge taonga: treasures tohunga: experts tukutuku: woven latticework tūpuna: ancestors wānanga: events for the exchange knowledgeof whakairo: carvings wharenui: meeting house 3

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CULTURAL HARVEST A TURNING POINT FOR ZEALANDIA TE MĀRA A TĀNE

Māori Built Heritage Team Director Ellen Andersen says the goal of the harvest was twofold: “We wanted to bring mana whenua – Taranaki Whānui ki te Upoko o Te Ika and Ngāti Toa Rangatira – and the Zealandia team into the project, and at the same time, we wanted to upskill attendees in the mātauranga associated with harvesting and preparing kiekie.”

Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne Chief Executive Danielle Shanahan says the exercise has changed the way the organisation now operates.

“It marked a turning point for us. For 20 years we’ve mostly focused on species protection. Now cultural harvesting is part of what happens here too.”

She says having a tangible connection with Matangireia is also special.

“It’s likely that we will have some of our big forest giants coming through and starting to dominate – and, of course, we’ll have a stronger relationship with mana whenua and even more kiekie.”

Te Roopu Raranga o Manaia weaver and Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Manager Archaeology Vanessa Tanner, who attended the workshop, says seeing kiekie up close and taking part in the harvesting process was “a weaver’s dream”.

In May the Māori Built Heritage Team at Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga visited

“To be part of the history of the room is incredible. Matangireia is 100 years old. It makes you think: will the kiekie fibres taken from here last as long? And what will Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne look like in another century?

Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne in Wellington to harvest the kiekie needed to repair the Matangireia tukutuku panels.

Heritage New Zealand22 Kōanga • Spring 2022 TE MĀTAI WHAIPARA TANGATA • ARCHAEOLOGY Whānau at Horoera following the launch of Ngā Tapuwae. LIMITEDKONIAHIIMAGERY:

A new

decadesconceivedwiderrealisingisEastsitessignificantfeaturesarchaeologicalstoriescapturingprojecttheandofontheCapepartofakaupapaearlier

When a continual onslaught of thunderous rain pounded the North Island’s East Coast earlier this year, it left slips, road closures, power outages and an almighty mess in its wake. But these weather events also highlighted another ongoing danger for the region: that its history could be washed away.

Back in the 1990s an idea was formed to map and record 36 pā sites dotted between the Pukeamaru Range and East Cape. The aim was to capture knowledge, and the physical clues that pinpointed the history of the area’s people, before they were lost due to erosion, bush regrowth, and animal and human activity such as development, vandalism and fossicking. Since then many sites have been recorded, almost exclusively due to the perseverance of a small group of passionate people. And now a new project is giving fresh impetus to the work as threats to these wāhi tapu ramp up due to factors such as the increasing severity of weather events.

Heritage New Zealand Kōanga • Spring 2022 23

FOOTSTEPS time

through

WORDS: NIKI PARTSCH

Ngā Tapuwae: In the Footsteps of our Tīpuna is a cultural mapping project that involves capturing archaeological information – such as the physical layout, size and features of wāhi tapu – alongside the mātauranga of the people to whom the sites areNgāsignificant.Tapuwae was launched by Te Whānau a Hunaara and Te Whānau a Tarahauiti at an event in January at Wharekāhika Hicks Bay, which included a site visit to Rangitāne Pā at TarahauitiHoroera. was a son of Hunaara, illustrating the close connection between the whānau involved with the project. And as the lightest whisper of rain drifted over the descendants of Hunaara as they made their way up to Rangitāne Pā, the experience evoked deep emotions. For many this was the first time they had been on the land where their ancestors were

MichelleforthePorou.TeEcologicalwhocrowdAmongstburied.the smallwasHalHovell,istheCulturalandAdvisorforRunanganuioNgātiHealsosharestitleofProjectLeadNgāTapuwaewithWanoa.

“The East Coast is, archaeologically speaking, a blank screen, meaning that very few of the hundreds, if not thousands, of sites in the area … show up, for example, on

1

2 TE MĀTAI WHAIPARA TANGATA • ARCHAEOLOGY

3 Matarehua Pā site at East Cape. JOSIE MCCLUTCHIE

1 Hal Hovell delivers his presentation during the final wānanga at Horoera.

Heritage New Zealand

2 Julie and Rei Kōhere.

IMAGERY:

Initially, Hal managed to secure Department of Conservation funding for a brief cultural survey of archaeological sites, and a few hundred sites were surveyed before the money ran out. After this, Hal spent much of his own time gathering and recording information, including oral histories from elders. Also involved in the mapping of Rangitāne Pā alongside the locals on the day following the launch of Ngā Tapuwae were archaeologists Pam Bain, who is Manager Regional Services at Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, and New Zealand Archaeological Association Treasurer Danielle Trilford.

Heritage New Zealand Now aged 70, Hal has almost 40 years’ experience working all over the East Coast, but his knowledge of the area goes back even further. Hal remembers a fascination with the maps and papers left behind by his surveyor grandfather and hunting in the hills with his father and uncles, who would use ancient pā site tracks and old stone boundary markers as reference points.

It was discussions between Rei and Hal during the 1990s that kicked off the kaupapa to map 36 pā sites between East Cape and the Pukeamaru Range. Mapping of these sites was considered so important to Ngāti Porou that it was included as part of negotiations for its 2010 Treaty settlement

“I have been so privileged to be involved with this kaupapa, where the archaeology is wrapped in whakapapa, which is what cultural mapping is about,” saysDaniellePam. met Hal in 2016 while working on a roading contract for the Gisborne District Council, where she expressed her surprise at the lack of recorded archaeological sites in the area. So she applied for some funding so she and Hal could get to work, which at one point involved recording 60 sites in just four days. Much of their subsequent work has been done with little or no funding, with Danielle using her leave and spare time to support this kaupapa.

Also at the Ngā Tapuwae launch was Rei Kōhere, who is Deputy Chair of Te Runanganui o Ngāti Porou and farms whānau land at East Cape. Aside from farming and his governance roles, Rei spent 10 years as Senior Māori Heritage Policy Advisor at Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

“The East Coast is, archaeologically speaking, a blank screen, meaning that very few of the hundreds, 3

Later, while working as a Department of Conservation ranger in the 1980s, Hal often retraced the footsteps of his elders, and it was during this time that he witnessed the deterioration of the physical clues that pinpointed the history of his people. He knew that soon there would be nothing left – and that something needed to be done.

The work is a passion for them both. Pam has been involved with mapping sites as an archaeologist in the area since the 1980s and has driven the road north from Gisborne to remote townships like Wharekāhika Hicks Bay hundreds of times.

As part of the 2017 mapping of the pā, Hal invited groups from two local schools to join them. Many of those rangatahi were descendants of the people who had connections to Hungahungatoroa Pā.

1 1 Chris Paringatai (right) with daughters Heni (centre) and Paringatai-Walker.Maumahara 2 Michelle Wanoa reports on the Ngā Tapuwae project. IMAGERY: JOSIE MCCLUTCHIE 2

A handful of children have also been involved with the mapping over the years.

Ngā Tapuwae has been funded by a Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga grant that was provided as part of the government’s Te Awe Kōtuku funding package. Offering $20 million of investment in the arts, culture and heritage sectors over two years, Te Awe Kōtuku supports iwi, hapū, whānau and hapori Māori to protect mātauranga Māori from the impacts and ongoing threats of Covid-19. Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga received a portion of this funding ($2 million) for a work programme to support the revitalisation of vulnerable mātauranga Māori in two areas: ancestral landscapes and Māori built heritage. n

One such site is Hungahungatoroa Pā, which was first partially mapped in 2017 (see ‘The next chapter’, issue 149, Winter 2018), and “a site of lasting significance both locally and for all Ngāti Porou,” according to Rei.

The students learned many things from the experience, including how the pā site became protected as part of the Pukeamaru Scenic Reserve

Heritage New Zealand26 Kōanga • Spring 2022 if not thousands, of sites in the area have been officially recorded. This means that the locations do not show up, for example, on maps used by the council for project planning,” she says.

