Motueka’s historic saltwater pool is kept ship-shape by a team of dedicated volunteers
and down the country, surf lifesaving clubs have kept beachgoers safe for more than a century
After a Covid-induced hiatus, the historic Farmers Santa Parade is back on Auckland’s streets
Lighting the way A symbol of a conservation triumph, an historic lighthouse has been restored
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.
Antrim House is a much-loved nationally significant Category 1 historic place that is also the National Office of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga. Work is about to get under way to restore and strengthen this heritage gem.
Mr David Thompson
Mr Derek Neutze
Miss Gaye Matthews
Katherine De Courcy and Greg Smith
Mr Bevin and Mrs Jean Bodmin
Mrs Robin Dossor
Dr N C and Mrs R N Lambrechtsen
Sir Bruce and Lady Lyn Robertson
Miss Fay Jewell
Mr James Cowie
Dr Kenneth and Mrs Vivienne Palmer
Mr Robin and Mrs Avis Barrie
Mr Desly and Mrs Wendy Pearce
Mr J C Horne Mrs Vivien Ward
Mrs K R Gwatkin
Mrs Anne Austin
Mrs Margaret Gillingham
Mrs Robin and Dr Simon Barclay
Mr David Nicoll and Mrs Rosemary Eady
Dr John and Dr Anna Holmes
Mr Wendy Hinton and Charles Finny
Mr Malcolm and Mrs Alison Glenny
Mrs Clare Bryan
Mr Philip Rundle
Mr Pieter Holl and Ms Felicity Cains
Mr Allen and Mrs Judy McDonald
Mrs Jocelyn Donaldson
Mr Wayne and Mrs Diana Hann
Mr Gordon and Mrs Marie Shroff
Mr Francis and Mrs Annette Piggin
Mr William and Mrs Jo Wilson
Mr John Bush
Mr Basil and Mrs Ann Newland
Mr Allan and Mrs Mary Blaikie
Mr Bill and Mrs Ann Moulder
Ms Claire Martin
Mr David and Mrs Jeannie Muirhead
Mr Terence and Mrs Lauren Carroll
Mr Tony and Mrs Cath Morgan
Mrs Janet Salek
Mr Ross Steele
Mr Alistair Aitken and Shona Smith
Mrs Patricia and Jo Taylor
Mr David and Sue Lane
Mr R J M Hill
Mr Darrell Lindop
Mr I A and Mrs. C M Dewar
Mr Geoffrey Lamb
Mr Ashley John Shewan
Mr Des and Mrs Yukito Hunt
Mrs Christine Wargent
Mr Howard Pugh
Mrs Pat Davis
Mr Peter and Mrs Val Osborne
Mr Graham and Ms Suzanna Fear
Mr Donald Charleston
Mr Graeme and Ms Philippa McDowall
Mr Peter Hatfield and Ms Suzanne Blumhardt
Mrs Jeni and Mr Ray Tuck
Ms Marcia Nalepa
Mr Trevor and Mrs Catharine Ferguson
Mr Alan and Mrs Alison Grant
Mr Paul and Mrs Kerry Heath
Mr Neville and Mrs Christine Anderson
Mr Adrian and Mrs Elizabeth Simcock
Ms Elaine Hampton and Michael Hartley
Mrs Diane and Mr Andrew McLean
Mr Linton and Mrs Trish Brown
Mr Alan and Mrs Viv Hayward
Mr Kevin Tonks
Mr Malcolm Wade
Mrs Charline Baker
Ms M M Eales
Mrs Pam and Mr Simon Sedgley
Prof Frank and Mrs Kate Bloomfield
Mr John and Mrs Angela Clark
Mr Dick and Mrs Eleanor Lane
Mr Donald and Mrs Elizabeth Gray
Mr Angus and Mrs Jan Smith
Mr John and Mrs Helen Davison
Mrs Carol and Mr Graham Pearce
Mrs Tracey Rowan
Mrs Janet and Mr Malcolm McGill
Mr Max and Mrs Judith Hunter-Walker
Mr David Wilde
Mr Kevin Blue and Mrs Marie Morton-Blue
Mr Brian and Mrs Rosemary Hedge
Mr Mike Wooldridge
Mr Stephen and Mrs Rosa-Jane French
Mr Rob Merrifield
Ms Caroline and Mr Alan List
Mr Mike and Mrs Rosalind Robertson
Mrs Robyn Penno
Mr Laurie and Mrs Lynne Schischka
Mr Graeme and Mrs Christine McNaughton
Mr Roger and Mrs Barbara Hooker
Ms Ceredwyn Jones and Lesley Abell
Mr Kevin and Mrs Glenys Williams
Ms Bronwen Lloyd Davies and Mr Benjamin Kitel
Jack and Susan Mains
Mr Stephen and Mrs Karen Fox
Mr Alexander Heyworth
Mrs Elizabeth and Mr Geoff Lee
Mr Jeff and Mrs Patty Zais
Mrs Carolyn and Mr Denis O’Sullivan
Mrs Rosemary and Mr Chris Berg
Christopher and Kylie Hewitt
Dave and Karen Ellis
Peter Tribe
Anne Parkinson
Nicola Litchfield
Jill & Duncan Matthews
Michael Jarman
Virginia Gallagher
Roy& Beverley Sharp
Jo and Richard Wilton
Frances Bell
Richard Norman
John Vaughan
Roger Weston
Jim McKinley
Thank you! We are very grateful to those supporters who have recently made Antrim House donations.
Whilst some are kindly acknowledged below, many more have chosen to give anonymously.
Issue 167 Raumati • Summer 2022
ISSN 1175-9615 (Print) ISSN 2253-5330 (Online)
Cover image: Southern Cemetery by Mike Heydon
Editor
Caitlin Sykes, Sugar Bag Publishing
Sub-editor
Trish Heketa, Sugar Bag Publishing
Art director
Amanda Trayes, Sugar Bag Publishing
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.
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Online: Subscription and advertising details can be found under the Resources section on the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga website heritage.org.nz
What is heritage? For a magazine that’s been focused on the topic for almost 40 years, it seems a curious question to pose.
But in this issue, pose it we have. So, why?
Anna Knox’s story exploring this question (page 30) had its genesis around two years ago when the editorial team got talking about the wider chatter created by some recent additions to the Rārangi Kōrero New Zealand Heritage List.
In particular, media stories about two shuttered sites – the Wellington Central Library (then just 30 years old) and the Modernist Gordon Wilson Flats (a former state housing high-rise) – being named Category 1 historic places generated a volume of commentary rarely seen in the heritage world.
Heritage professionals had made educated and exhaustive assessments that led to these conclusions. Yet the number of eyebrows these listings raised also highlighted an ongoing disconnect in our collective understanding of heritage; for some, ‘heritage’ still seemed bound by the parameters of ‘lovely old buildings’.
We like to think we play a part in highlighting the diversity of our heritage through our stories; in our last issue there were pieces spanning ancestral landscapes, language heritage and the built heritage of a public toilet, an urban apartment building and a former select committee room.
But given the rhetoric at that time, we thought there was still an opportunity to pause and examine why acknowledging and exploring such diversity is important, and to contribute to what needs to be a wider and ongoing conversation.
A story offering an exhaustive answer to the ‘what is heritage?’ question was never going to be possible; instead, Anna’s story poses this question to four heritage professionals. It’s designed to provide some
thought-provoking perspectives and –hopefully – spark further conversations.
So, what is heritage to you?
I hope a sense of diversity is carried through the other stories in this issue, along with a certain summery feel. Writing about Motueka’s saltwater baths certainly gave me the urge to get into the sea after a long, wet Auckland winter, and while reading Matt Philp’s story on the heritage of Kiwi surf clubs, I could almost feel the burning Piha sand under my feet.
Another hugely popular summer destination is the Hauraki Gulf island of Tiritiri Matangi. The island sanctuary receives more than 30,000 visitors a year, and those visiting this summer will be greeted by its refreshed lighthouse.
The site of one of the world’s most successful community-led conservation projects, Tiritiri Matangi underwent a native replanting programme during the 1980s and 1990s that reforested 220 hectares with more than 280,000 trees.
But the Supporters of Tiritiri Matangi have also long undertaken projects to conserve the island’s significant maritime heritage.
The group’s chair, Carl Hayson, says the work has been undertaken in an ad hoc way, led by the skills, interests and determination of various members over time. But their achievements have been substantial; their recent work to conserve New Zealand’s oldest continually running lighthouse, for example, was a $400,000 project.
Writing about the group’s achievements conserving both the natural and built heritage of the island reminded me of the power we have to create change when we’re strongly connected to a place that holds meaning for us.
And to me, that’s what heritage is.
Caitlin Sykes EditorIn my last supporter update (issue 166, Spring 2022), I told you of the exciting plans for our national office, Antrim House. There was also a members’ Open Day and even a livestream (our first) to give you an insight into the works planned as part of the restoration and strengthening of this Category 1 historic place.
We’ve since carried out preliminary investigations to better understand the condition of the building and how much needs to be done.
This included putting hi-tech cameras down the chimneys. We found some are clear right down to the ground floor, but others are definitely blocked, and we’re currently trying to determine the implications for strengthening them (more work for the engineers!).
We’ve also lifted up some of the roofing to see what the heritage fabric is like
underneath. I’m pleased to report that it is mostly in the condition we expected, which is positive news.
Certainly, at the time of writing, we need your support, as the condition of the building most certainly does need the repair, restoration and strengthening that has been identified.
By the time you read this, however, our our fundraising will have been largely completed and the work will be underway. To those of you who supported this project – thank you! We’ll do the very best we can to make your donations work hard to protect this special place for future generations.
Brendon Veale Manager Supporter Development 0800 HERITAGE (0800 437482)
bveale@heritage.org.nz
Keep up to date by subscribing to our free e-newsletter Ngā Taonga i tēnei marama, Heritage this month
Visit heritage.org.nz (‘News’ section) or email membership@heritage.org.nz to be included in the email list.
Since Marise Martin shared her story of taking on the lease of Oamaru’s Criterion Hotel alongside husband Herbert, she’s moved into a new role managing three Category 1 historic places for Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.
What prompted the change from life behind the bar to managing Totara Estate, Clarks Mill and Matanaka?
It was a sad decision, but we had to end our tenure at the Criterion prematurely because of my husband’s ill health. We were attracted to the business because it gave us the ability to work together, but once Herbert was unable to work, it meant I saw little of him. And Covid also seriously impacted our future planning. While it was difficult to say goodbye to the grand old lady, when one door closes, as they say, another opens, and I found myself in the privileged position of Property Lead at Totara Estate, Clarks Mill and Matanaka.
What are you enjoying about the new role?
No two days are the same, which keeps me invigorated – and sometimes tested. But the work is always underpinned by a deep respect for our shared stories, and the extraordinary vision and sheer hard work of all those who have gone before.
My day starts with greeting Barney, the Totara Estate cat, then I check on the sheep, before unlocking the men’s quarters, where my office is located. I stand in the doorway, look out over our vegetable garden to the mountains beyond and marvel at my good fortune.
Shortly after, our visitor hosts arrive for work, followed by visitors, and I may guide a tour, make tea and answer questions about local history. Some people visit because they have an association with one of our sites or because they’re inquisitive, and some are just returning to enjoy our southern hospitality.
The job also involves some function and event planning, relationship building with locals and other stakeholders and the inescapable clerical work!
What can visitors to Clarks Mill and Totara Estate experience over summer?
