Special character

When Scott Flutey caught wind of plans by Joel Arnold and Grace Hessell to convert an unlisted heritage building into a modern café, he had to speak up.

“I wanted them to know the council had money available to help with projects like theirs,” says Scott (Ngāi Tahu), Whanganui District Council’s first-ever heritage advisor.

A year before, Scott had more than doubled the amount of cash available for such projects and updated the council’s Heritage Grant Fund application criteria to include a broader range of projects. It meant the 125-year-old building on Glasgow Street was now eligible for council funding. So he scribbled his name and phone number on a scrap of paper, with a message to get in touch, and slipped it under the front door of the old wooden building.

The couple contacted Scott, successfully applied for funding and completed a months-long renovation last year. In August they launched Little Curious Bagels in what was the Old Curiosity Shop, one of Whanganui’s best known heritage buildings. This year, Scott hopes to add the building to the district plan.

“It’s been a high point in my job so far,” says Scott, who has been employed at the council since October 2019.

“Sure, I could’ve left them to it,” he says. “Instead, Joel and Grace were able to hire skilled tradespeople and, as a result, avoid damage to the building’s fabric and joinery and conserve its heritage character for years to come.”

Such things matter deeply to Scott. A Gonville native, he remembers the angst he felt when Whanganui’s D.I.C. department store was demolished in 2003, followed by the John Swan-designed St Mary’s Presbytery on Campbell Street in 2008.

“Those two big losses galvanised a lot of people in Whanganui’s community. I was young at the time, but I remember feeling I couldn’t take the special character of Whanganui for granted.”

After high school, Scott left his hometown to study history at Victoria University of Wellington. To complete his honour’s degree, he wrote a thesis on the uniformed patriotic women’s organisations that sprang up briefly in New Zealand during the South African War of 1899. Whanganui alone had 30 members, he says. Ngāpuhi had its own chapter too.

Scott says the short-lived, quasi-military groups hadn’t been studied before, despite the significant news coverage they received at the time and the paraphernalia they generated, including photos, paintings and uniforms. His thesis furthered a growing interest in New Zealand’s social history, developing since 2012 when he co-authored a local history of the YMCA with his grandmother, Anne Flutey.

That interest was piqued further on a summer internship at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in the last year of his master’s degree in museum and heritage studies. At Te Papa, Scott scoured Gerald Ellott’s philatelic collection to identify the subjects of letters sent home by Māori and Pākehā soldiers fighting in the New Zealand Wars.

Mostly, they wrote of prosaic things like what they ate and gave descriptions of the countryside, he says. But the letters also provided insights into Whanganui’s significant role as a military base during the wars.

Six months at the Melbourne Guild of Fine Woodworking followed before Scott landed his role at Whanganui District Council a few months before the global pandemic struck.

“I was really excited to get started. There are so many stories in Whanganui that aren’t being told. I wanted to change that,” he says.

Scott’s first big project was to research and write the district’s inaugural heritage strategy, He Kaupapa Here: Ngā Taonga Tuku Iho, published in 2022.

It was a case study in best practice, said Dean Raymond, Planner (now Area Manager) for the Central region of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga at the time of its launch. Scott consulted widely, carrying out an online survey, collecting feedback at the Whanganui River Markets, holding meetings, engaging iwi and hosting public hearings.

He used the findings to document the district’s most valued heritage, going beyond historic buildings to acknowledge the significance of landscapes, natural wilderness areas and cultural taonga. He explored the important role heritage played in people’s sense of cultural identity, belonging and wellbeing. And he looked at how to address the challenges that would be posed by climate change, population growth and development in the years ahead.

Finally he wrote an action plan to identify, protect, manage and promote the district’s heritage over the following decade. Two actions noted in the plan were increased funding for heritage projects and improved access to specialist advice and skills. The promotion of Whanganui as a heritage destination and more funding for tourism events such as Vintage Weekend and Whanganui Heritage Month were also listed.

In 2021 Whanganui became a member of the League of Historic Cities and in 2022 it was designated a UNESCO City of Design, co-ordinated in part by Scott. Today Whanganui is the only place in New Zealand included in these listings.

“Whanganui is undergoing an exciting period of reconnecting with our past,” says Scott, whose walking tours of Whanganui’s Brutalist architecture and sites around Durie Hill sold out at last year’s Whanganui Heritage Month event.

“We’re opening up and sharing more of our stories. Even though many Whanganui people appreciate what’s here, locals and visitors still want to understand more.

I’m proud to help with that.” mihi whakatau: formal speech of welcome rangatira: chief

My favourite place, Pūtiki Church

My favourite place in Whanganui is St Paul’s Memorial Church, known locally as Pūtiki Church, in the Whanganui township of Pūtiki (see Heritage New Zealand magazine, Winter 2020). It’s important historically as the fifth church on the site to serve the people of Pūtiki. Pūtiki itself is one of the earliest settlements in Whanganui and the site of an early Christian mission station established on land gifted by a local rangatira.

The church is extraordinarily beautiful, although that isn’t necessarily apparent until you go inside. You have to enter the building itself to enjoy the full range of Māori decorative arts on display. Spearheaded by Sir Apirana Ngata, the Māori Arts and Crafts movement spread to public spaces like Pūtiki Church throughout New Zealand in the 1930s. Inside this small community space there’s everything from arapaki (or tukutuku) panels of fine finger weaving to traditional wall carvings and painted ceiling rafters. It’s one of the few public places you can visit locally to see my favourite design, the Whanganui mumu pattern, on display on the parish walls. The pattern is specific to Whanganui and looks like a checkerboard. You can visit Pūtiki Church by arrangement to hear a local expert tell you the stories behind this specific design and others in the space.

I don’t visit Pūtiki Church a lot, but I have attended the occasional Sunday service there. I was also one of the volunteers who helped to restore the interior in 2017 and 2018. Church trustee Huia Kirk pulled the restoration project together over 10 years; my bit was the last leg in that bigger effort. It was amazing to be part of it and, as a keen weaver and woodworker myself, I watched others and learned a lot.

More recently, I helped host a mihi whakatau at Pūtiki Church for the the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO. A group came to Whanganui to assess our UNESCO City of Design application. The church and the church hall, which features designs completed in the 1970s by Dr Cliff Whiting, were part of our application. We were able to relax and admire Cliff’s distinctive artwork when the formalities were over, sitting down in the hall for a chat and a cup of tea. n