Teenaged sisters Heni and Maumahara ParingataiWalker remember mapping with their cousins and their mum, Chris, from a young age. Latasha Wanoa, who is the daughter of Project Lead Michelle Wanoa, also recalls visiting sites from a young age, and beginning mapping at age nine. Now aged 22, she has a bachelor’s degree and is the Ngā Tapuwae Media and Communications Manager.

Hal says documenting the area’s wāhi tapu was always considered a race against time, but that urgency is increasing. In particular, the desire to map more than 30 pā sites is “keeping me awake at night”.

TE MĀTAI WHAIPARA TANGATA • ARCHAEOLOGY

Speaking at the launch, Latasha described the cultural mapping of Rangitāne Pā as offering “a small glimpse into the richness of our history here”.

REVITALISING VULNERABLE MĀTAURANGA

Among the group navigating the uneven ground were members of the next generation of whānau connected to the land, who are crucial to maintaining the momentum of this work, such as University of Waikato graduate Hinemaia Dewes.

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And importantly, say the project’s leaders, great care is being taken to ensure that the information and mātauranga recorded during the project remain in the first instance within the control of the whānau and hapū to whom they belong. So the work continues. “I made a promise to everyone,” says Hal, “that I would get this done.”

hapori:communitygroup, hapū: sub-tribe kaupapa:initiativeproject,orprinciple mātauranga: knowledge rangatahi:peopleyoung wāhi tapu: site of sacred significance wānanga: place of learning whakapapa: genealogy

Later, cooled by a strong breeze that lifted sharply up the steep hills, the group took a moment to enjoy the magnificent view of the turquoise ocean grinding along the coastline. Also evident on the flat land below, however, were the tracks of a bulldozer, highlighting the vulnerability of such sacred sites.

Heritage New Zealand Kōanga • Spring 2022 27

As Pam noted on the day: “I can’t believe how lucky I’ve been to climb all over these hills – always with someone from the whānau.”

Further mapping – of Matarehua Pā at East Cape – was carried out as part of the project in March.

1 1 Whānau Hunaara and other attendees at Horoera.

The ancestral home of Te Whānau a Tarahauiti, the pā is sited on a low terrace, making it more accessible than both the Hungahungatoroa and Rangitāne sites.

The purpose of the day was to record as much detail as possible of the features of the pā, including its palisades, house sites, food storage pits and terraces, and once at the top of the site Danielle advised on undertaking the work.

It is anticipated that master’s degree students, particularly those affiliated with the area, will base their research on cultural mapping in the area as part of the ongoing kaupapa. Hal also hopes to see the completion of mapping at Hungahungatoroa Pā soon, because “the way the river is going now, we’re going to lose some [of the site]”.

following objections to plans to plant the area in exotic forest during the 1980s. In December 2020, an application was made to add the Hungahungatoroa Pā site to the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero as a wāhi tapu. At the mapping of Rangitāne Pā in January, the group carried their equipment up the steep hillside and along a narrow ridge, watched by a herd of chestnut horses grazing in the grassy paddocks below.

IMAGE: JOSIE MCCLUTCHIE

However, obstacles such as trees, uneven ground and thick tussock still had to be negotiated.

TINO WHAKAAHUA • BEST SHOTS High country heart I took this photo in the wild and remote Upper Nevis Valley in Central Otago, where my partner’s extended family, the McLeans, mined for gold until the late 1980s, first by tunnel mining then later by ground sluicing. In the foreground, the McLeans’ huts at Bailey’s Hill now stand empty; in the distance across the Nevis River is Nokomai Hut, dwarfed by the Garvie Mountains. TECHNICAL DATA • Camera: Nikon D3200 • Lens: Nikon DX18-55mm • Exposure: 1/400, f11 • ISO: 400 WORDS AND IMAGE: ANNA DUNLOP

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PAPA PĀNUI • NOTICEBOARD Heritage New Zealand30 Kōanga • Spring 2022

Residents of central Auckland’s Shortland Flats have been building a great place to live for almost 100 years CAITLIN

IN good COMPANY WORDS:

SYKES • IMAGERY: PETER DRURY TE HAPORI • COMMUNITY

“It’s a wonderful building, isn’t it?” Shortland Flats resident the late Gyles Baskett would say to his friends Ardeth Lobet and Michael McKeown when they dropped him home after nights out.

1 Residents Russell Cartmell, Athena Wu and son Raphy enjoy Shortland Flats’ communal rooftop space. 2 Mik Smellie at the entrance to the flats. 3 Bruce Ross takes in the view from the building’s roof. 4 Ardeth Lobet and Michael McKeown in Shortland Flats’ handsome lobby. 1 4

A Category 2 historic place, Shortland Flats calls itself “a small community of owners and residents creating a great place to live since 1923”. And after almost a century it’s clear that those who live there still feel like they’re in good company.

To the couple, the Gothic Revival apartment block on Auckland’s Shortland Street was obviously a handsome building, but the question confused them because Gyles himself was blind. “But then he’d say, ‘It’s what’s inside’,” recalls Michael. “‘It’s the people who live there’.”

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1 Mik Smellie at home in Flat 20.

“And I grew up in old houses, so I love the high ceilings, and that the rooms aren’t shoeboxes.”

1 TE HAPORI • COMMUNITY

Sitting with Ardeth and Michael in Flat 16, it’s immediately evident that Michael shares a love of the building. His knowledge of the place, and its history, verges on encyclopaedic. When Shortland Flats was built, he explains, strata or unit titles, which are used today to apportion ownership of a flat within a building, didn’t exist. Instead, a flat-owning company structure was used, whereby a flat owner bought a shareholding in a “So many of us have a sense of custodianship, a sense that this place is ours at the moment but that we need to be looking after it for those who are coming next” company – Shortland Flats Limited – that gave them the licence to occupy a flat. The company was incorporated on 7 December 1922, construction began in 1923 and the first resident moved in in May 1924. The project was conceived in part as an investment vehicle for those associated with the building’s construction – evidenced by the company’s original shareholder register. Michael notes this included not only two of its architects and the structural engineer, but also the owners of the companies responsible for its steel windows, plumbing and electrical wiring. This meant the building was initially highly tenanted. However, the historical nature of the building’s company ownership structure, which remains in place today, is what many residents say now fosters its great sense of community.

“I feel very safe and comfortable here, because when I pass people on the stairs or in the lift I recognise them, I know them,” says Ardeth, who took her friend’s words on board and bought into the building with Michael in 1999.

4 A brass door hook in a vestibule.

2 Shortland Flats is one of a number of fashionable inner-city apartment blocks built in the inter-war period close to Albert Park, Old Government House and the Northern Club.

Heritage New Zealand32 Kōanga • Spring 2022

3 Visitors can announce their arrival old-fashionedtheway.

5 Shortland Flats’ main entrance.

“That process of shoulder tapping creates a network of people in the building; it’s not a tight web, but it does create a connectedness.” He points to other rules that incentivise shareholders to be owner-occupiers. Those who rent out their flats pay an additional 66 percent on their annual shareholder levy, for example, and flats can’t be used for Airbnb.

One of the building’s longstanding rules is that a potential shareholder must attend an interview with the directors prior to being added to the shareholder register. While getting the directors’ tick of approval is generally painless, it’s always a condition on the sale of a flat, which in turn means the flats are rarely sold at auction. Given this, flats often change hands off-market. Such was the case for Shortland Flats director Mik Smellie, who bought a shareholding with his partner Barbara McCulloch and moved into Flat 20 around five years “Ardethago.and Michael, who we knew, caught wind of the fact we were going to open homes and said there might be something coming up for sale in their building. We had dinner with them and wandered around, and I was deeply impressed with the communal DVD collection in the basement. It signalled to me this was a place where people connected – plus the titles were all things I liked watching,” he recalls with a laugh.

“In a lot of buildings there are these competing differences between owner-occupiers, who are invested in making places their homes, and investors, who are generally invested in maximising their profits then moving on. So having that high owneroccupancy rate creates a sense of community.”

Shortland Flats is led by a volunteer board of directors (Michael currently co-chairs, alongside Ross Craig of Flat 9) who are elected by the company’s shareholders and must be shareholders themselves.