At Totara Estate you can take a guided tour followed by tea and scones, or a self-guided tour where you can linger over the collections displayed in the men’s quarters, swaggers’ room, Moncrieff’s tack room, stables, granary and slaughterhouse. You can also feed the sheep, wander around our heritage vegetable garden and, for the energetic, a walk up Mt Sebastopol provides a good workout and great views.
Clarks Mill is a gem – an astonishing example of Oamaru stone architecture coupled with the mechanics of the early working mill. The mill is carefully maintained by a special group of volunteers who are happy to share their knowledge, stories and good humour. And if you’re lucky enough to be around on the last Sunday of the month, the mill will be running.
For opening hours and further visitor information, go to visitheritage.co.nz/visit
Where does your love of books come from, and what has sustained that love through the years since then?
Books contain worlds, and I am someone who loves to travel to places other than the ones I know so that I can understand things from different points of view. It may sound a bit overly optimistic, but I think books can truly help us better communicate and connect with and understand each other – and ourselves. I've always loved reading history books in particular – fiction, nonfiction, biographies, plays, even poetry books – that are about people, times and places that we can no longer physically access. It's an escape, but also an education. I was read to as a child, taken to the library regularly, and always encouraged to read if I was bored. I don't have time to be bored these days, but I would always rather be reading.
Why did you want to take on this particular role? I try to rein it in, but I'm a real enthusiast when it comes to books, and can't keep my opinions to myself! Especially when it comes to books that have 'flown under the radar'. This is the case to some degree for Come Back to Mona Vale, which I've reviewed in this issue, and is one of the most outstanding pieces of writing from Aotearoa New Zealand I've read in the past few years. Every person I've recommended it to has loved it.
Book reviews are also few and far between these days and I think it's fantastic that Heritage New Zealand magazine continues to highlight books that grow our understanding of heritage and the past and the way it affects our present and future. Plus, of course, I am compelled to make time to read!
Your column looks slightly different from previous columns. What's changed and why?
There are three to four featured books per column where I can go a little more in-depth. There is also a 'round-up' section as I think it's really useful to know what books have recently come out in subject areas that are of interest to readers. I hope to include a broad range of books, including fiction, non-fiction, children's and illustrated non-fiction in the round-up as well as across the features throughout the year.
In a world before Instagram, TikTok or even affordable cameras, how was a well-dressed Aucklander supposed to get their picture taken? The answer was simple: take a walk down Queen Street and find John Rykenberg.
Throughout the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, Rykenberg and his team were Auckland’s most prominent street photographers, documenting bars, restaurants, musical performances and passengers waiting at the
wharves. A favourite spot was Queen Street, where they would photograph passers-by, who would then pay for the pictures and receive them in the mail the next day.
We recently featured Rykenberg’s 1960 Queen Street photos on the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Facebook page, with enthusiastic results. People were particularly impressed by the style and confidence shown by Rykenberg’s subjects, with a lot of appreciation for their gloves, pleats, cardigans and sports jackets.
There was also discussion in the post’s comments section about the formalities that a trip to town – whether Auckland or elsewhere – would once entail. Many commenters remembered
not only ironing their clothes and polishing their shoes, but also being told by their parents to be on their very best behaviour.
According to writer Frances Walsh, Rykenberg approached street photography “as a way for people to afford photography, as back then not everybody could afford a studio sitting”. While the approach was generous, it also caused problems, with the New Zealand Professional Photographers’ Association denying him membership on several occasions.
Today, Rykenberg’s collection is increasingly acknowledged as having significant historical and aesthetic value. Keep an eye out for more highlights in our social media channels over the coming months.
Trading continually since 1836, Kerikeri’s Stone Store is New Zealand’s oldest shop.
But it’s not just the building that has deep roots; some of the products on its shelves also have an impressive heritage.
Since September, for example, the store has been stocking brushes made by Browns Brushware, which began trading more than 140 years ago and is still in Brown family hands.
The fifth-generation manufacturer first unveiled its line of brushware in 1879 at an expo in Gore celebrating the first train trip from Dunedin to Invercargill. Today it continues to operate from the New Lynn, Auckland, site it has occupied since 1938.
Notably, the company also played a role in Sir Edmund Hillary’s 1957 TransAntarctic Expedition, supplying its ‘Superior’ brushware range to the historic polar expedition.
Stone Store manager Liz Bigwood says the store team is always on the lookout for quality New Zealand-made products of a type that would have sold in missionary times or that reflect the building’s use for much of its life as a general store.
She says she was particularly struck by the commercial history of Browns Brushware, including that it is still run by the same family, as well as the quality and authenticity of its products.
“The addition of the relationship with Sir Edmund Hillary’s Trans-Antarctic Expedition, with Browns ‘Superior’ Brushware range confirmed by the Ross Sea Committee, is the icing on the cake,” she says.
“What more could cement it in the Pantheon of brushware than Sir Ed using it while crossing the Antarctic on Massey-Ferguson tractors in 1957? Nothing. It’s one heck of a heritage story.”
And for those unable to make it to Kerikeri, thankfully the Stone Store also embraces modern technology, with many of its products available to purchase online: shop.heritage.org.nz
While Christmas is usually a time to kick back and slow down, the lead-up to the holidays can be anything but.
For those looking to carve out a bit of ‘me time’ amidst all the end-of-year events and parties, Christmas shopping and menu planning, Fyffe House has just the thing.
For a number of years, the Category 1 historic place in Kaikōura has hosted Christmas wreath-making workshops for adults, where participants can while away a couple of hours
creating something beautiful to hang in their homes.
The workshops are the brainchild of Shelley Brady, a visitor host at the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga-run property and a serious Christmas enthusiast. Rather than offering a wreath-making demonstration, the workshops give participants the opportunity to pick and choose from a wide range of provided materials and produce a unique creation.
All the materials are found or recycled, collected by Shelley
throughout the year; the wreaths are built from bases fashioned from wire coat hangers and can be adorned with everything from op-shop-sourced tinsel to natural materials found on her farm.
The workshops have become a local tradition, says Fyffe House manager Ann McCaw, running annually even during the disruption of the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake and the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Shelley decorates our pink shed with hundreds of lights and it all looks very
Christmassy and over the top,” says Ann.
“We have a number of regulars who come and it’s their tradition to spend a couple of hours doing something handson and for themselves.
"It’s about having some ‘me time’ in that busy lead-up to Christmas.”
For more information on the workshops, visit the Fyffe House Facebook page at facebook.com/ fyffehouse
Public swimming pools filled by the incoming tide were once fairly common along our shoreline, but Motueka’s saltwater pool is one of only a few that remain
You’d be forgiven for assuming it’s a love of swimming that has drawn Bob Cooke to volunteer at Motueka’s public saltwater baths for the past few decades. Turns out, that’s not the case.
“In more than 30 years, I’ve been in the pool once,” he laughs. “We had a big event on the day it reopened, and I did a length of the pool – and that’s the only time I’ve been in. But it’s one of those things where you just enjoy being involved.”
Today the Motueka Saltwater Baths, a Category 2 historic place, is one of only a few of its type remaining in New Zealand. And it’s thanks to people like Bob – advocates and committed community members who have helped to establish, retain and maintain the baths over its lifespan – that it continues to be a well-used facility in the South Island town.
Such pools were once fairly common along our shoreline.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, fresh air and sunshine were seen as a recipe for good health and were promoted through children’s health camps and by organisations such as the Sunshine League, established here in the early 1930s. Saltwater baths were part of this mix.
Built to enclose an area of seawater for bathing, baths filled with saltwater were seen to offer therapeutic, hygiene and recreational benefits.
Auckland City Council built its first saltwater baths in the 1860s; one of the country’s few other saltwater baths still in operation, at Dunedin’s St Clair Beach, was constructed in 1884.
The St Clair baths were also constructed to protect seawater bathers from sharks – a factor that similarly motivated the establishment of the baths in Motueka.
Around 1930, the town formed a Safe Bathing Society, aimed at providing a safer place for sea swimming away from sharks. Its original solution was not a pool, however, but an enclosure made of telegraph poles and shark netting.
In 1937 the society began investigating construction of a permanent pool in which bathers could swim at any hour, irrespective of the tide, and the following year the first iteration of the pool was built – formed by a seaward wall and two side wings that sloped upwards onto the beach.
Unfortunately, the pool soon filled with sand. Sensing a solution, the New Zealand Army, which had a large training camp at Motueka Beach during World War II, used the pool as a target for explosives practice and blew out the land end of the side wings in the hope (ultimately misplaced) it would help the tide flush out the sand.
It wasn’t until 1952, as a result of a well-supported community working bee, that a fourth wall was built shoreside, ultimately creating the fully enclosed style of pool that remains today.
It was when the baths faced an existential threat around 1990 that Bob first became involved.
“The council was going to knock the thing down and get rid of the baths. So I, along with Nigel Duff and Bruce Dickinson, called a public meeting to discuss if we could save them. We had quite a lot of people turn up, and the three of us were nominated to look into the possibility of rejuvenating the baths,” he recalls.
Bob explains that Nigel, who had building and engineering expertise, played a significant role in the actual rebuild, while Bruce took care of the bookwork, meticulously keeping track of the money raised for the project. Part of Bob’s role was successfully applying for funding for the project, as well as liaising with the baths’ owner, Tasman District Council, and organising the many volunteers who helped with construction.
“Most of the work was done with volunteers and we had a huge number of local businesses contributing machinery and so forth. It was a large community effort getting it back in good working order.”
A major part of the work involved the reconstruction of the seaward wall, which had to be carried out as the tides allowed. Installing a timber boardwalk and decking around the pool was also part of the project, although Bob says second-grade timber ultimately had to be used after the original load was stolen from the site on the eve of the project.
The baths reopened in 1993, and Bob and Nigel have remained part of the team of around 12 volunteers (Bruce has since passed away) who maintain the facility. Between October and April this involves regular cleaning to remove sand, mud and other debris that washes in from the sea.
“We can only do it when the tides are suitable, but it’s around 10 days per cycle. We’ve got a wheel that lifts the floodgate and drains the pool, and as the tide is going out a team of people with ‘squeegees’ – basically big brooms – push the sand and so on out. It takes about an hour and a half, and when the whole pool is clean as a whistle, we put the floodgate down and the tide comes in and fills it up for us.”
Now aged 92, Bob leaves this “donkey work” to others, instead coordinating the volunteers and undertaking other administrative tasks, such as liaising with council contractors. He reports the council recently approved $10,000 of funding for ongoing maintenance, including repair work on the timber decking and boardwalk.
As another summer rolls around, the baths’ continued patronage appears testament to the health-giving properties it was originally conceived to provide.
As to whether the pool has served another of its original purposes, Bob remains unconvinced.
“I’ve been here for nearly 70 years,” he says, “and I’ve never seen a shark.”
heritage.org.nz/the-list/ details/7617
From balls to birthday parties to ballet recitals, the Hastings Municipal Building and its Assembly Hall hold many memories for the people of the city
Blessings, speeches and ribbon cutting are the expected formalities when a building opens. But when the doors of the strengthened and revamped (Former) Hastings Municipal Buildings were officially reopened, the occasion called for something more – dancing.
The Category 1 historic place was closed in 2014 after being
Hastings is one of the two major urban areas in Hawke's Bay, on the east coast of the North Island.
assessed as earthquake-prone and reopened in August this year after an extensive seismic upgrade and refurbishment.
As part of the reopening celebrations, a nationwide competition was run to unearth those who had danced in the building’s grand Assembly Hall between 1950 and 2014. The winners were then invited to be the first to try out its sprung dance floor at an event accompanied by the Hawke’s Bay Jazz Club Big Band.
The Municipal Building incorporates Hastings’ handsome former council chambers and offices, but the jewel in its crown is the Art Deco Assembly Hall. As Hawke’s Bay’s largest ballroom, it has hosted dazzling events, such as a ball to celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 and another in September 1956 to mark Hastings becoming a city, as well as countless weddings, dances, concerts, parties and other special occasions.
Hawke’s Bay historian Michael Fowler is working on a book about the Municipal Building, and as part of the opening weekend celebrations he gave a presentation of its history. Like many, he has personal connections to the space, including its historic ballroom.
“I remember attending fancy dress balls at the Assembly Hall. I hated dancing, so there’s a photo of me in my cowboy outfit – not smiling for the camera,” he laughs.
Michael’s research into the Assembly Hall shows it has had various uses, which also reflect wider societal changes. It operated as an inhalation chamber during the 1918 influenza pandemic, for example, and hosted public lectures supporting the temperance movement in the 1920s and an inaugural Māori debutante ball in 1947.
One story of particular resonance shared by Michael in his presentation was about a ball held in July 1917 for returned Māori soldiers, who performed the same haka on its stage that they had delivered on the battlefield at Gallipoli.
“The people of Hastings, both Māori and Pākehā, have strong connections to the Assembly Hall because it’s associated with important memories like these, and often from when they were growing up,” says Michael.
As the name suggests, however, the building was designed (by architect AG Garnett) primarily for more administrative purposes; it was built in 1916 to provide new premises for the Hastings Borough Council, and it remained
the council’s home for the next 60 years.
As noted in the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga website’s listing information, it was the council’s third home following its inauguration in 1886, and its second purpose-built facility. Along with the adjacent Category 1 (Former) Hastings Municipal Theatre (now the Toitoi Opera House), which opened in 1915, the construction of the Municipal Building demonstrated “a remarkable boldness on the part of the council and its ratepayers of what was then still a town”.
As well as being a longstanding home for local government, the building has a history of other uses. According to Hastings District Council information, the ground floor has been home to long-term retail outlets, and after the council moved to new premises in 1977, it was home to numerous organisations, including government departments.
In the early 2000s, following a major refurbishment of both the Municipal Building and Municipal
Theatre, the buildings were combined into a multipurpose function and entertainment complex (with the ground floor continuing as a retail space).
However, when the buildings were found to be less than 34 percent of the New Building Standard – the level at which New Zealand buildings are considered earthquake-prone – the council made the call to close them. The Opera House was the first to reopen (in early 2020) while work continued on the Municipal Building.
Project architect Justin Matthews, of Matthews & Matthews Architects, notes a key aim was to allow light to enhance the building’s heritage features and bring life back into the space.
A supper room and kitchen, which were later additions to the Assembly Hall, were removed, for example, and doors and windows were then reinstated on the ballroom’s south wall, allowing the return of more natural light.
A key challenge was ensuring that such changes were fully integrated with the building’s new structural design.
Hastings District Council Corporate Group Manager
Bruce Allan says that while the continued use of the opera house as a theatre was clear, the future use of the Municipal Building was hashed out over a longer period of community consultation.
“Ultimately, we identified the Municipal Building as an integral piece of what we now call Toitoi – Hawke’s Bay Arts and Events Centre – which also encompasses the opera house and gives us a whole lot of functionality around hosting arts and events in our community.”
The key heritage spaces on the building’s first floor, such as the Assembly Hall and Shakespeare Room (formerly the council chambers) can now be hired and used for everything from balls and conferences to meetings and performances.
The building’s tradition of housing retail has continued, and Bruce says getting the right mix was also important to draw the community back into the building. It’s now home to hospitality venues, a contemporary art gallery and the Hastings i-SITE, which doubles as a box office for event ticketing.
“We’re really proud of the original architectural features of the building that have been returned, and also the work we’ve put in to creating a place that’s relevant for the community. We hope we’ve captured that in what we’ve done,” says Bruce.
Michael says the foresight shown by the city’s early leaders in commissioning something of the scale and quality of the Municipal Building at a time when Hastings was home to barely 8000 people is reflected in the recent work.
“It means that 100 years from now someone like me could be standing on the Assembly Hall stage giving another talk on the past century of the building and its role in the community,” he says. “That’s the vision.”
heritage.org.nz/the-list/ details/177
Textiles conservator Dr Rangi Te Kanawa hopes that rebuilding traditional skills and knowledge will provide clues to help reconnect taonga kākahu to the descendants of those who made them
WORDS: JACQUI GIBSON • IMAGERY: ERICA SINCLAIRDr Rangituatahi Te Kanawa isn’t one to let a mystery go unsolved. For five years, Rangituatahi (Rangi) meticulously researched the traditional black dyes used in century-old Māori kākahu stored in the collection of Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, hoping to discover where the woven garments came from and who made them.
Records show traditional weavers typically coloured kākahu with handmade dyes made of plant tannin extracted from local plants such as hīnau and iron-rich mud sourced from purpose-built paru pits.
They also show up to 95 percent of Te Papa’s kākahu have no official recorded provenance.
“People whose ancestors may have made these incredible textiles simply don’t know they’re here.
“These taonga have effectively been lost to them,” said Rangi in ‘Uncloaking mysteries’, a Winter 2017 Heritage New Zealand magazine article that was written at the outset of Rangi’s PhD study.
“Did I solve the mystery? Not exactly,” says Rangi, a skilled Ngāti Maniapoto weaver and textiles conservator who was based at Te Papa for more than three decades.
“But I’m not giving up.”
In August Rangi’s research findings were published in a Victoria University of Wellington PhD thesis called, ‘An approach to reconnecting taonga kākahu to tangata whenua’.
In the thesis she canvasses the various methods she trialled over five years to analyse and trace the origins of the traditional black dyes used in Te Papa’s kākahu collection.
In the first year of her PhD, funded by a Marsden grant, she trialled elemental analysis on five piupiu, which proved to be ineffective.
Finally, following discussion with her university supervisor, she settled on another method, which relied on a spectrophotometer to measure the hue of black-dyed fibres typically found in kākahu.
“Neither method was conclusive. But the latter proved somewhat useful by revealing a relationship between the hues of traditional
black dyes and the places they were made.
“For example, I found the black dye procured from my area has a blue hue, largely because we use tannins derived from the hīnau plant. Tanekaha tannins, widely used in several regions throughout New Zealand, produced a red hue.”
To determine the provenance of each kākahu within Te Papa’s collection, more research is needed, says Rangi.
“My work gives the next researcher a possible method to build on and a starting point to further explore the topic.”
In the meantime, Rangi is on a mission to encourage more Māori to take up traditional kākahu weaving.
“I want more of our people to visit the places their ancestors harvested harakeke and gathered the plants needed to dye the fibres. Go to your traditional repo or swampland to gather your paru. Learn how to immerse your tannin-treated fibre into the iron-rich mud.
“It’s my hope that the process of reconnecting to this ancient practice will one day lead to solving the mysteries
of the kākahu in Te Papa’s collection. By building up our skills and knowledge again, and by looking at the kākahu with fresh eyes, some clues to their provenance may very well surface.”
Rangi thanks her mother, the late master weaver Diggeress Te Kanawa, and grandmother, Dame Rangimārie Hetet, also a master weaver, for her deep connection to the craft.
“I grew up with the smell of harakeke boiling on the stove. There was always weaving around the house and a kākahu on the go. As a child, I knew this was unique. I didn’t see the same thing going on in my friends’ homes.
“Now, of course, I realise the incredible role my mother and grandmother played in conserving the practice for future generations. They
retained something that was very nearly lost.”
In 1994 Rangi’s mother published a book, Weaving a Kakahu , which details the steps of making a kākahu from selecting and preparing harakeke to dyeing fibre and weaving a final garment.
“Years ago, I remember talking to Mum about the challenge of making ancient kākahu last forever. I lamented the tendency of black-dyed fibres to break down and deteriorate over time.
“But conserving kākahu didn’t make a lot of sense to Mum. She’d say to me: ‘Nothing lasts forever. Instead, you need to keep the practice alive.’ And
“It’s my hope that the process of reconnecting to this ancient practice will one day lead to solving the mysteries of the kakahu in Te Papa’s collection”
harakeke: flax kākahu: cloak mātauranga: knowledge paru: mud piupiu: woven waist garments repo: swamp tangata whenua: people of the land taonga: treasure
that was very much her goal with her book.”
Rangi says she’s extremely proud to be part of her grandmother and mother’s legacy as New Zealand’s firstever and only Māori textile conservator for nearly 30 years, a researcher and, ultimately, a gifted weaver herself.
In 2020, Rangi completed a feathered kākahu (the second of only two kākahu she’s ever made), which was acquired by Te Papa for its national collection this year.
Using a traditional weaving technique on the hemline and employing a unique diamond pattern made from yellow-dyed fibres on the main body of the cloak, Rangi called the kākahu ‘Te Ao Marama’.
With Rangi’s permission, the kākahu was worn by museum staff as part of Te Papa’s inaugural Matariki public holiday celebrations this year.
“The name references the stage in human creation when shimmering light enters the world. In part, I chose the name to reflect a shift in consciousness we’re seeing across Aotearoa.
“There’s a growing awareness and recognition of our indigenous culture. Reviving and celebrating our weaving traditions is part of that change in mindset. Of course, it’s also wonderful to have my kākahu in Te Papa’s collection, alongside the story of who made it and how it was made.”
Reconnecting tangata whenua to their taonga has been central to my career as a Māori textile conservator, but also to my recent PhD thesis as a heritage and museum studies scholar.
In 2016, while working for Te Papa Tongarewa, I had the privilege of working on an ’ahu ’ula (feather cloak), which was returned to the people of Hawai’i along with a traditional mahiole (helmet).
It was a team effort, of course. My role was to treat the feathered cloak using conservation methods known as ‘stabilising‘ and ‘supporting’. The mahiole was treated separately by a colleague.
The colourful feathers and the intricate woven fibre work, all done by men, was mind boggling. Simply working on the cloak was extremely moving.
Then, in July this year, I travelled to Bishop Museum in Hawai’i to give a presentation on the work we’d done to the people whose ancestors made the extraordinary garment, which also brought me to tears.
The chiefly cloak and helmet were gifted to James Cook in 1779 by Hawaiian high chief Kalani’ōpu’u just weeks before Cook was killed in Hawai’i at the instruction of the chief. For more than a century, they sat in private collections in the UK before being sent to the Dominion Museum in Wellington in 1912.
For me, the story behind the garments is fascinating. But what I find more fascinating is the skill and intellect you clearly see demonstrated in the ’ahu ’ula and in traditional weaving throughout the Pacific.
Our ancestors were formidable in what they knew and could do by drawing on the natural world around them. It’s my dream to see indigenous peoples of the Pacific reclaim this mātauranga and embrace this skill and knowledge as part of our cultural identity again. n – Rangi Te Kanawa
thousands of us flock to the beaches over summer, surf lifesaving clubs up and down the country will be on patrol, helping to keep beachgoers safe as they have for more than a century
Sir Bob Harvey’s lifelong romances with Karekare beach and surf lifesaving began on a day in 1956 when he and a schoolmate cycled out from Auckland city because “we wanted to see surf”. It was an epic ride over the Waitākere Ranges on single-geared Raleighs, and when they arrived, they found the Karekare Surf Life Saving Club celebrating its 21st birthday.