HeritageNewZealandyoutube.com/PouhereTaonga

2 43 5

It also helps with the care and maintenance of the heritage building. Many Shortland Flats residents

Heritage New Zealand Kōanga • Spring 2022 33 See more of Shortland Flats:

Operating along the lines of a body corporate, the directors set the annual shareholder levy, which covers the rates and ongoing care and maintenance of the building, and the rules that govern it.

Heritage New Zealand34 Kōanga • Spring 2022

Community building is a focus more generally for Mik, who produces the Vertical Voice newsletter for the central city’s apartment-dwelling community and co-manages the City Centre Market, which brings fresh produce to shoppers at Freyberg Place on SaturdayMakingmornings.themostof central-city living is one of the things Bruce Ross of Flat 12A (in keeping with superstition, the building has no Flat 13) has enjoyed since he and Maud Cahill became joint shareholders a year after visiting the flats on a heritage tour organised by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga in 2017.

“During the tour we had lunch on the roof and a nice talk with the people who lived here. We just fell in love with the building and said we’d be interested if ever a flat became available.”

1 2 43 TE HAPORI • COMMUNITY

“We love the fact we can walk in Albert Park and the Domain, which was great through Covid lockdowns. I particularly enjoy music and opera, so I love being able to walk to the Auckland Town Hall for concerts”

“There aren’t that many buildings of this age in the Auckland city centre, and we’re one of a very small handful of flats,” notes Mik.

“So many of us have a sense of custodianship, a sense that this place is ours at the moment but that we need to be looking after it for those who are coming next.”

For Maud, who has owned central-city secondhand bookstore Jason Books for 20 years, the shift from

say that owner-occupiers generally take better care of their surroundings. The board now also has a long-term maintenance plan for the building, with the associated costs factored in to the annual shareholder levy. And as it is a company, the building can obtain bank finance for large projects. At the time of writing, for example, the first stage of a major project to refurbish the building’s lift was in progress – expensive work that under other management structures and arrangements could have required an unpopular special levy.

Shortland Flats director Athena Wu bought her first flat in the building almost a decade ago, and later purchased another, Flat 17, where she lives with her four-year-old son Raphy. She says many people were surprised to hear she continued with apartment living after Raphy was born, but she says access to the flats’ rooftop space and nearby Albert Park means they’ve never felt hemmed in.

5 1 Bruce Ross at home in Flat 12A.

2 Historic images of central Auckland adorn the stairwell walls.

“I have photos of Raphy going from flat to flat as he learnt to walk. All the residents love him, and his being able to visit has really taken the pressure off me at times. Some of the residents are almost like adopted grandparents – they come to his birthday parties and give him gifts at Christmas,” she says.

Despite being stymied by Covid-19 restrictions more recently, Bruce also enjoys the building’s regular gettogethers, such as the rooftop barbecue held around Neighbours’ Day and a progressive dinner that wends its way from the lobby up the building’s six floors.

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The couple are also among other residents who have thrown themselves into contributing to Shortland Flats’ upcoming centenary celebrations, which will encompass events starting this year and ending in 2024. Maud has been searching through archives of company reports to track down past residents and shareholders, for example, while Bruce has been organising photography for a booklet to mark the milestone and capturing video of some of the building’s historic features.

“I lived in a number of buildings around town before purchasing at Shortland Flats, but I never knew my neighbours. In this place though, everyone is so friendly. It was just different, right from the beginning.” “I lived in a number of buildings around town before purchasing at Shortland Flats, but I never knew my neighbours. In this place though, everyone is so friendly. It was just different, right from the beginning”

And a new generation of residents already seems to be making the most of the sense of community the flats foster.

4 Electrical fuses, circa 1923, while no longer in use, have been retained in the lobby.

5 A new generation is making a home at Shortland Flats.

North Shore’s Narrow Neck to the flats reduced her commute from an hour to minutes.

3 A switchboard, circa 1935, has been retained in the basement as a reminder of what once was.

“We love the fact we can walk in Albert Park and the Domain, which was great through Covid lockdowns. I particularly enjoy music and opera, so I love being able to walk to the Auckland Town Hall for concerts,” says Bruce.

Heritage New Zealand Kōanga • Spring 2022 35

Heritage New Zealand36 Kōanga • Spring 2022

With almost a quarter of all New Zealanders living with disabilities, what can be done to enable better access to our shared heritage?

Accessibility is a complex, multifaceted area. It can incorporate anything from ensuring buildings are physically accessible to those with mobility impairments, to providing information in a range of formats such as New Zealand Sign Language, Braille, large print, audio and captioned, and creating specific experiences for neurodiverse and autistic people who might struggle with sensory overload. Enabling good access at heritage sites has further dimensions, notes Andrew Coleman, Chief Executive of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

It also notes the benefits of tapping in to the “access dollar”, citing that the access market controls more than US$13 trillion in annual disposable income globally and that baby boomers – who develop access needs as they age – are spending more on consumer goods and leisure activities than any other Prudencegeneration.Walkeris Chief Executive of the Disabled Persons Assembly NZ, a national pan-disability disabled people’s organisation. She agrees that accessibility is a broad area encompassing much more than ramps and toilets – important as they are for those who need them.

Andrew acknowledges that most listed heritage buildings were not constructed with disability access in mind – “We all live with the legacy of the past,” he says. Today the level of awareness of accessibility is still not high, but Andrew is upbeat about enabling access in its broadest form and says people have yet to make the most of the opportunities that come from embracing accessibility.

One important consideration when it comes to access is providing clear accessibility information on websites and other documentation that enables disabled people to make decisions about their visits, says Prudence.

And the opportunities are many.

WORDS: ROBYN HUNT • I MAGERY: BRAD BONIFACE According to Be. Lab, an organisation founded in 2011 with the aim of creating a 100 percent accessible New Zealand by making our society open to all, “we benefit from everyone’s contributions, and create greater opportunities to thrive”.

For those keen to improve accessibility, Prudence suggests that wide consultation with disabled people and their organisations in local areas can be helpful.

This could include information about accessible or regular public transport, the1

Ramps and accessible toilets – it’s a lingering view that many people have of what’s required to make a place accessible. But for the 24 percent of New Zealanders who live with disabilities (according to Stats NZ) spanning a wide range of impairments, accessibility encompasses much more.

TE WĀHI • PLACE

2

Heritage New Zealand

2 Wellington Museum’s ac cessible entry is also the building’s main entrance.

1 Wellington Museum in cludes ‘smell and touch’ items, uses New Zealand Sign Language and has run audio description tours.

Andrew Coleman notes that disabled access is often incorporated when buildings are being strengthened and adapted, although funding for such work can be an issue for major projects.

availability of accessible parking and accessible entrances and basic accessibility information about the facilities themselves. Access to clear information via a link on a website’s home page is a good start.

Significantly, Wellington Museum’s accessible entry is also the building’s main entrance; everyone can use the same entrance. The opportunity to make such enhancements to the building’s accessibility was taken as part of a wider restoration of the building, which also successfully preserved its heritage character.

advance.1 2 3 TE WĀHI • PLACE

Wellington Museum Te Waka Huia o Ngā Taonga Tuku Iho, a Category 1 historic place, is one example of this. An accessibility link, which is easily found on its home page, leads to detailed information about wheelchair, lift and toilet access, signage, how to get there, times for low-sensory access, and a social story in accessible format. The museum includes ‘smell and touch’ items, uses New Zealand Sign Language and has run audio description tours.

The Category 1 Isaac Theatre Royal in Christchurch faced major reconstruction following the Canterbury earthquakes, and part of the vision for the project was to go above and beyond the minimum access standards. All three levels of the theatre are accessible, wheelchairaccessible seating is available in the stalls and dress circle, and there are accessible toilets. There is a hearing loop (assistive listening technology for individuals with reduced ranges of hearing) and the stage and backstage areas are accessible – considerations often neglected even in modern buildings.

Not all heritage buildings are grand, however; some have more humble origins and can be difficult to make physically accessible.