“There were lots of drunken guys sitting under the trees with beautiful girlfriends and I thought, ‘God, I want to be like these guys’. Someone came over and said, ‘Hello boys, did you bike out from town? We’re looking for guys like you to join the club. Can you swim?’”
He could, he joined, and this summer the former mayor of Waitakere City, aged 82 and probably New Zealand’s longest-serving lifeguard, will patrol the black sands of Karekare for the 66th consecutive season – his last, he thinks.
Sir Bob will bow out at a milestone moment for the club, which in September officially opened its new home, a $3.3 million architecturally designed clubhouse beside Karekare Stream. The old headquarters was rotting, rusting, and unfit for purpose, and while there’s some nostalgia – “That club has been my second home most of my life,” he says – its passing is not mourned.
AsWORDS: MATT PHILP
Which is not to say that Karekare doesn’t treasure its heritage. The new bunkrooms are named for illustrious former members – Colin Callan, for instance, an eight-time New Zealand swimming champion, and Ray Bailey, who, aged 17, was awakened in the clubhouse by someone yelling, ‘There are people drowning!’, leaped into the surf and saved two lives, a feat later honoured with a Rescue of the Year award.
The club has preserved the original rescue reel and cork belt, and there’s a four-metre-long wall covered in photographs dating back to the club’s founding. “We greatly honour the history of the club,” says Sir Bob.
In that sense, Karekare is typical of New Zealand’s 74 surf lifesaving clubs, the oldest of which began official patrolling in 1911. None of the early clubhouses were built for longevity.
As Surf Life Saving New Zealand CEO Paul Dalton says, “They were built by their members using donated materials”, and their beachside settings accelerated their decline.
“A lot of the clubhouses are like Granddad’s axe –they’ve had six new handles, six new heads, but they’re still the same axe.”
(The country’s oldest surviving surf clubhouse, Maranui’s iconic 1930s rectilinear building on Lyall Parade, was extended twice, then rebuilt after a fire gutted it in 2009. Club members and the Maranui community fought for the rebuild after the building’s owner, Wellington City Council, decided initially to demolish it. Sadly, the fire consumed records and photos dating back to 1911, as well as a beautiful carved wooden honours board.)
The Covid-19 pandemic has hastened the replacement of many clubhouses, with the Government funding more than a dozen rebuilds and upgrades as ‘shovel-ready’ projects.
In the past few years, clubhouses have been rebuilt in Christchurch, Bay of Plenty, Wellington, ManawatūWhanganui, Coromandel, Auckland and elsewhere, although not all necessarily with pandemic-related funding.
1 Sir Bob Harvey began patrolling the black sands of Karekare 66 years ago.
2 Sir Bob outside the new home of Karekare Surf Life Saving Club, which officially opened in September.
IMAGERY: BRENDON O’HAGAN
1 The $3.3 million architecturally designed clubhouse beside Karekare Stream.
2 A four-metre-long wall in the new Karekare clubhouse is covered in photographs dating back to the club’s founding.
IMAGERY: BRENDON O’HAGAN
3 Lyall Bay Surf Life Saving Club was the first in New Zealand to actively conduct patrols.
IMAGE: MIKE HEYDON
4 Sir Bob inside the new Karekare clubhouse.
IMAGE: BRENDON O’HAGAN
So the rich history of surf lifesaving in New Zealand isn’t to be found in built heritage. Instead, it’s in the clubs’ traditions and their collections, in the black-and-white photographs of lifeguards dressed in ‘neck-to-knees’, and the vintage rescue craft that adorn the clubhouses.
Carol Quirk’s much loved Lyall Bay Surf Life Saving Club, the first in New Zealand to actively conduct patrols, replaced its 1950s clubhouse in 2021. But the club’s 112-year history is celebrated inside.
“We’ve got a roll of honour for all the members who fought in World War I and World War II, a pair of togs from the 1920s, and an old reel and a surfboard from the 1960s on display – a lot of wonderful memorabilia,” says Carol, who joined Lyall Bay in 1976 after it amalgamated with the women-only Wellington Ladies Surf Life Saving Club. She later became New Zealand’s first female club captain and National President of Surf Life Saving New Zealand (of which she was made a life member in 2010).
“While a lot of the original built heritage has gone, clubs try to look after their other heritage. For example, Lyall Bay did oral histories of several of our older members well before our 100th, and we have records
such as a scrapbook that includes records from the first swimming meet held by the Wellington Amateur Swimming Club, which later morphed into the Lyall Bay surf club, and photo albums from the 1920s.”
A number have been entrusted to the Alexander Turnbull Library, adds Carol, who was a New Zealand Historic Places Trust deputy director from 1984 to 1995.
“Keeping them in a surf club is not a wise conservation move!”
Carol’s surf lifesaving story stretches back beyond Lyall Bay to 1968, when she volunteered for the club at Paekākāriki. Fifty-odd years later, it remains a voluntary movement, but “it’s so much more professional”, she observes.
“When I started patrolling, we had a reel and patrol flags, and you sat on the beach in your bikini and your beanie and that was it. Now we have all these power craft, and the people are really qualified – first aid, advanced lifeguarding, you name it.”
Growing professionalism means the service offered is also becoming increasingly consistent between clubs. Paul Dalton talks about the drive to ensure that “what you see between the red and yellow flags in Dunedin is the same as in the Coromandel”.
See more of Sir Bob at Karakare: youtube.com/ HeritageNewZealand PouhereTaonga
“A lot of the clubhouses are like Granddad’s axe – they’ve had six new handles, six new heads, but they’re still the same axe”
1 The country’s oldest surviving surf clubhouse is home to Maranui Surf Life Saving Club.
2 3 Maranui Surf Life Saving Club.
IMAGERY: MIKE HEYDONThat said, our surf clubs have always had unique identities, formed from the stuff of their founders and their setting – a pounding West Coast surf beach, say, or a benign urban strand – and embedded in club traditions and lore.
There are the ‘breakaway’ clubs, historically in rivalry with their parent club along the beach (Maranui and Lyall Bay, for instance) and the hardcore clubs, the ones that patrol the wildest beaches and tend to attract people keen on a challenge (Piha and its neighbours).
Origin stories are a celebrated element of these club identities. Karekare, for example, was formed as a result of a near-drowning, when a young woman, Hazel Bentham, drifted beyond the reach of the reel at Piha. A Fairey seaplane dispatched from Hobsonville reached her in the nick of time as she “floated, waiting for death”, the whole saga witnessed from the beach by members of the Manukau Cycling Club.
“Those guys were in awe,” says Sir Bob. “They later had a meeting at the YMCA and said, ‘Let’s start a surf club!’”
Piha, the first club to patrol the West Coast, had a less dramatic genesis: players from the Waitematā Rugby Club formed it in 1934 around a dining table, with a keg of beer and a bowl of sausages. But Piha was – and still is – the epitome of the hard-edged surf lifesaving club. Its founders were elite athletes – boxers, cyclists, rugby and league players.
“They were people who wanted to test themselves, and there isn’t anywhere you can test yourself more than at Piha,” says author and local-body politician Sandra Coney, who wrote a history of the first 75 years of the club called Piha: Guardians of the Iron Sands
Sandra’s father, Tom Pearce, a representative rugby player and All Blacks reserve, was Piha’s first boat captain and a champion competitor (there are trophies at the family’s Piha bach still).
“Once, he took the surf boat out in really big surf and they got completely smashed. When they staggered onto the shore, heads bleeding, Dad said, ‘Check for broken oars!’ That slightly sums up the ethos of the club.”
Piha was innovative, its members always keen to push the envelope. The club bought a surfboat from Sydney in its second year and promoted the competitive side of the sport to other clubs; the following year it took possession of two surf skis, and in the 1950s Piha led the way in adopting Malibu boards, a pair of which have been restored and are displayed in the clubrooms. There’s also an old surf boat hanging from the clubroom ceiling, and three enormous Whites Aviation photographs of Piha scenes.
The club is also at the heart of the resurrection of a thrilling surf lifesaving tradition with the Big Wave Classic (Day of the Giants), held every February at Piha. In an essay based on her book, Sandra describes it as the “brainchild of ex-Kiwi [rugby league team] Mark ‘Horse’ Bourneville who, inspired by the historic images of early Piha boaties on the clubhouse walls, started the contests in 2005, helping the revival of the heroic and entertaining sport of surf boat racing”.
So much for history; what about the future? Surf lifesaving in this country has arguably never been stronger. The movement is on a more secure financial footing, with the Government allocating $9.4 million per year in perpetuity in the May 2020 budget.
“It’s the first time we’ve had any government support in 100-plus years,” says Paul. “It’s taken a lot of pressure off the clubs.”
Meanwhile, membership continues to grow – at last count, it was around 19,000 (including more than 4500 patrolling lifeguards), with the popular junior ‘Nippers’ programme providing a pipeline of volunteers.
Sir Bob says these contemporary rookies are a different breed – fitter, more athletic, leading healthier lifestyles.
“The raging parties, the keg on the back of the truck, that doesn’t exist anymore,” he says.
But the movement’s essence hasn’t changed.
“It’s part of the spirit of this country: a volunteer movement doing something extraordinary – and which can often be dangerous – for the community.”
Taphophile Gregor Campbell unearths and shares fascinating stories of the lives of people buried in Dunedin’s historic cemeteries
ome people think cemeteries are spooky places, but I look at them as libraries,” says Gregor Campbell. “Every grave has a story – you just have to find it.”
It’s that sentiment that led the self-confessed taphophile, or lover of cemeteries, to create a blog five years ago about the lives and deaths of the people buried in Dunedin’s Southern and Northern Cemeteries and, more recently, Anderson Bay Cemetery.
The blog provided a springboard for the cemetery tours he now conducts, initially for interested friends, then for last November’s Ōtepoti Dunedin Heritage Festival (he’s an active committee member of the Southern Heritage Trust).
So far, most people on the tours are from Dunedin – some even have a family connection, which Gregor particularly enjoys – but, with a marketing manager now on board, he’s focusing on growing his audience.
Born in Dunedin to a family of campers and trampers, Gregor says history has always been part of his life. He spent years exploring and photographing Otago’s abandoned buildings, and prior to the Covid-19 pandemic he ran other tours in Dunedin, including at Larnach Castle and an inner-city walking tour – something he hopes to restart soon.
It’s a typically fresh but sunny Dunedin day when Heritage New Zealand magazine joins Gregor on a tour of the leafy Southern Cemetery, a Category 1 historic place (pictured).
He’s chosen this spot not only because it contains the graves of most of Otago’s early European settlers, but also because it’s the location of the Dewar family, whose tombstone first piqued his insatiable curiosity about those buried here.
Gregor strides off down a winding path to find it, ice axe in hand (inherited from his father, it adds character, he says, but is also handy for pointing things out, and occasionally for climbing up steep banks), before stopping in front of the stone. It’s unremarkable save for four faint, barely legible words: “... who were brutally murdered”. It’s a shocking epitaph.
“… they still loved, hated and had dreams, just like us. They lived, they died and now they’re here – and their stories should be told”
“I went home and tried to find the story behind the stone,” recalls Gregor, “and that’s how I found Papers Past [paperspast.natlib.govt.nz], which is an invaluable resource. It’s there I discovered the life and career of a Victorian psychopath.”
That psychopath was Robert Butler, a burglar from Melbourne who immigrated to New Zealand and graduated to murder in 1880 when he killed James and Elizabeth Dewar and their young daughter at their house in Cumberland Street; probably, Gregor suspects from his research, over some jewellery Elizabeth had in her possession. Butler defended himself and was acquitted, although he was hanged 25 years later for another killing in Brisbane. (“Apparently they hanged him too far and nearly tore his head off,” says Gregor.)
Heading to our next stop, we navigate some toppled gravestones. The oldest of Dunedin’s three main cemeteries, the Southern Cemetery was established in 1858 and closed to new burials in 1974 (unless in possession of a family plot), and much of it is in an atmospheric state of decay.
Many of Otago’s early leaders are among the estimated 23,600 people interred here. The graves
of Otago founder Captain William Cargill, the colony’s first spiritual leader (and poet Robert Burns’ nephew) the Revd Thomas Burns, Hallenstein Brothers founder Bendix Hallenstein, and David Theomin, who established the Dresden Piano Company and later had Olveston House built, are all part of the Southern Cemetery tour.
It’s not just the city’s elite who stand out though; the cemetery – which is split into Anglican, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Jewish and Chinese sections – is significant for representing a cross-section of Victorian society, including teachers and doctors, and members of the military and the working classes. It also contains unmarked graves of Taranaki Māori prisoners of war, making the cemetery of cultural and spiritual significance to Māori.
Gregor points out the grave of the Wilson family, who died in 1879 in a fire at Ross’s building in the Octagon – now the site of the Regent Theatre – before pausing by a simple plot covered in leaves.
“This is Catherine Jarvey,” he notes. Catherine’s story is a sad one: originally from Ireland, she was murdered by her husband, Captain Andrew Jarvey,
Hear more from Gregor Campbell: youtube.com/ HeritageNewZealand PouhereTaonga
1 Taphophile Gregor Campbell loves discovering the stories behind the stones.
2 Gregor stands in front of two dramatic headstones marking the graves of friends who drowned.
who had bigamously married another woman. Jarvey’s 18-year-old daughter Elizabeth witnessed her mother’s painful death from strychnine poisoning and testified against her father in court. The jury found Jarvey guilty, and in 1865 he was the first man to be hanged in the South Island.
“Elizabeth is one of my heroes because she was so brave,” says Gregor. “I would love to know what happened to her.” As he says this, Gregor’s passion for his work –and the people he researches – is clear; he obviously gets immense pleasure from sharing their stories.
Sarah Gallagher, Heritage Assessment Advisor in the Dunedin office of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere
Taonga, agrees. “I’ve been on one of Gregor’s tours, which was entertaining and informative. He is infinitely curious and dedicated to exploring historic sites and is a wonderful writer who teases out stories from the gravestones.”
The 90-minute tour certainly covers a lot of ground – in more ways than one. As we crisscross the mosscovered cemetery, it’s like walking back through Otago’s historical timeline, with graves marking key events in the region’s past: the tuberculosis epidemic; the Battle of Passchendaele (only one memorial here bears the date 12 October 1917, the catastrophic day when more than 800 New Zealanders died in Belgium’s Flanders Fields, but there are many more in cemeteries throughout Otago); and the Otago gold rush of the 1860s – some Chinese miners are still buried here, but some were exhumed and put on board the SS Ventnor to return to China before the ship sank near Hokianga Harbour in 1902.
We hear other personal tales of suffering, heroism and love – the dead coming to life in the little details that Gregor’s research has uncovered. There’s John Bevan, who, after surviving the Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854, returned to New Zealand to join the police and came to be respected by the criminal classes for his refusal to trump up charges.
The Southern Cemetery is the resting place of not one but two Polish princes – Alois Konstantin Lubecki and his eldest son Jean, who inherited his father’s title when he died in 1864, then died himself just a year later.
The princes were descendants of the famous Viking Rurik of Ladoga. Alois was forced to flee his home country after he joined the rebels fighting for an independent Poland during the ultimately unsuccessful November Uprising of 1830.
He moved to England and married Laura Duffus, then in 1838 the couple travelled to Australia, where they lived for 25 years and had two sons and two daughters.
Eventually, the family of six sailed to Dunedin in 1863, settling in a house on the corner of George and Union Streets.
After the deaths of his father and brother, Alois’s younger son, Alois Junior, inherited the title of Prince. He also became Dunedin’s postmaster in 1865 – a role he held for 30 years – and was instrumental in arranging New Zealand’s first telephone call, between Dunedin and Milton, on 2 February 1878. The call was ordered by the General Manager of the Telegraph Department, Charles Lemon, leading to Dunedin’s telephone poles subsequently being dubbed ‘lemon trees’.
Alois Junior died in 1926; he never married, so the male line of the Lubecki family died with him. n
Or Alexandra Mathieson, who became a gifted surgeon – a remarkable feat for a woman in the early 1900s – and died aged 28 at Gore Hospital after a terrible accident with carbolic acid.
And Marion White, a psychologist and promising writer who poisoned herself with strychnine in 1897 because she felt trapped by her gender.
Towards the end of the tour, we stop in the cemetery’s Jewish section to examine the grave of Samuel Saltzman.
“In the 1990s I ran for mayor, as a bit of street theatre, really,” Gregor reveals. “A woman came up to me in the Octagon and said, ‘If you promise to have a statue of Samuel Saltzman put up, then you’ve got my vote’. So I promised – and then went to find out who he was.”
Saltzman started out as a tailor’s apprentice in Warsaw, Poland, before moving with a friend to London and then the US, where he specialised in ladies’ tailoring. He later immigrated to Dunedin, where he prospered and wrote cheques for worthy causes, including the construction of the St John Ambulance headquarters in York Place, and tuberculosis blocks at various hospitals. “He gave his money away,” says Gregor. “He was a hero.”
Incidentally, the friend Samuel travelled with to the US – Schmuel Gelbfisz – changed his name to Samuel Goldfish and then Goldwyn.
1 The steep slopes of the Southern Cemetery overlook Otago Harbour.
2 The Chinese section contains graves of miners who died during the Otago gold rush.
3 A flower brightens up one moss-covered grave.
4 Gregor’s tours are rich in little details that bring the dead to life.
5 Much of the cemetery is in an atmospheric state of decay.
6 The grave of Otago founder Captain William Cargill.
“As in ‘Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’” says Gregor. “It took me a while to confirm it, but the friend Saltzman travelled with to London became filmmaker Samuel Goldwyn, the Hollywood millionaire.”
As that revelation sinks in, Gregor reflects on what he hopes people take away from his tours.
“I hope they come to understand that while the people who make up our history lived very different lives from ours today, they still loved, hated and had dreams, just like us. They lived, they died and now they’re here – and their stories should be told.”
To find out more about Gregor and his tours, visit darkestdunedin.co.nz
Situated in a classic southern landscape and popular with tourists and photographers alike, Nugget Point lighthouse was constructed from local stone and first lit in 1869. It was manned until 1989 and is now monitored and managed by Maritime New Zealand. In 2020 it was converted to solar and now has no mains power. Although I’ve been along the coast of the Catlins several times, I finally had a chance recently to check out the lighthouse. Following a shoot in Balclutha, with my wire-haired fox terrier Scout in tow and a few spare hours, I set off in search of a few lonely beaches and to see the lighthouse for myself (and by myself, as dogs aren’t permitted along the lighthouse track). It’s an amazing spot with plentiful birdlife beneath the high viewing platform by the lighthouse. It’s a must-do when visiting the deep south.
DATA • Camera: Nikon D850 • Exposure: 1/125, f8 @24mm
To truly protect and keep New Zealand’s heritage alive, we need to think beyond ‘lovely old buildings’. So how do we define heritage? We asked some heritage professionals how they see it
When Wellington’s Central Library, at just 30 years old, was added to the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero in 2021, it created quite a stir. Reactions ranged from enthusiasm to rage, with many wondering how a building younger than them could be ‘heritage’.
The reaction over the concurrent listing of Gordon Wilson Flats was even more heightened. Described by some as dangerous, due for demolition and one of Wellington’s ugliest buildings, its Category 1 designation seemed to fly in the face of what a ‘heritage’ place was popularly understood to be.
Annie James had just started in her listing advisor role with Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga at the time. “I opened the paper one day, happy to see coverage of the new listings, and the next to an outcry about them, and I realised just how much of a static view of heritage people can have.”
A place’s condition, age and appearance can make it hard for some people to see its value, Annie says. “And I get that. But a building that’s significant will be old one day, if we look after it. Heritage is all about foresight. A place can be valuable for the stories it tells, the communities it connects or the innovation behind its construction.”
Part of the challenge in how we understand and assess heritage lies in our inherited approach; as Annie explains, our tools and processes (including the List) largely come from European roots. However, this is slowly changing, with a more Aotearoa-appropriate approach emerging both via legislation and practice.
Both the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Board and Māori Heritage Council have clear strategies to prioritise Māori heritage in every aspect of the listing process, and advisors work with pouārahi (Māori heritage advisors local to the site) to develop narratives around listings, whether they are a library, a pā, or a shed. The Rainbow List project –which incorporates previously unrecognised queer narratives of significance into existing listings, as well as establishing new listings – is another recent development that reflects a wider representation of heritage.
Annie describes heritage as “how people, places and time relate to each other”, with heritage practitioners shifting away from the idea that heritage is frozen in time, and towards the idea of heritage having a living identity.
Any place that is fixed to the land within the territorial limits of Aotearoa New Zealand and can be shown to have one or more of the following significance values: aesthetic, archaeological, architectural, cultural, historical, scientific, social, spiritual, technological, or traditional.
When we chat, Dr Rangi Mātāmua is sitting in Te Papa – “a pretty relevant location really,” laughs the author of Living by the Stars, who is renowned for his work in bringing the observation of Matariki back into national consciousness.
This year, the museum raised eyebrows when it used some cloaks from its collection as part of its Matariki celebrations; they are valuable heritage items, after all. But Rangi says it’s the sharing of heritage, not the maintaining of it, that is most important to him.
“From a Māori perspective, they’re flax and feathers until they are used. It’s people who give them their special quality. I’m pretty sure when the weavers were putting them together, they weren’t thinking, ‘I hope this sits in a cabinet for 400 years’. They’re meant to be used, and it’s the practice of making them and the sharing of the knowledge of how to do that, which matters.”
His privileging of what he calls ‘knowledge heritage’ may be controversial for some, but Rangi makes a key distinction between protection and activation, arguing that it’s the interaction with heritage that keeps it alive, and that can, in fact, protect it.
“If the objects
Dr Rangi Mātāmua – a Māori astronomer and Professor of Mātauranga Māori at Massey University –says heritage is about activation rather than preservation
have no connection to people, they don’t activate the cultural identity heritage response. For me, ringfencing our heritage off and building a wall around it, not letting people interact with or access it, actually speeds up its decline.”
The Glenorchy Shed provides another example. The shed is iconic, and well signposted, “Which is right; it’s part of heritage”, says Rangi. But a traditional Ngāi Tahu pā site directly opposite, where people have been eeling for 600 years, is unmarked.
“But they still go eeling in that place, 600 years later. For them, it’s not about the structure, it’s about the activity.”
So how can we protect such sites so their heritage value can continue to be activated and that knowledge heritage cultivated and passed down?
Rangi’s grandfather Jim Moses (Timi Rāwiri Mātāmua) once told him, “Knowledge hidden isn’t knowledge at all.”