Heritage New Zealand38 Kōanga • Spring 2022

Today, everyone uses the same elegant entrance and can easily move around the rooms and access facilities. Staff have a ‘can do’ attitude, aim to learn some New Zealand Sign Language and welcome diverse communities, such as people with Alzheimer’s, who might need more time than others. There is the opportunity to get ‘hands on’ with some exhibition items, such as Victorian clothing.

Work to improve accessibility was undertaken as part of an upgrade of Te Whare Waiutuutu Kate Sheppard House, a Category 1 historic place, after the former residential home was purchased by the government in 2019. The property is now open to the public and cared for by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

However, this is achievable to varying extents at heritage sites, where retaining heritage values needs to be balanced with providing functional and safe access for disabled users.

Low-sensory tours reduce lighting and sound levels for neurodiverse and autistic people who might struggle with sensory overload.are designed for blind and low-vision people and include elements such as touch, smell and audio descriptions, but can be enjoyed by others too. or scripts are short narratives that are written in the first person and discuss problem situations. Scripts are  important sources of information for autistic and other neurodiverse people that can be used to guide behaviour in given situations and provided in Heritage projects are challenging to work on because they require “a really big balancing act between accessibility and [retaining] the building’s heritage value”

Accessibility consultant Jason Strawbridge says common issues include steps-only access, narrow doorways, and stairs with ornate is the descriptive narration of key visual elements in a video, live-media or multimedia product, which enables blind people to access content that they cannot see.

A multi-million-dollar, multi-year project to seismically strengthen and upgrade Turnbull House, a Category 1 historic place managed by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, will greatly improve accessibility. The project will include installing a lift that for the first time will provide access to all the principal heritage spaces in the building, and the disability access into the house will move from the side to the front as part of a new landscape design.

There are several independent expert advisors on accessibility, including the Barrier Free Trust.

4 All the accessibility features of the Isaac Theatre Royal can be viewed interac tively on its website.

Arts Access Aotearoa advocates for accessibility to the arts, culture and creativity for all people irrespective of disability or other barriers. In its Arts for All network meetings, specialists and community representatives share ways to make places and spaces accessible. These are open to staff of heritage and cultural visitor destinations. Contact Arts Access Aotearoa for more information: artsaccess.org.nz. Free resources and advice, such as on how to develop an accessibility policy, are also available on the website.

The Smithsonian Guidelines for Accessible Exhibition Design include specific advice on elements such as lighting and height of display cabinets: exhibition-design1.pdfsi.edu/sites/default/files/Files/Accessibility/accessible-sifacilities.

2 Lift access through auto-opening doors from The Attic, Wellington Museum.

Heritage New Zealand Kōanga • Spring 2022 39 handrails. Heritage projects are challenging to work on, he says, because they require “a really big balancing act between accessibility and [retaining] a building’s heritage value”.

The Round Table on Information Access for People with Print Disabilities offers Guidelines for Producing Clear Print (including large print): guidelines-PDF.pdfcontent/uploads/2013/09/round_table_-clear_print_printdisability.org/wp-

While its standards and legislation are different from New Zealand’s, Victoria Australia’s Access to Heritage Places Guidelines may be helpful: heritage_buildings_guidelines_vic.pdfuploads/4/6/3/2/46326229/20180112_access_to_emaa.com.au/

3 The ‘Power to the People’ display in The Attic, Wellington Museum.

The New Zealand Government’s standards, advice and guidance on web accessibility can be found at: accessibilitygovt.nz/standards-and-guidance/design-and-ux/digital.

Venturing into digital accessibility is certainly an option for some. Audio descriptions for blind people and those with low vision can be either downloadable from a website to a personal device or available on loaned devices during a visit if an audio-describer is not available.

Another difficulty he identifies, applicable to buildings of all sizes, is the New Zealand standard covering design for access and mobility (NZS 4121:2001), which he describes as out of date. By comparison, Jason cites the Australian standard as having higher specifications that are, for example, more accommodating of larger, modern wheelchairs. However, he says he has noticed a “big cultural shift towards people wanting to provide access beyond the code”.

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The UK National Trust’s 2019 Access Guide provides accessibility guidance and symbols for the UK heritage community. It may be a useful source of ideas in New Zealand: guide.pdfnt.global.ssl.fastly.net/documents/2019-access-

Virtual tours with commentaries may be expensive to make but are used effectively for some buildings in Europe (such as the Tower of London), the US and Australia.

4 1 Sign language interpretation in the ‘A Millennium Ago’ experience, Wellington Museum.

But there is recognition that there are other ways in which access can be improved. In consultation with Arts Access Aotearoa and the Deaf and disabled communities, the board and staff of the Katherine Mansfield Birthplace Society, which owns and operates Katherine Mansfield House and Garden, are developing an accessibility policy, considering options such as seating, New Zealand Sign Language tours, large-print visitor information, an audio description, and the information on its website.

Ultimately, disabled people understand that not every heritage building can be made physically accessible. But being open to considering the many facets of access, and providing clear information and a welcoming, helpful and open approach can make a difference.

Katherine Mansfield House and Garden, a Category 1 historic place, is an example of a domestic dwelling that can’t accommodate physical access; it would be impossible to make the building accessible without damaging the heritage values of the entrances, narrow doorways and small internal spaces, and the staircase.

The Ministry of Social Development has a free guide to making information accessible – Accessibility Guide: Leading the way in accessible information:  accessibility/accessibility-guide/index.htmlnz/about-msd-and-our-work/work-programmes/msd.govt.

A lower-key and less-expensive option might be a New Zealand Sign Language video introduction, which can be played on a small screen such as an iPad and run on a loop. Captioned, audio-described or sign language video content on websites can provide further information and attract new visitors.

Heritage New Zealand TE WĀHI • PLACE KEEPsmilingWORDS: MATT PHILP Heritage New Zealand 1

When a Covid-19 lockdown trapped her project manager in Auckland, Lindy Davis stepped in to lead the major restoration of a Waipū landmark building I

DORDAY 2

“They put in a huge amount of energy and didn’t cut any corners to bring it back to something like its original look,” says architectural designer Adam Welford, whose practice, Maxar Architecture, has leased a couple of sunny first-floor rooms at Nova Scotia Junction.

Heritage New Zealand Kōanga • Spring 2022 41

A Category 2 historic place, the commercial building and attached residence housed a medical centre after the National Bank upped stakes in the late 1980s. But for several years it had sat empty, unloved and increasingly derelict – or, as Lindy puts it, “The building was really starting to lose its legs”. Naturally, she bought it.

“All the doors are exposed rimu, as are the floors, it’s got a high stud, and they put some of the old hardware back. We get a lot of comments from people coming up the staircase to our office. They love the feel of it.”

“Other people probably had a better understanding of just how much work was involved!” she says. Fortunately, she had plenty of help. Her son Jordan came in as a partner in the venture. “He and my husband and our kids were all heavily engaged – there was a lot of hands-on work.”

In addition, Lindy drew on the expertise of the Northland Regional Office of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

IMAGERY:

None of it came easy. Lindy, a freelance journalist and author whose previous renovation experience was limited to her own homes, says the building had been unoccupied for a long time before she took the plunge.

Ashwood Construction from Kaiwaka tackled the building work, and Lindy was able to engage a few more local builders and tradies for the rest.

1 Lindy Davis in the former bank manager’s lounge.

Earlier this year a crowd of 80 watched Whangārei Mayor Sheryl Mai cut the ribbon to officially open the renovated bank building, reborn as a commercial hub under the moniker ‘Nova Scotia Junction’ (a nod to its location on the corner of Nova Scotia Drive and Cove Road on the main route out of town).

t’s a measure of her love of heritage that Lindy Davis used to feel a pang of anxiety whenever she drove past the landmark 1920s former bank building in Waipū.

A seven-month project that Lindy ended up leading when a Covid-19 lockdown stranded her project manager in Auckland has restored the building’s polished rimu floorboards, lost for decades under lino and carpet.

2 One of the restored spaces has a sunny deck and has been plumbed for a com mercial kitchen. JASON

The large leadlight windows have been reinstated, and hours of hand sanding and the liberal use of Danish oil have transformed the rimu staircase. During renovations, three original fireplaces were uncovered and laboriously rehabilitated.