In 1995, in response to Rangi’s questions about Matariki, his grandfather produced a 400-page astrological manuscript written
in te reo Māori by Timi’s grandfather, Rāwiri Te Kōkau, and his father, Te Kōkau Himiona Te Pikikotuku, who was a tohunga of Tūhoe and Ngāti Pikiao. It had previously been kept private – but he told Rangi to share it.
Partly as a result of that, Matariki is now observed with a national holiday and the mātauranga of Māori and Polynesian astronomy has been activated for many in Aotearoa New Zealand and around the world. For Rangi, this new observance of Matariki is a great example of how heritage is also being created.
“Heritage is also the continuation of the knowledge. It lives because of the interaction with people. And we’re constantly adding to it, like with Matariki. In my mind, that’s where we need to go.”
“Heritage is also the continuation of the knowledge. It lives because of the interaction with people”IMAGERY: ERICA SINCLAIR
Dr Paola Boarin – Associate Professor at Te Pare School of Architecture and Planning at the University of Auckland and co-founder and codirector of the Future Cities Research Hub – says heritage is an enabler of a more sustainable and resilient future
Growing up in Italy, Paola Boarin was “always living in historic environments” – by which she means the tangible, built heritage harking back to the Pantheon for which the country is so famous.
“In a way, for people like me, it becomes an automatic thing to think about the heritage around you,” she says.
However, she explains, there’s another side to this.
“You can get so stuck with the conservation approach, to the point where you think you can’t do anything with these buildings. Where you can’t touch it and you can’t change anything, which can take heritage to a point where it is not useful anymore.”
Moving to New Zealand, Paola was glad to see a more open approach, although discovering Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga’s stories of ‘lost heritage’ came as a shock. She says she couldn’t imagine such a thing in Italy.
The architect and academic says the definition of heritage that resonates best with her is provided by UNESCO, which she articulates as: “The legacy of physical artefacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from the past generations, maintained in the present, and bestowed for the benefit of future generations.”
Adapting heritage buildings for contemporary use, which is a focus of Paola’s research, is a direct fulfilment of this definition; it is ‘activating heritage’ –to borrow Rangi’s term.
“For me, adaptive reuse is about incorporating this transmission of past to the future through transformations that enable heritage to maintain its usefulness. When you stop using a building, you start losing it, because people don’t see it as useful anymore. It really links to heritage not being a thing of the past but a thing of the present tense.”
hapū: sub-tribe *kāika (kāinga): village mātauranga: knowledge
rohe: tribal area tapu: sacred tīpuna/tūpuna: ancestors
*tūraka (tūranga): foundation whakapapa: genealogy whanaunga: relatives *Ngāi Tahu spelling
astudent of the Master of Arts in Archaeology at the University of Otago
“How we see our history really affects how we navigate the world”
“For me, heritage is anything that connects me to my tūpuna,” says recent archaeology master’s graduate, Marie Dunn, from Murihiku Southland.
Fellow archaeologist Sabre BakerAnderson (Ngāti Ranginui, Te Rarawa and Ngati Porou) agrees. “Heritage depends on the people. For me, it’s about my tīpuna and what they were doing and the knowledge they’ve passed on.”
Marie spent her childhood immersed in archaeology, although she didn’t realise it at the time. She grew up on an archaeological site in the Catlins, the tūraka of her hapū. She describes her grandmother as an amateur archaeologist and naturalist and says there were always archaeological artefacts around home.
“These sites were my playground. But I assumed everyone’s nan had an adze in the house! So when I found out you could actually study it, I got so excited.”
Her master’s thesis examined the connection between Kāi Tahu and Kāti Māmoe identity and the cultural landscapes in Murihiku using the kāika where she grew up, and her nan’s writings about tūpuna, as a case study.
“It’s so important to show that there is evidence of Māori being here,” she explains, noting that the history of the Catlins tends to be overly focused on sealers, whalers and loggers, with mentions of Māori often only a sentence.
“Just because you don’t see huge pā sites in the Catlins, doesn’t mean we weren’t here. But if people aren’t aware of what was here, it’s easy to brush it under the rug.
How we see our history really affects how we navigate the world.”
Sabre’s research focuses on the interaction between people and the environment at Cape Kidnappers to better understand settlement, subsistence and the mobility of people in Hawke’s Bay. Her nan was a native te reo Māori speaker, her grandfather a carver and weaver, and her mum’s husband a carver, so she grew up “with a lot of Māori ‘stuff’ around me. Things my family had made all the time”.
From a young age she wanted to be an archaeologist but wasn’t initially interested in pursuing Māori archaeology.
“From what I learned growing up, I wasn’t exactly comfortable with excavating in a rohe I don’t whakapapa to. It wasn’t until I came to the [University of Otago] department and saw their enthusiasm for the Pacific and for Māori archaeology that I really started getting interested in Māori archaeology.”
Both Sabre and Marie are hugely encouraged by the increasing presence of Māori archaeologists and changes to indigenous archaeological practice and fieldwork in Aotearoa New Zealand. Marie points out that while historically archaeologists have studied material culture in order to look at our heritage, work by indigenous archaeologists has paved the way to look at the intangible as well.
“For a long time there weren’t enough Māori archaeologists looking at, for example, oral traditions from a Māori perspective,” says Sabre. “That’s changing.”
Marie and Sabre credit mentors such as Dr Gerard O’Regan, currently Pouhere
Kaupapa Māori Curator at Tūhura Otago Museum; University of Otago lecturer Zac McIvor; and Makere Rika-Heke, Director Kaiwhakahaere Tautiaki Wāhi Taonga at Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, with helping to chart the way forward.
“Being involved in the excavations with Gerard and his whanaunga opened our eyes to how our people can be involved in cultural heritage management. It’s helped us see that there are inspirational Māori archaeological projects that involve the community in cultural heritage management, excavation and so on, where their interests are key to the whole thing,” explains Sabre.
Their optimism shifts though, when talking about threats to archaeology in New Zealand. Says Sabre: “With rising sea levels and climate change, there’s a lot more erosion happening and a lot more archaeology being lost, and cultural heritage.”
Marie says that both the sites she’s worked on, at Cape Kidnappers and Moeraki, have already lost significant material.
But it’s the site where she lives in the Catlins that drives the point home. “We recently lost about three to five metres from the dunes due to erosion in just a few days, which was shocking, and it is threatening a really tapu place for my whānau.”
She suggests the conversations about heritage now happening in communities will centre on whether to let nature take its course or intervene and rescue the material.
“The decision,” says Sabre, “will depend on the people.”
In 1937 the main attraction of the Farmers Santa Parade was airdropped (with parachute) over Auckland Domain. He ultimately landed in the park’s lily pond before making his way – slightly more sedately – via float to the retailer’s flagship Hobson Street store.
Such showstopping moments cemented the parade as a ‘must see’ for Aucklanders and have undoubtedly helped it endure.
Farmers Trading Company founder Robert Laidlaw was a visionary entrepreneur whose retail innovations included free bus services and grand tearooms for shoppers – and a parachuting Santa
“Robert Laidlaw was quite a maverick, very innovative, and he was also a committed Christian and philanthropist,” notes Pam Glaser, Farmers Santa Parade General Manager.
“The Santa Parade obviously made Farmers stand out, but it was something he did to genuinely bring joy to the community.”
Following a tradition that began with Laidlaw’s first ‘grand parade’ in 1934, the event is back in 2022, after it was forced online in 2021 due to the Covid-19 restrictions.
The intent to bring joy remains, says Pam, but today’s parades are on a scale far beyond even Laidlaw’s imagination, which in 1934 spawned decorated carts pulled by “gaily decked” horses walking alongside a handful of children’s characters.
Around 4000 people take part in the country’s biggest Christmas parade, watched by an estimated 100,000 who line the route, and many more who watch from buildings above. Alongside contracted performers and community groups – from cosplay to roller derby to dance – participants include 1200 individuals who apply
to be in the parade and wear supplied costumes. Another 800 volunteers help behind the scenes.
Farmers gifted the parade to the city in 1991 and it’s since been run by the Auckland Children’s Christmas Parade Trust; Pam’s long association with the parade spans that transition.
After immigrating to New Zealand from South Africa, her first job was in Farmers’ marketing division, which was responsible for the Santa Parade. She was a few years into her role when the parade was gifted to the city, and the trust asked her to run it.
“And I’ve done it ever since,” she says. “There’s so much history for people with the parade; we have people whose children and now their grandchildren have become involved. There’s a lot of goodwill and loyalty in the parade community.”
When the parade was owned by Farmers, all the company’s Auckland staff held ‘parade jobs’ alongside their day jobs, explains Pam. “The 2000 parade volunteers we have today, their equivalent used to be Farmers’ staff and they were the envy of Aucklanders because outsiders generally couldn’t participate. It was very exclusive.”
The ownership change also impacted traditional aspects of
the route, most obviously its start and end points at the landmark Farmers store on Hobson Street.
It’s the site where, in 1914, Laidlaw first constructed a warehouse for his mail order company Laidlaw Leeds.
This became open to the shopping public in 1921 following Laidlaw Leeds’ merger with the Farmers Union Trading Company to form the Farmers Trading Company, and a major building expansion.
Subsequent innovations – such as the Roy Lippincottdesigned tearooms, a rooftop children’s playground and free buses to shuttle shoppers to and from the Queen Street and Karangahape Road strips – made the building a place of memory for many Aucklanders and visitors to the city.
Farmers was also responsible for New Zealand’s first multistorey carpark, which it built on the corner of Wyndham and Hobson Streets, and also played a role in the Santa Parade.
It’s an event tradition (and one that continues today) to host ill and special needs children and their families in a VIP area.
Pam recalls how special seating was erected for these guests on two levels of the carpark, offering a plum view of the parade, and afterwards the guests enjoyed a
lavish afternoon tea prepared by the Farmers tearooms’ chef.
For many years (from 1960), also standing on the corner of Hobson and Wyndham Streets, was Farmers’ giant Santa, which beckoned to shoppers from the front of the store over the festive season.
Pam recalls the massive steel and fibreglass structure lying under canvas in the lower reaches of the Hobson Street store on Santa’s off-duty months, and how every three years lingerie firm Bendon (a Farmers’ supplier) would make a new corset for his beckoning finger mechanism.
After subsequently making his way around other homes, Santa fittingly carried out his final festive duties fronting Farmers’
store on the corner of Queen and Victoria Streets, before retiring in early 2020.
The continually changing face of the city has also affected the parade’s 1.6-kilometre route. More recently, the parade’s starting area on Mayoral Drive has been squeezed due to work on the City Rail Link; and changes to make Queen Street (which accounts for the bulk of the route) more pedestrian and cycle friendly has narrowed the parade’s path to two lanes.
But as it heads towards its 90th year, the Auckland Christmas tradition continues.
“The fact that we’re back this year is amazing,” says Pam, “and we’re going to shout it from the rooftops.”
While walking along a path dotted sunshine yellow with fallen kōwhai flowers, we hear the titter of hihi, which soon rises so loudly it interrupts conversation.
Carl Hayson and Ray Walter pause at a feeding station, where a throng of bellbirds gorges noisily on the sugar syrup that tops them up over cooler months on Tiritiri Matangi Island.
“In the 1960s there were just 26 bellbirds on the island; they were just hanging in there. But the population has since exploded because of the habitat that’s been created for them,” says Carl.
And in contrast to the hundreds that now bloom, a single kōwhai once stood on this Hauraki Gulf island, adds Ray. That was before a massive native replanting programme during the 1980s and 1990s
reforested 220 hectares with more than 280,000 trees.
A scientific reserve and open wildlife sanctuary populated by rare native birds, Tiritiri Matangi is a jewel in New Zealand’s conservation crown. Managed by the Department of Conservation and iwi who have mana whenua over the land (including Te Kawerau ā Maki, Ngāti Paoa, Ngāti Manuhiri and Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki), as well
as the Supporters of Tiritiri Matangi community group, the island’s natural heritage has been restored thanks to one of the world’s most successful community-led conservation projects.
But the Supporters of Tiritiri Matangi haven’t stopped there. The volunteer group with around 1500 members has also been steadily preserving the island’s maritime heritage, led
by passionate individuals like Carl and Ray.
Ray was the last keeper of the light on Tiritiri Matangi before the station was fully automated in March 1984. A two-man station in close proximity to Auckland, it was a “plum” posting, says Ray, who is a veteran of seven lighthouse stations, including two stints at the famously remote and desolate Puysegur Point Lighthouse in Fiordland.
The pull of the island remained for Ray, who transitioned from a 30-year lighthouse service career to become the first DoC ranger on Tiritiri Matangi.
He and his wife Barbara established the nursery, growing plants from seeds gathered on and around the island that supplied the massive replanting programme, as well as the supporters group.
A symbol of a conservation triumph, New Zealand’s oldest continually running lighthouse has been restored alongside the natural heritage that surrounds it
Carl, who chairs the Supporters of Tiritiri Matangi and has been a member for more than 30 years, recalls a conversation with Ray around 20 years ago that sparked efforts to restore the island’s maritime precinct.
“He said, ‘Someone needs to do something about these buildings, or they’ll all fall down’. When I really looked into what we have here, I could see we had something special, so I thought, ‘Let’s see what we can do’.”
The 1864 Tiritiri Matangi Lighthouse is New Zealand’s oldest continually running lighthouse (it’s still in use today), and much of the island’s other lighthouse station infrastructure remains. This includes the 1918 first and second lighthouse keepers’ cottages, 1911 watchtower and 1935 foghorn station.
Carl explains that, fittingly, restoring the island’s natural heritage played a hand in helping to retain these historic buildings.
“In most cases, when the lighthouse service no longer required a building, it was pulled down, but after this station was automated, the first keeper’s cottage was used as a ranger station, the second housed volunteers for the replanting, and other buildings were used for storage. That ongoing use probably saved them from being destroyed.”
The foghorn station (the only one left in New Zealand) was the first to be restored. It’s home to three types of foghorn, illustrating technological changes through the decades, including one that’s still operational.
The watchtower, which served primarily as a weather and signal station, was the next project, and one in which Carl became more involved, particularly with fundraising.
“To do these little projects on the side in the early days was hard; we had to establish our credibility with this kind of work, particularly with funders, because we were mainly known for our conservation work.”
“When I really looked into what we have here, I could see we had something special, so I thought, ‘Let’s see what we can do’”
The group’s latest built heritage project, however, is perhaps its most ambitious – the restoration of the lighthouse, a Category 1 historic place.
The lighthouse was the first established on the approaches to Auckland in the Waitematā Harbour, and at the time of its construction there were only two lighthouses in the country: Pencarrow (lit in 1859) and Boulder Bank (1862).
The cast-iron tower was designed by McLean and Stilman Civil Engineers, London, and built by Simpson and Company in London before its prefabricated parts were shipped to New Zealand and put together in situ. (The lighthouse has a ‘twin’, first erected on Mana Island in 1865 then moved to Cape Egmont in 1877, where it still stands and is a Category 2 historic place.)
While its original white light lasted 60 years, the light in the tower has changed several times, reflecting changing needs and technology.
In 1965, for example, an 11-million-candlepower xenon lamp – at the time reputedly one of the most powerful lights found in any lighthouse in the world – was installed in the tower. (Known as ‘the Davis light’, it was donated
by a former Auckland mayor, Sir Ernest Davis.) The light was reduced to one million candlepower and automated in 1984, when the station was also de-staffed.
As well as continuing to be owned and maintained by Maritime New Zealand as an operational lighthouse, the tower is occasionally unlocked on open days run by the supporters. And it was on these occasions in more recent years that Ray and others noticed moisture accumulating and the structure deteriorating, including corrosion of the cast-iron panels and the bolts fixing them together.
“If you go back to the days of manned lighthouses, you were up there twice a day turning your light off and on and every Monday was ‘scrub down day’ where you’d wash all the steps, clean the brass and look after the light itself,” explains Ray. “But when they’re shut up, there’s no ventilation and they quickly deteriorate.”
In addition, original brass ventilators installed near the top of the tower were removed some time after 1997 and the openings welded shut, further reducing air flow.
Funding through Maritime New Zealand to address the deterioration was limited, but the organisation was open to the supporters seeking a solution.
1 The complex is among the three most complete historic lighthouse stations remaining in New Zealand.
2 Carl Hayson and Ray Walter in the watchtower.
3 Many threatened species, such as takahē, call the island home.
4 The watchtower served primarily as a weather and signal station.
IMAGERY: JASON DORDAY“The tower has always played an important role in the natural restoration of Tiritiri Matangi because it’s a symbol of the island,” says Carl.
“We thought, it’s not a good look if we restore the rest of the island then this starts falling apart.”
The group began by commissioning DPA Architects in 2021 to produce a conservation plan, which noted the lighthouse was “experiencing both internal and external corrosion which will compromise the longevity of the structure if not urgently addressed”.
The supporters then obtained quotes to address the corrosion and paint the tower, while fundraising manager Juliet Hawkeswood, with the support of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, applied for funding to help pay the $400,000 restoration bill. When the Lottery Grants Board provided a substantial $261,000 grant from its Lottery Environment and Heritage Fund, and Auckland Council a further
$40,000, the group was able to press on with the work.
The project, says Ray, includes the first full interior lighthouse repaint undertaken in New Zealand; working on an island and in a relatively confined space added to its complexity. For the interior work, for example, 500 litres of paint and a truck were barged to the island, and scarce, short lengths of scaffolding had to be sourced to fit inside the lighthouse.
Old lead paint was blasted off (and collected and disposed), corrosion addressed and a full repaint undertaken by NZ Coating Services, a Nelson-based firm appropriately experienced in working in the tight confines of ship hulls. Beginning in April, the work was carried out over three months, during which new insights into the lighthouse were uncovered.
On the interior of individual cast-iron panels, large circles, each bearing a unique letter and number, were revealed. These were used to guide those charged
1
“The tower has always played an important role in the natural restoration of Tiritiri Matangi because it’s a symbol of the island”
1 Ray has been a driving force behind the restoration of the island’s natural and built heritage.
2 The museum is home to treasures related to a number of New Zealand lighthouses.
3 A circle on each lighthouse panel bore a unique letter and number to help guide those who bolted it together.
4 The huge spanners discovered during the restoration project.
IMAGERY: JASON DORDAYwith piecing the lighthouse together in 1864, and one of these circles has been left uncovered to share this aspect of the building’s heritage. Also discovered were the huge spanners used to bolt the structure together.
At the time of writing, an exterior repaint carried out by Wellington-based Abseil Access was about to begin, so visitors this summer will be greeted by a fully refreshed tower.
To help mitigate future moisture problems, the group will reinstate further original features: four brass ventilators and, hopefully, the lighthouse’s weathervane, which also facilitated ventilation.
Both features were rescued and restored by Ray, who has helped retain many items related to the heritage of the Tiritiri Matangi station – and others. Many of these are displayed in the precinct’s lighthouse museum, housed in the former generator shed/carpentry workshop.
Among the group’s future plans is to upgrade and extend the museum so it can house other treasures its members have saved. For example, the supporters rescued the original lens from the Cuvier Island Lighthouse, which stands 6.5 metres high and weighs nine tonnes (also restored by Ray) and is in possession of the lantern from the Pōnui Passage Lighthouse – the little-known sister to Auckland’s Category 1 Bean Rock Lighthouse – along with the Davis light.
Another major project, which will come to fruition by Christmas, involves reinstating the station’s signal mast. Standing taller than the lighthouse tower, the 23-metre mast was used to signal and pilot ships and will help further educate the public on aspects of maritime history.
“Tiritiri Matangi is among the three most complete historic lighthouse stations left in New Zealand, and the other two [on Cuvier and Stephens Islands] are very hard to get to,” says Carl.
“Tiri is unique in that it’s accessible; we have over 30,000 people visiting the island each year. That gives us a unique opportunity to showcase not only our natural heritage but also this important history of early navigation and lighthouses in New Zealand.”
Many of the projects and programmes undertaken by the Supporters of Tiritiri Matangi are supported by grants funding. Reinstating the signal mast, for example, was in development for many years but only recently made possible by donations from the Stout Trust and the Mace Charitable Foundation. Here are some of the group’s tips for grant application success:
Carefully research funders to match your project with those a funder typically supports.
Keep track of the time frames required by funders so you’re aware of when grants open and close, and what information is required when.
Tell the story of your project in a way that’s authentically tailored to the funder; a ‘one-sizefits-all’ approach doesn’t always work.
Once the project is funded, keep in touch with the funder to share thanks, media coverage and any other information that communicates the benefits of their funding.
Network to keep your projects on the radar in relevant funding communities and refresh your contacts.
tiritirimatangi.org.nz/ n
Spurred by the efforts of a couple of dedicated horticulturalists, Aparima Riverton has become a hub for retaining heritage fruit varieties, with public orchard parks and an annual heritage harvest festival
For years Robyn Guyton has been researching lineages going back centuries. But it’s not human ancestors she’s been looking into – it’s apples.
To date she has uncovered more than 100 different varieties, many of which she can identify by sight.
Robyn and her husband Robert have lived in Aparima Riverton for more than 30 years, where they’ve combined his passion for trees and her love of heritage to help keep Southland’s horticultural history alive and educate others about sustainable living.
Upon arrival in the seaside town, the couple sought out like-minded people, starting an organic growers group that attracted 57 of the town’s 1000 residents. The group eventually evolved into the South Coast Environment Society, which runs New Zealand’s longest continually running environment centre.
Located on the main street in an historic building (built in 1908), the centre serves as a shop selling seeds, organic fruit and vegetables, and as a knowledge hub for all things organic, environmental and sustainable.
Here, the Guytons have collated and digitised information they’ve collected through the years; anything from how to graft trees to splicing rope can be learnt at the centre.
Says Robyn: “All that knowledge was going to be lost, and it’s really nice to capture that from the old days when things were handwritten and put it forward into the digital age where it can be [accessed] for the future.”
Robyn’s interest in heritage apples was piqued about 30 years ago when an old sawmiller from the town taught the couple to graft apple trees. This led to another of their commitments, called
1 Robyn Guyton picks an apple from one of the many fruit trees she has in her own backyard.
2 Robyn at one of the 14 heritage fruit orchards in Southland she has established.
3 Robert and Robyn Guyton outside the house they built in Aparima Riverton more than 30 years ago.
“It’s creating food for the future, but it’s also telling the stories of the settlers, honouring them and the hard work they did to come
Open Orchards, which aims to return heritage fruit trees to the Southland community and has saved many heritage apple varieties.
There were once hundreds of orchards in Southland, many planted with trees introduced by 19th-century European immigrants. But earlier this century, as land was cleared for dairy farming, many of these trees were cut down. During this time, the Guytons travelled to more than 100 orchards, taking cuttings to preserve that heritage.