“I got a good grasp of where to start and what to do, as well as the plans and some photographs of the original bank. To be true to a heritage building, you really want to know how it looked and functioned.”

1

“You could be tempted to seeIoriginal,therebutimperfections,hideifitwasandwantedtoit”

The 1924 building had modest beginnings as a single-storey timber structure, but it grew as the stocks of both the National Bank and Waipū rose. In 1936 it became an official branch, and the following year a comfortable two-storey residence was built alongside it for the bank manager and his family.

2 “I tried to keep as much joinery as possible, but some of it had rotted through, so I got joinery made up that was identical to the original,” she says. “That wasn’t easy.

“It was a priority for me to make sure the heritage status stayed as it was,” she says, adding that one of her first actions after buying the building was to call the national historic heritage agency.

TE WĀHI • PLACE

“We also replaced five out of the seven big picture windows and we did it like for like. They had to have beaded frames and multiple openings, so it was complicated.”

Heritage New Zealand42 Kōanga • Spring 2022

“Banks weren’t stingy with their buildings, so it was built using the best of the best. It had good bones,” heLindyadds. says the renovation gave her insights into the craftsmanship that went into buildings of the day. The timber joinery, for instance, struck her as superior to anything factory-produced today. Replacing the bits that couldn’t be saved was one of the project’s trickiest challenges.

Bill Edwards, Area Manager Northland for Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, says the bank would have been the heart of Waipū, a rural community south of Whangārei that was founded in the 1850s by Highland Scots. (They came to Northland via Canada, hence the Nova Scotia reference.)

4 Maxar Architecture’s firstfloor office with rimu floor/ joinery and an original brick fireplace discovered behind a walk-in wardrobe.

Heritage New Zealand Kōanga • Spring 2022 43

The rimu doors and window frames had been painted over numerous times.

“There were also three fireplaces that had been covered up. One was behind a walk-in wardrobe, sealed off with a gibbed wall. It was a mess when we opened it up. It took Craig, our local builder, two weeks to get them back to mint condition.”

More effort went into peeling back years of modifications and accretions to get to the fabric of the original building.

“The vault was a bit rough, but we fought the urge to tidy it up too much. Instead we just laid some heritage-style tiles, cleaned the original walls and left them. You could be tempted to hide imperfections, but if it was there and original, I wanted to see it.”

Whoever fills the space, she’s “super-satisfied” with how the project has worked out – and is no longer anxious about it. “I smile when I drive past the building now.”

There were times, however, when a hands-off approach was called for. At one point, for instance, the original bank vault was uncovered, complete with the signature of the layer who’d done the original pour preserved in the concrete.

5 The old bank manager’s lounge with restored rimu floors, French joinery and a brick fireplace ready for a creative restaurateur.

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2 The original bank vault now tiled and warmly illuminated by an antique chandelier.

“After the bank closed, it became the Waipū medical practice,” says Lindy. “Lino was put down, and a large number of consulting rooms and other things were added. I wanted to take all of that away. So the lino came up, and we took out all the carpets in the doctor’s residence to get back to the rimu.”

“It’s important with buildings to maintain as much of the heritage fabric as possible, but also to adapt and reuse. That’s what’s happened here,” he says.

3 Nova Scotia Junction’s grand entrance with pol ished rimu floors and a sweeping staircase.

1 Nova Scotia Junction has captured the hearts of locals in Waipū.

Bill Edwards likes the balance that was struck.

Lindy says her goal was always twofold: rescue an elegant heritage building, and make sure it’s used by and accessible to the community. As well as the architectural practice, rooms have been leased by a mortgage broker and a clothing boutique. She hopes that one of the last three untenanted spaces will be used to sell local produce, and the other, which has been plumbed for a commercial kitchen and has an outdoor deck, for hospitality.

IMAGERY: JASON DORDAY

“What they’ve done is revitalise a building that was suffering neglect and brought it back to life.”

“I’d love to see somebody open a vibrant restaurant there. The vault would make an amazing wine cellar!”

“I had them all stripped back, which was a real labour of love,” says Lindy.

stories about the awa and tips on how to negotiate its low-grade rapids. With ancestral links to Tamahaki, the tūpuna of the river’s middle reaches, Hone is one of only a handful of guides with the mandate to share the traditional stories of Whanganui River iwi. As we glide down the river’s upper middle reaches, he recounts stories of Hinengākau, a tūpuna wahine celebrated for teaching a long line of female warriors. At Tīeke, after we’ve dried off, he talks about growing up with his grandparents, living off the land and speaking only te reo until his mid-teens when he left for high school in Taumarunui. Later, ducking into one of the river’s many tributaries, Hone explains his spiritual connection to the awa and encourages me to form a personal relationship with the river too.

PAPA PĀNUI • NOTICEBOARD

Starting at Whakahoro, south of Taumarunui, we’ll complete 88 kilometres in total, finishing at Pipiriki, the northernmost village on the Whanganui River Road. Each day on New Zealand’s longest navigable river is bookended with camp-cooked kai and full of

Gaining a deeper understanding of Whanganui’s diverse heritage

A thick white mist is settling on the landscape as we paddle down river towards Tīeke campsite in Whanganui National Park. I’m seated at the front of a Canadian canoe on a three-day adventure with Unique Whanganui River Experience, digging into the cloudy-green water with a wooden paddle as rain starts to fall. My guide, Hone Turu, is paddling from his seat on the stern, unperturbed by the giant rain drops now pummelling our eyes. So far we’ve travelled about 67 kilometres in a hardy red canoe called Rimu – most of it in the warm, spring sun.

WORDS: JACQUI GIBSON

KŌPIKOTANGA • DOMESTIC TRAVEL

River city stories

“Whanganui has seen more than 800 years of habitation,” says Scott. “It means we can tell very rich stories here. A site like Pākaitore in the centre of town, for example, was once the meeting place and gardens of river iwi. Jump forward to the mid-1990s and it becomes a place of Māori protest and debate about Whanganui’s history and whose stories are valued and prioritised.”

According to Hayden Potaka, head of the Whanganui Māori Regional Tourism Organisation (WMRTO) and owner of Unique Whanganui River Experience, there are dozens of hapū who whakapapa to the region. Some, like his whanaunga, Tracy Marshall of Whanganui “It’s incredible to see people’s faces as they come off the river … You can tell they’ve had a people”andwithwithconnectionspecialtheawa,naturewithour

“We tell all our guests: ‘Come with us, we’ll guide you. But have your own experience. Be on your own journey’,” he says.

For years, tourists keen to explore Whanganui’s heritage have been directed towards built or tangible heritage experiences such as the popular Waimarie paddle steamer, the beautifully carved memorial church at Pūtiki and the 103-year-old (yet still operational) Durie Hill War Memorial Tower and Elevator (see ‘Moving on up’, issue 164, Autumn 2022). Very few have taken part in an iwi-led experience like this. And that’s what many people in Whanganui want to change.

In December 2021, Whanganui District Council published a 10-year heritage strategy, He Kaupapa Here: Ngā Taonga Tuku Iho, following two years of community consultation. In it, heritage is described in broad terms. Archaeological sites and wāhi tapu, natural landscapes and cultural traditions are considered as much heritage as the town’s many impressive Victorian-era buildings.

“It’s time,” Whanganui District Council Heritage Advisor Scott Flutey explains when we catch up at the council buildings on Guyton Street.

“In my work, I find people want to know the range of stories associated with a site or place. They’re interested in more than Whanganui’s built heritage or heritage exploring a single era or cultural worldview. And when it comes to the heritage Whanganui people most want to protect, it ranges from family histories to buildings to pā sites to the Whanganui River itself.”

awa: river hapū: sub-tribes kaitiaki: custodians manuhiri: visitors Pou Rauhī: curatorial team pōwhiri: welcome taonga: treasures tupuna, tūpuna: ancestor, ancestors tupuna wahine: female ancestor wāhi tapu: placessacred whakapapa: line of genealogyancestry, whanaunga: relative

WHANGANUI HERITAGE MONTH: WHAT TO SEE AND DO IN OCTOBER

When I sit down with Whanganui District Councillor Helen Craig and local historian Kyle Dalton at Whanganui’s i-SITE, talk soon turns to Whanganui Heritage Month coming up in October.