From those cuttings they’ve now established 14 public orchard parks in Southland (from which the public can take what they can carry). Rows in the parks are named after the old stations from which the cuttings were taken, and work is underway on signs that will tell the stories of the people who established the trees on the stations.
“It’s creating food for the future, but it’s also telling the stories of the settlers, honouring them and the hard work they did to come here.”
While this all interests Robyn, it’s each apple’s unique DNA that really fascinates her.
“Every apple is a new baby, just like a human is a new baby. Apples, like humans, get all their DNA from their ancestors, not just from their two parents.”
When funding allows, Robyn plans to DNA test the trees. She will seek matches through FruitID – a community-created catalogue identifying apples grown in the British Isles – which will allow her to name some of the area’s 400 currently unidentified apple varieties. From there she will also be able to uncover the history of those varieties.
Open Orchards also runs an annual fundraising heritage fruit tree sale, offering others the chance to grow their own heritage apples. This year demand was so high the trees sold out during pre-orders.
Apple lovers are also able to get their hands on different heritage varieties at the Riverton Heritage Harvest Festival, an annual sustainability and heritage festival organised by the environment centre.
1 The Guytons established the South Coast Environment Centre in Aparima Riverton, the country’s longest continually running environment centre.
2 A heritage apple press in the South Coast Environment Centre.
3 Robyn wanders through her backyard.
4 The Guytons provide all sorts of information in the environment centre that helps people to live more sustainably.
Jock Phillips (Penguin) RRP $55
Christmas presents for the curious are sorted and so is a new way of looking at Aotearoa New Zealand’s past in this generously presented hardback volume by historian Jock Phillips ONZM.
A Solander Island sealskin purse; Helen Clark’s trousers; Māori Land March pou whenua; Chinese li-ding scales; Totara Estate killing knives; a Wairau Bar necklace; Chip and Rona Bailey’s typewriter; a crocodile jaw – these are eight of the 100 objects that together tell “a dramatic, full-of-life history for everyday New Zealanders”.
It’s interesting that Jock – a Harvard graduate, professor, Chief Historian at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage for 14 years and the founder of the Stout
Research Centre – has authored a book presenting history through heritage objects that tell human stories.
It’s a light touch that doesn’t diminish the power or importance of the stories, and in some ways is more reflective of the way humans experience time and the past. More traditional accounts are vital, but it’s refreshing to come at history sideways, though still in a well-researched manner.
A photograph of each of the 100 objects is presented, along with a brief and lively story detailing the object’s origins, contexts and significance, as well as stories of the people who engaged with it.
Each story is arrived at differently, together spanning thousands of years and peering into the many diverse corners that make up our country’s past.
“Thank heavens for curious schoolboys!” begins the entry to number 5: ‘Monck’s Cave kurī’.
“You arrive at an unprepossessing house in suburban Miramar and are greeted by a guide with an American accent”, begins number 94, ‘King Théoden’s armour’.
Number 14, ‘Te Pahi’s medal’, begins: “The wind was howling, the rain was falling sideways, but this did not deter a halfdozen expatriate Māori from a spirited haka outside Sydney’s Intercontinental Hotel”.
Read cover to cover or – perhaps more fittingly –dipped into from time to time, it’s a delightful and highly informative book.
Alexander McKinnon (Otago University Press) RRP $40
It’s not easy to write an intimate history of your family for general consumption and do it graciously, but with Come Back to Mona Vale, Alexander has done it.
First published in 2021 and now in its second printing, this book showcases a deft, warm and vibrant writer. In outstandingly good prose, he sustains page-turning interest through the first two-thirds of the book simply by telling the tale of his well-known ‘rich-lister’ family, the Goughs, and their several homes – including the Mona Vale of the title.
Then just when you get comfortable (and quite attached to the family), the real action unfolds. The prose retains its eloquence, but the plot thickens like a good stew, and then darkens so much you may never look at Mona Vale the same way again.
Alexander’s family story is full of intrigue, and another writer would have pushed to use this as a hook. But Alexander has done what the best writers do: been true to himself and his story and told it his way. He takes us with him as he moves from childhood to adulthood via a growing awareness of his privilege – and its dark side.
Mona Vale is a well-known landmark to most South Islanders. Accessed via Fendalton Road, the house and its gardens have been publicly accessible since the late 1970s, currently with a café and parts of the home open for functions. However, Alexander takes you to places you could otherwise never access and tells you things about the house and its history you could never know in a walk-by.
For reasons that become clear as the story unfolds, it’s his grandparents’ home in Fendalton, not Mona Vale, that garners the most intimate descriptions. Alexander is a gifted writer of place, conjuring atmospheres and peculiarities, nooks and crannies, and the eras in which homes have been variously inhabited. His aunt’s eclectic lodgings in Cashmere are also brought to life in such a way that you feel you’ve been there for a cuppa.
An acknowledgement – even a sentence – however, of the tangata whenua context for Mona Vale and Christchurch, past and present, would have lent this astute physical evocation even better grounding.
Cristina Sanders (Cuba Press) RRP $37
In 1886 the General Grant, en route from Melbourne to London, was wrecked on the Auckland Islands and all but 15 of the 83 on board perished. Cristina vividly imagines the plight of Mrs Jewell –the narrator and the only woman amongst them – as she survives extremes of hunger, weather and desperation in the company of 14 men. The ship wasn’t carrying only passengers though, and the gold that went down with it is a scourge of the survivors and has lured many hopeful seekers since. Neither this lost piece of maritime heritage, nor its bullion, has ever been found.
The scene in which the ship goes down is devastating – and compelling – to read. Cristina is a seasoned sailor and a regular crew member on the Spirit of New Zealand, so she ‘knows the ropes’, and the horrors of a ship coming apart in the darkness of night come alive on the page.
So too does the astonishing cold of the Auckland Islands
in winter experienced by the survivors, and the near starvation and other privations that follow, not the least of which is the challenge of simply getting along and behaving with decency. Not everyone measures up, and as the sole woman, Mrs Jewell feels this strain most acutely.
Having her new husband with her doesn’t seem to make things easier, and this strained – and strange – relationship is the novel’s beating heart. It thumps all the more when Mrs Jewell is drawn to Teer, a giant Irishman who holds the group together, seeing to the clubbing of seals for food, fat and skins, and maintaining sanity.
The novel is meticulously researched and rigorous in nautical and historical detail. Occasionally this is overworked, but the lyrical rhythms of the writing quickly become like a familiar song you want to listen to over and over, eclipsing excess of detail.
A reader attuned to the problems of fictionalising history might ask whether Cristina has got inside the head of Mrs Jewell accurately when scant records of her existence remain. But it is beside the point in this novel when, as in Cristina’s excellent debut, Jerningham, the story is carried forward by its narrator’s keen observations of human behaviour more than by the story of the narrator herself.
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.
A History of Saint Joseph’s Māori Girls’ College
Malcolm Mulholland (Huia) RRP $45
A comprehensive history of New Zealand’s secondoldest Māori girls’ boarding school, established 1868.
Downfall: The Destruction of Charles Mackay Paul Diamond (Massey University Press) RRP $45
An account through a queer lens of mayor Charles Mackay’s shooting of poet D’Arcy Cresswell in 1920.
Heart of the City: The Story of Christchurch’s Controversial Cathedral Edmund Bohan (Quentin Wilson) RRP $50
The story of the cathedral from its beginnings to destruction to resurrection.
Making Space: A History of New Zealand Women in Architecture Elizabeth Cox (Massey University Press) RRP $65
A lush, ground-breaking new book on female architects in New Zealand and how they’ve shaped the field.
New Zealand’s Foreign Service: A History Ian McGibbon ONZM, Editor (Massey University Press) RRP $60
A thorough and insightful history of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
One Hundred Havens: The Settlement of the Marlborough Sounds Helen Beaglehole (Massey University Press) RRP $60
The story of the area as shaped by land, sea and people.
The Grandmothers of Pikitea Street: Ngā Kuia o te Tiriti o Pikitea
Renisa Viraj Maki, illustrated by Nikki Slade Robinson, translated by Kanapu Rangitauira (Oratia) RRP $22.99
A touching story about diverse cultures in New Zealand bonding through food and stories across the generations.
Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries: How Women (Also) Built the World Kate Mosse (Macmillan) RRP $39.99
Untold and undertold stories of women in history and why they were silenced, including Whina Cooper, Kate Sheppard, Iriaku Matiu Rātana, Jean Batten and other New Zealanders.
Wawata: Moon Dreaming Hinemoa Elder (Penguin) RRP $30
Lessons for daily life and relationships guided by faces and phases of the moon.
kurī: dog pou whenua: post markers of ownership tangata whenua: people of the land
We have one copy of Heart of the City: The Story of Christchurch’s Controversial Cathedral to give away. To enter the draw, send your name and address on the back of an envelope to Book Giveaways, Heritage New Zealand, PO Box 2629, Wellington 6140, before 31 December 2022. The winner of last issue’s book giveaway (Invisible: New Zealand’s History of Excluding Kiwi-Indians) was Rosemary Cole of Wellington.
Inviting communities to fill the knowledge gaps that exist in our museums, says Dr Bronwyn Labrum, will help institutions better collect for the future
hīnaki: eel traps kete: woven flax baskets
You can learn so much about culture and society when you look at the everyday materials that make up our lives. This is the idea behind my 2015 book Real Modern: Everyday New Zealand in the 1950s and 1960s. I grew up in the ’60s. We had a Crown Lynn swan vase at home; it was a wedding present for my parents, I think. We had New Zealand-manufactured wool blankets on our beds. Incredible when you think about it now. It was a time of growing consumer demand and domestic manufacturing in New Zealand.
In my book, I try to give people a window into the objects and material trends of the period, while also challenging assumptions about that time. Yes, they were stable, prosperous and safe post-war years. But they weren’t as conventional as we now assume. There were plenty of things we might be surprised by: people smuggled illegal booze into coffee shops to spike their cups of coffee – how about that?
I’m sure new insights will come from the Whanganui Regional Museum’s latest exhibition, He Awa Ora, Living River. Curated by museum Pou Rauhī (Curator Māori) Dr Rāwiri Tinirau, it tells the story of the seven Whanganui iwi who live here, touching on their arrival, their special connection to the river, and the things they made. We’re taking the exhibition upriver to marae to give others an opportunity to share their stories of the artefacts and perhaps add to the exhibition with new ones. I’d love to see it continue to travel throughout the region and return again both enriched and changed.
One of the greatest challenges we face as museum professionals is how to collect for the future. What stays? What goes? Regional museums can be full of objects without provenance. That’s definitely the case for us.
The answer, I think, is to work more closely with our communities to either return taonga or keep them but fill in our knowledge gaps. We’re doing some of this work with He Awa Ora under Rāwiri’s leadership. The exhibition features objects like flags, photographs, kete, hīnaki and waka. We’ve only been able to curate this exhibition by breaking down the walls of the museum and inviting iwi in to help us tell their stories. It’s a wonderful way of working.
I say to visitors: “Don’t worry about not previously knowing this history. Don’t worry about asking questions. We’ve created a supportive environment here thanks to Rāwiri’s work and our iwi partnerships. Come, see this exhibition. You’ll learn a lot. It may even result in a few surprises.”
Dr Bronwyn Labrum is a New Zealand cultural historian, author and director of Whanganui Regional Museum. Born and raised in Whanganui, she has a PhD in history from Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington. She was curator of history and textiles and head of the New Zealand and Pacific Cultures team at Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand. She taught history at the University of Waikato and was an associate professor at Massey University School of Design.
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