This year, Whanganui Heritage Month runs from 8 to 30 October, focusing on the region’s transport history. Attend the opening pōwhiri and celebrations at Whanganui’s riverside market on Saturday 8 October from 10am, then visit again on Labour Day weekend to check out Whanganui’s first-ever heritage parade, featuring vintage cars. Get along to Whanganui’s heritage-listed Whanganui Regional Museum throughout October to see He Awa Ora, an exhibition celebrating the Whanganui River and its heritage and conservation. Go online to view this year’s Whanganui Heritage Month programme at whanganuiheritagetrust.org.nz

“Right now, if you walk the city, you don’t see iwi represented,” he says. “But times are changing. To some, tourism can seem an odd way to bridge cultural divides, revive untold stories and explore national heritage. That’s not how I see it. As an operator, it’s incredible to see people’s faces as they come off the river with one of our cultural navigators. You can tell they’ve had a special connection with the awa, with nature and with our people.”

PAPA PĀNUI • NOTICEBOARD Heritage New Zealand46 Kōanga • Spring 2022 KŌPIKOTANGA • DOMESTIC TRAVEL

Tours and Mail Run, host manuhiri and offer tourism experiences exploring cultural heritage. Others are beginning to share personal stories with tour operators and people passing through. New signage, for example, has been installed along the Whanganui River Road. A joint council and WMRTO initiative, the signs feature hapū history and traditions, described in their own words. Also underway, says Hayden, are longer-term plans to build an iwi tourism hub, possibly at Pākaitore or next to the Crazy Pumpkin grocery store on Taupō Quay.

Both agree the annual event, now in its third year, is becoming more reflective of the district’s diverse heritage. It will kick off with a pōwhiri at Whanganui Regional Museum and feature everything from architectural walking tours to a rock ‘n’ roll riverboat dinner cruise and high tea at the heritage-listed Bushy Park Tarapuruhi Homestead.

An exhibition telling the story of the Whanganui River, He Awa Ora, will also be on display at the regional museum at Pukenamu Queen’s Park.

“The goal is to first give people a taste of Te Awa Tupua and what the legislation aims to achieve. Then we’ll invite our local communities to learn more about the magnificent taonga Māori featured in He Awa Ora,” explains Whanganui Regional Museum Director Dr Bronwyn Labrum from her second-floor office within the museum.

Exploring the groundbreaking Te Awa Tupua legal settlement that granted the river personhood status in 2017, the exhibition looks at the people who live on the river, what the river means to them, and how visitors can act as kaitiaki by caring for the river. Next year, He Awa Ora will travel to marae along the river before returning to Whanganui as an updated exhibition featuring new stories and, possibly, new taonga.

“As part of the exhibition, we’re also encouraging people to explore the awa more generally – be it on the Waimarie paddle steamer, as a cyclist riding along the boardwalk, or by getting into their togs and jumping in.”

1 Hone Turu, Cultural Navi gator, Unique Whanganui River Experience. 2 Scott Flutey, Whanganui District Council Heritage Advisor. IMAGERY: JACQUI GIBSON

Dr Rāwiri Tinirau, who leads the Whanganui Regional Museum Pou Rauhī and curated the exhibition, says: “Whanganui iwi have always believed the awa is our 1 2

“I don’t think Whanganui realises just how world leading we are,” says Scott. “We’re just living amongst all this fascinating heritage and going about our daily lives. I definitely think it’s time we did more to unlock what’s here and show it off.”

1 Ladies’ Rest (1930), St Hill Street, Whanganui. 2 Royal Whanganui Opera House. 3 Wharenui, Koriniti Marae 4 Kyle Dalton and Helen Craig. 5 Ranana Hall, River Road, Whanganui.

Heritage New Zealand Kōanga • Spring 2022 47

1. Get a panoramic view of the awa and Whanganui surrounds by riding the heritage-listed Durie Hill Elevator built in 1919. discoverwhanganui.nz

3. Book a seat on the daily mail run with postie and scenic tour guide Tracy Marshall, who grew up at Koriniti and takes manuhiri up the Whanganui River Road to meet river iwi living between Whanganui and Pipiriki. whanganuitours.co.nz

2. Jump aboard the historic Waimarie paddle steamer, New Zealand’s only coal-fired paddle steamer, travelling upriver from October. waimarie.co.nz

Here are five ways to explore the awa this spring:

4. Take a three-, four- or five-day canoe trip with a cultural navigator on a Unique Whanganui River Experience. uniquewhanganuiriver.co.nz

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5. Go on a 45-minute, half-day or full-day jet boat tour to the heritage-listed Bridge to Nowhere with Pipiriki locals Ken and Josephine Haworth of Whanganui River Adventures. whanganuiriveradventures.co.nz

EXPLORE THE AWA

6 Laneway, Whanganui. 7 Bushy Park Tarapuruhi Homestead.

8 Pākaitore (Moutoa Gardens), Whanganui. 9 Whanganui Regional Museum. IMAGERY: JACQUI GIBSON

ancestor. We want visitors to also understand when you engage with the river, you engage with a real person. To do that, you have to understand its whakapapa and its connections to our people. That’s another story we’re telling here.”

It’s exactly this kind of approach to showcasing Whanganui’s cultural heritage that’s gaining the city international recognition, says Scott. In 2020 Whanganui was the first New Zealand city to be accepted into the international League of Historic Cities, recognising the work done to preserve and enhance its heritage. A year later it became New Zealand’s only UNESCO City of Design – in part because of its outstanding tangible and intangible heritage.

PAPA PĀNUI • NOTICEBOARD Heritage New Zealand48 Kōanga • Spring 2022 Historic places are continuing to communicate the impacts of suffragists’ achievements and inspire the advancement of women’s rights WOMEN’S BUSINESS WORDS: LYDIA MONINHAERENGA1 I TE AO • INTERNATIONAL

IMAGE: STOCK.ADOBE.COM 2 A plaque showing an ex cerpt from the Declaration of Sentiments, a document written primarily by Eliz abeth Cady Stanton that laid out the first formal de mands for women’s rights, including the right to vote.

Suffrage was an international protest movement from the outset and great emphasis was put on encouraging women in other nations to fight for their rights.

Te Whare Waiutuutu Kate Sheppard House has been made to look as if the leader of the New Zealand women’s suffrage movement is still living there with her husband and son. An old bike stands on the verandah. Just inside the front door is a coat stand holding a walking stick, umbrella and cape, and a boy’s schoolbag.

The enfranchisement of women in 1893 had suffragists and, indeed, anti-suffragists, looking to New Zealand for information on how the vote had been won and the impacts on the country’s political system.

“All that we require of a voter is that he shall be forked, wear pantaloons instead of petticoats, and bear a more or less humorous resemblance to the reported image of God. He need not know anything whatever,” wrote Mark Twain.

ew Zealand was still basking in the glow of becoming the first country to extend the vote to women when a world-famous American writer, humourist and suffrage supporter arrived on our shores.

Heritage New Zealand Kōanga • Spring 2022 49 N

0.4-hectare

IMAGE: STOCK.ADOBE.COM

Over a century later, the story of this global struggle for equality is being preserved in historic sites that fundamentally changed ideas about the role of women in Ansociety.unassuming eight-room kauri villa on a (one acre) section in Christchurch is where New Zealand’s suffrage story begins.

“It’s hilarious, but some people walk in and actually leave their coats on the stand,” says Te Whare Waiutuutu Kate Sheppard House Property Manager Helen“TheOsborne.onething I do try to impart to people is that this really is an incredibly special and significant place and the [women’s suffrage] petition is one of our founding documents,” says Helen. “This is where these women worked hard and [experienced] the angst and the worry and the concern and the sleepless nights. Kate said she worked harder than any man in any business.”

Built in 1888, the Category 1 historic place was purchased by the government in 2019. It is managed by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga and has been transformed from a private home into a visitorTouchingexperience.isencouraged – whether it’s opening a drawer to see what’s inside or taking a book from the 2 1 Bronze statues in the Women’s Rights National Historical Park visitor centre in Seneca Falls, NY.

Heritage New Zealand50 Kōanga • Spring 2022 1

The spiritual home of the American suffrage movement is in Seneca Falls, a small canal town in upstate New York. A two-day convention was held there in July 1848 to kickstart what would become a sevendecade fight for women’s suffrage, and its legacy has been preserved by the establishment of the Women’s Rights National Historical Park.

As the decades rolled by, subsequent owners left their own marks on the house, so the Women’s Rights National Historical Park needed to recreate some of the mid-19th-century architecture of Cady Stanton’s time. Small segments of the original wallpaper survived, so the pattern was recreated throughout the house. Period furnishings were used in the past but now the thinking has changed.

library to read by the fire in winter. A Regency tapestry chair, one of the very few items that belonged to Sheppard, stands on a pedestal for protection.

The story of Seneca Falls is told in four key buildings: the Wesleyan Chapel, where the convention was held, and the homes of three of its organisers – Jane Hunt, Mary Ann McClintock and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The last was the main author of the Declaration of Sentiments; modelled after the Declaration of Independence, it laid out the first formal demands for women’s rights in the US, including the right to vote.

HAERENGA I TE AO • INTERNATIONAL

“The more we know about the historical accuracy, the more details we have about their lives there, the more distracting a lot of that can be,” says Janine Waller, the park’s Chief of Interpretation and 2 3 4 5 1 Elizabeth Cady Stanton House, Seneca Falls, NY. IMAGE: KENNETH C. ZIRKEL 2 The Wesleyan Chapel. IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM 3 View of the south front of Killerton House, Devon, designed by John Johnson circa 1778 and showing the original front door. IMAGE: ©NATIONAL TRUST IMAGES

The dining table is covered with petition forms, letters and glue to recreate how it may have looked when Sheppard pasted together the famous ‘monster petition’ with 25,519 signatures, rolling it around a broom handle. It would later be unrolled down the central aisle of Parliament’s debating chamber until it hit the end wall.

The highly educated daughter of a judge, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a women’s rights activist and an abolitionist; many attending the 1848 convention were also against slavery. In 1847 she and her husband and three children moved into a house in Seneca Falls. The house gradually accommodated four more children, by which time Elizabeth would pace from room to room feeling like a “caged lion” as she struggled with domestic chores and a lack of intellectual stimulation.

“So bringing suffrage into domestic spaces like drawing rooms – that was hugely successful, because it showed they could exist harmoniously alongside each other.”

IMAGE: ©NATIONAL TRUST IMAGES/MICHAEL CALDWELL 5 The staircase hall at Dud maston Hall, Shropshire. IMAGE: ©NATIONAL TRUST IMAGES/ANDREAS VON EIN SIEDEL 6 Sheep outside Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire. IMAGE: ©NATIONAL TRUST IMAGES/ ARNHEL DE SERRA 7 The drawing room at Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire.

A regularly changing exhibition space with historical and contemporary themes on women, equality, antidiscrimination and social change is also planned.

The genteel world of Seneca Falls is very much at odds with the overriding images of the bombs, smashed windows, hunger strikes and force-feeding that became emblematic of the fight for suffrage in the UK. Yet ‘drawing room suffrage’ has been underestimated as a tactic, says Helen Antrobus, Assistant National Curator at the National Trust.

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IMAGE: ©NATIONAL TRUST IMAGES/PAUL BARKER RETURN

The trust’s Head of Partnerships and Programming, Tom Freshwater, says commissioned research revealed that more than 100 properties across England, Wales and Northern Ireland had strong links to suffrage stories. The links were legitimate, Tom says, although some media outlets tried to ascribe a ‘wokeness’ to the trust.

Killerton House in Devon, for example, was home to both Gertrude (Walrond), Lady Acland, who campaigned against suffrage, and her niece Eleanor, who campaigned for it.

The UK gave some women the right to vote in 1918, and two years later the US finally recognised women’s right to vote, although if you were poor or black you still faced discrimination. Yet the heritage of suffrage carries a contemporary message.

“Man has ruled the human race from the beginning – but he should remember that up to the middle of the present century it was a dull world, and ignorant and stupid; but it is not such a dull world now and is growing less and less dull all the time.”

Co-president of the National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage, George Nathaniel Curzon from Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire, thought women lacked the “balance of mind” to use the vote and it would be better for the Empire if they focused on their maternal role.

Heritage New Zealand Kōanga • Spring 2022 51 Education, and Public Affairs Officer. Instead, virtual exhibits are planned so that visitors can see what the full house might have looked like.

4 Sunlight and shadows bathe the east front of Dudmaston Hall as the evening sun sets.

“It speaks to a lot of issues we have today where people have different opinions within families. We’ve been through that over the past five years with major political moments separating us,” says Helen.

“There are plenty of issues addressed in the Declaration of Sentiments that we’re still talking about today,” says Janine.

“So I hope that when people come here, they see that our role is to provide that continuity. They can see how progress is made and then extrapolate that to the issues that they care most about today.”

Violet Ann Bland was a former kitchen maid at Dudmaston Hall in Shropshire who became a suffragette. In 1912 she was jailed, joined a hunger strike and was Worldforce-fed.WarIgave impetus to suffrage demands, as women took over traditionally male roles and countries went through massive social and political upheaval.

A timeline from 1893 in Te Whare Waiutuutu Kate Sheppard House shows that the first woman didn’t enter Parliament here until 1933. “Seeing how long these social changes took to make is quite confronting,” says Helen.

The potent pull of suffrage stories, and the issues that drive them, remains – just as it did when Mark Twain mused about women voting in New Zealand and the advances in women’s rights in his home country.

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“One of the key messages of anti-suffrage was that suffrage would take women away from their domestic roles,” she says.

In 2018 the National Trust launched its ‘Women and Power’ programme to mark the centenary of the Representation of the People Act 1918, which gave some women the right to vote. As well as exhibitions and installations, there were ‘off-property’ events, including a theatrical suffragette tearoom experience in London.

PAPA PĀNUI • NOTICEBOARD Heritage New Zealand52 Kōanga • Spring 2022

Reads canvassing cultural perspectives on discrimination, leadership, history and navigation

There are those who cling to a rose-coloured view that when it comes to racial discrimination, New Zealand is a better and more tolerant place than many others. Events in recent history have made this perspective harder to maintain, however, as do accounts such as those in Jacqueline Leckie’s book

Invisible: New Zealand’s History of Excluding KiwiIndians (Massey University Press, $39.99). Invisible gives clear evidence of racial discrimination – for example, on where Indians and Māori were allowed to sit in a Pukekohe picture theatre –and shows this discrimination extending to everything from immigration to human rights and

TREMAINE and determination play an important role in leadership, as does a refusal to give up, even when barriers seem impregnable. The book highlights how leaders also often have a gift for communication, as they need to be able to convince others of the best way forward. One leader featured in the book is Dr Irihapeti Ramsden, who developed the concept of ‘cultural safety’ in healthcare, which highlights the importance of recognising patients’ cultural identities when they access health services.

Finding a way

An example of how the concept was applied in hospitals is how the practice of storing patients’ drugs and urine samples in the same refrigerator – problematic for Māori patients, who could view the drugs as being compromised by the urine samples – was changed. Other ways of viewing ideas and practices are explored in Kārearea, a collection of writings by legal scholar Māmari Stephens (BWB Texts, $14.99).

Some cases, such as that of Harnam Singh, are extreme. Harnam was married to an English woman and had been a resident of New Zealand and Australia for more than 25 years, but he was refused passage to India through Australia and forced to travel a complicated route to India via Argentina and London instead. Other aspects of cultural identity are explored in Tāngata Ngāi Tahu: People of Ngāi Tahu, Volume Two , edited by Helen Brown and Michael J Stevens (Bridget Williams Books, $49.99).

Containing biographies of Ngāi Tahu leaders, this book shows how courage to voice what all Māori think about a particular issue. Māmari talks about being overwhelmed by the expectation and acknowledging that, as a senior Māori academic, her outlook and experience can be very different from Māori in other jobs and settings. A later chapter explores “the long shadow over our marae” as the writer attends a gathering on her marae and ponders the issues her marae and many others face in financing repairs and maintenance.

In her first chapter, for example, she addresses the difficulties associated with being “the only Māori in the room”, including the expectation of being able

significantandasitswriter’sanchapterandwithaffirmingofurbanTheyservemaraeneedburdenslegalstrengtheningEarthquake-andotherrequirementsarehugeforiwi,ontopofthetosimplykeeptheirinasuitablestatetotheircommunities.Yetmaraearevital,shenotes.enableaniwi,hapūorcollectivetohave“apointfoundationinthisworldbylinksofthepeopleancestors,land,guardianswaters”(page76).Thetakesthereaderoninsightfuljourneyintotheownthoughtsassheonthemarae.Overall,thissmallbookoffersvaluablepathtoexploringunderstandingsomeissues.

NGĀ PUKAPUKA • BOOKS

WORDS:employment.MARIANNE

GIVEAWAY We have one copy of Invisible: New Zealand’s History of Excluding KiwiIndians to give away. To enter the draw, send your name and address on the back of an envelope to Book (issue’sThe2022.beforeWellingtonPOPouhereHeritageGiveaways,NewZealandTaonga,Box2629,6140,30Septemberwinneroflastbookgiveaway

Heritage New Zealand Kōanga • Spring 2022 53

Agency of Hope: The Story of the Auckland City Mission 1920–2020) was David Crooke, Dunedin.

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Navigation: Kupe & Cook: An Ocean in a Mind and a Mind on an Ocean, by Kingsley Smith (Mary Egan Publishing, $45) explains the history of navigation and how it developed.Kingsley outlines the very beginnings of travel by boat, with the migration out of Africa to Australia-New Guinea 50,000 years ago. He discusses how navigation developed for societies with oral language compared with those who had written language. The skills people had developed earlier by voyaging on rivers helped in oceanic travel as well. Writing enabled the production of maps and books, for example, along with the materials and instruments for early navigation, such as those used by James Cook to determine precise latitude andKingsleylongitude.also covers two Pacific navigation systems that use different techniques: the Vaeakau-Taumako system, which is the oldest in the Pacific; and the Tahitian system, which allows latitude and longitude navigation through the use of the Rua and Ana stars and the Pou pillar of navigation. This book offers an interesting take on how diverse cultures have struggled to find their places on the ocean and developed the skills needed to cope with the way the sea changes and find courses to take them to their destinations. 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.

The Leonard Girls , by Deborah Challinor (Harper Collins, $32.99), deals with another part of New Zealand’s history –our involvement in the Vietnam War. Deborah’s novel is an interesting and easy read but still gives a sense of the reality of war. A New Zealand nurse, Rowie Leonard, is serving in Vietnam in 1969, caring for New Zealand and Australian troops at the height of the war. She supports the war, but soon realises that nothing is as straightforward as she had imagined.

The book’s characters all struggle with the sorrows and stresses of the war as they become more involved in its complexities, and the novel highlights how difficult it is to retain an easy sense of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ when one is immersed in a reality.

Another small book exploring substantial ideas is Fragments from a Contested Past: Remembrance, Denial and New Zealand History, by Joanna Kidman, Vincent O’Malley, Liana MacDonald, Tom Roa and Keziah Wallis (BWB Texts, $14.99).

Another place that changes one’s sense of reality is the ocean. Your world becomes the ocean when it is all you can see in every direction; to have a sense of a path through the sea, expertise in navigation is all-important.

Examining the way societies choose what to remember and what to forget about their histories, each chapter of the book examines particular events or places to show how realities of the past have been effaced, so that inconvenient facts can beThisburied.isa very readable book that highlights just how much of our history has been ignored – and how much the new history curriculum will be trying to achieve.

YOUWHATSHAREKNOW

Ō tātou wāhi ingoa-nui, taku kitenga • Our heritage, my vision

By passing on techniques used for more than 500 years, Graham Judd is helping to preserve the treasured art form of printing

INTERVIEW : JACQUI GIBSON • IMAGERY: MARCEL TROMP

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Heritage New Zealand Kōanga • Spring 2022 55

Heidelberg Platen. That’s my favourite. How you set it up, the way it sounds, what it produces – there’s something about the way you operate it. It’s like playing music. As an apprentice, I used a Heidelberg Platen to print company forms, Christmas cards, newsletters, pamphlets and so on. Today, I use it to make one-of-a-kind business cards, wedding invitations and special things you don’t want to throw away so don’t mind paying a bit more for. Everything made on a Heidelberg Platen is like a little piece of art. These machines are easy to maintain and incredibly versatile. They’ll perforate and emboss and print. Every month, they need a bit of oil. But that’s it. A few years ago I visited the German factory where the Heidelberg Platen was manufactured until the mid1980s. Today, I teach hobbyists to use the Heidelberg and portable alternatives, such as the 1833 Albion, which I take to events like Featherston’s Booktown Karukatea Festival. People love to see these old-style presses at work. New Zealand, Australia and the US all have letterpress printing enthusiasts who get together to learn and share skills. New Zealand even has a printing museum in Upper Hutt, providing demonstrations and classes taught by professional printers. For someone like me, who’s built up 50 years in the trade, it’s wonderful to share what I know and see young people so keen. I’ve personally taught two fantastic women who now run their own presses professionally. Every few months I’ll run a workshop at the local library or take my 1833 Albion press on the road. It’s my way of passing on techniques that printers have used for more than 500 years and preserving what, to me, is a treasured art form. Graham Judd is an awardwinning printer who runs a small boutique letterpress printshop, Inkiana Press, in Auckland, and letterpress workshops throughout the country.

I’ve been a printer – a letterpress machinist, to be precise – all my working life. My job title became official in 1970 when I was aged 20, following a four-year apprenticeship with the Masterton Print Company. I was a bit of a failure at school, but I really enjoyed the hands-on nature of letterpress printing, as well as all the block courses you had to do. I lapped it up and did really well. I still love it now, in my seventies. The original letterpress printing machines interest me. I’ve used all kinds of printing presses, working for others and myself in Auckland. The modern digital print machines just don’t compare with something like the German-manufactured

PAPA PĀNUI • NOTICEBOARD Heritage New Zealand56 Kōanga • Spring 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: Mob: Email:64 3 693 9366, 027 292 4480, info@homesteadtours.co.nz Website: www.homesteadtours.co.nz Tours for 2022/2023 South Canterbury Spring Tour CHRISTCHURCH - MID & SOUTH CANTERBURY Governor's Bay - Timaru - Waimate - Geraldine - Mesopotamia -Rakaia Gorge Monday 21st - Saturday 26th November 2022 Autumn Southern Colour Tour CHRISTCHURCH – CENTRAL OTAGO & THE SOUTHERN LAKES Lake Tekapo - Lake Wanaka - Lake Hawea - Clyde - Queenstown Monday 17th April to Sunday 23rd April 2023 Stay informed with our monthly e-newsletter, covering the latest heritage news and events membership@heritage.org.nz Consider leaving a gift that will last forever 0800 802 010 • bveale@heritage org.nz PO Box 2629, Wellington, 6140 • www.heritage.org.nz WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE? Contact Brendon Veale for further details. A gift in your will could provide a lasting legacy for our nation’s heritage and help preserve our history for future generations. Assisted by expert guides, we will go on a historical journey from Canterbury to Otago, visiting Victorian and Edwardian homesteads and learning about their illustrious former owners who helped shape the social fabric of New Zealand. Tour registration closes 10 October 2022 Historic Homes and Gardens CANTERBURY AND OTAGO TOUR Tour dates: 30 October – 6 November 2022 Contact : info@connectitalia-nz.com www.connectitalia-nz.com

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

a time of transformation with an empowering leading lady at Kate SheppardChristchurchHouse Become a TIME TodayTRAVELLERvisitheritage.co.nz H H Clifford photo, Canterbury Museum, 1980.175.146.

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