Karen Rolleston - For the Civic Trust. The Timaru Herald

Here we are, racing through winter. It must be said that so far, it’s a fairly mild one.

Although the coldest months are still to come, our spring will be here before we know it and gardeners around town will be doing good winter work in preparation for the big spring surge we all look forward to or, perhaps, just enjoying the break before that season begins.

While wandering about town last summer I had cause to stop and admire a gorgeous little garden that had been planted in place of a small front lawn in front of a series of flats close to the centre of town.

While any real grass is a bonus in town it was a beautiful idea to replace the rectangle of grass running along the footpath with a carefully chosen selection of long flowering perennials.

This flat was part of a group of similar flats but presented a completely different perspective to the passer-by. A collage of colour and a burst of beauty amidst the everyday, as a fellow gardener I could really appreciate the work that had gone into creating this little gem in an inner city dwelling.

It was full to brimming with bright and continuous flowering plants and it provided not only a bit of joy to any neighbours or walkers but also a welcome focus for the local bee and insect population that also share our town. I could well imagine the satisfaction of the gardener responsible as they sat and watched the abundant life within, everyday a new bloom, perhaps a butterfly or two, the busy pollen collection going on and passing people stopping to admire the view.

I called by to chat to the home owner and enjoyed a nice natter; I understand the garden is a family affair and was started by the owner’s mother, it’s been carried on by him with help from his brother when he is unable to maintain it himself.

I could imagine the chats and conversations happening and the enjoyment provided by it’s just being there.

When I first saw it there was an abundance of bright summer flowers, now there are tiny daffodils popping up amongst the rocks as well as other spring treats testing the temperatures and I look forward to seeing it progressing as the year passes.

- The Timaru Herald

​Babington St cottage, Timaru. Photo: Supplied / Raine and Horne

There is a white cottage at 24 Babington St, in Timaru, that recently sold.

You could pass it, think “sweet old place”, and keep walking. For me, it is the understated buildings like this one that often catch my eye.

Architecturally, the cottage is single-storey, timber weatherboard, with a gabled corrugated-metal roof, a dark front door and narrow windows on either side.

Council records give its legal description as PT LOT 15 DP 36. This tells us the house sits on part of Lot 15 of Deposited Plan 36, an early subdivision that helped turn what was once Buchanan's paddock into sections for homes and Timaru High School.

I tried first to find the early home owners of the house. Who built it? Who first lived here? I didn't have much luck. So I followed the next clue I had... the street name.

Babington St is believed to remember George M Babington, a civil engineer and surveyor connected with South Canterbury public works in the 1870s.

He was appointed engineer to the Timaru and Gladstone Board of Works in 1870. The board was one of early South Canterbury’s practical civic engines, helping organise roads, bridges, harbour works and connections between town and district.

In April 1873, G M Babington signed Board of Works tender notices for timber supply and for the railway between Washdyke and Pleasant Point. The timber was to be delivered in Timaru “above high-water mark”.

The tender notice puts us back in early Timaru, when the sea was something to work with and around. Timber had to come ashore. Roads had to be formed. Bridges had to be built. Railways had to be planned. Money had to be found, argued over, and spent.

Timaru did not simply grow because people hoped it would... it had to be measured, costed, supplied and made. So this cottage, while it is not a grand architectural statement, helps us connect to our town's early story of planning, working lives, and subdivided sections.

I am learning through all of this history hunting that the big buildings give us landmarks. But the small buildings are really important in our built heritage collection, as they show us the pattern.

Next time you pass a small old house like this, think about the story underneath it and its connection to the chapters of Timaru's story.

Brought to you by the Timaru Civic Trust, celebrating our built heritage and the people who keep it alive.


The Timaru Herald

​OPINION: With a recently pitched idea to move Timaru’s Blackett’s Lighthouse from its spot on the Benvenue Cliffs to the Caroline Bay Piazza, Civic Trust member and historic researcher Roselyn Fauth looks at the history of one of the town’s oldest buildings.

From time to time, people suggest that the old macrocarpa on the Benvenue Cliffs should be given the chop so we can get a better view of Blackett’s Lighthouse.

It is easy to understand why. The white lighthouse, with its distinctive red lantern roof, is one of Timaru’s most recognisable heritage landmarks, yet the trees make it difficult to see from Caroline Bay.

But what if those trees are part of the story too?

Long before colonial pilots and lighthouse keepers arrived, mana whenua knew, named and travelled this coastline. The headlands and bays around Timaru offered shelter for waka, and the present lighthouse site forms part of Opukuorakaitauheke Māori Reserve 884. This was already a known and navigated coastal landscape.

Later mariners also had to read the land from the sea. Before GPS and radar, hills, river mouths, buildings and distinctive features helped sailors work out where they were.

Brett’s New Zealand and South Pacific Pilot, published around 1880, described “two isolated clumps of trees” north of Timaru as “the first wood seen on the coast south of Banks Peninsula”. Those were probably not the Benvenue trees, but the passage reminds us that the landscape was an important navigational aid.

Captain Belfield Woollcombe (1816-91) was one of the men who helped make Timaru safer for shipping. Arriving in 1857, after serving in the Royal Navy, he carried out an early survey of Timaru Harbour and later served as harbourmaster, beachmaster and pilot before retiring in 1878.

He used flags on the cliffs as navigation marks while surveying the harbour.

Woollcombe was one of several maritime figures who shaped early Timaru. Captain Henry Cain (1816-86) established the organised landing service on the open beach, while Strong Work Morrison (1832-97), an experienced Deal surf-boatman, became Timaru’s first beachmaster and later a harbour pilot.

Both lived at times on Le Cren’s Terrace and watched Timaru grow from a handful of buildings on an exposed beach into a thriving port town.

Blackett’s Lighthouse was not Timaru’s first attempt to guide ships. The earliest recorded “lighthouse” was a tar barrel set alight when a vessel was expected. Permanent cliff-top lights followed in 1863, along with a signal mast and lookout overlooking the roadstead.

Pātītī Point was originally favoured for a proper lighthouse. Timaru wanted masonry, but the Government offered timber. The point was also a military reserve and ammunition store, making a wooden lighthouse with a kerosene lamp a poor neighbour for gunpowder.

John Blackett designed the lighthouse in 1876. It was built on Le Cren’s Terrace in 1877-78 and first lit on July 1, 1878.

The kauri-clad tower, with its balcony, decorative windows and copper-covered lantern, was practical but full of character.

Its first keeper was Captain Meredith, and the original Fresnel lens is now cared for by the South Canterbury Museum.

The Benvenue Cliffs take their name from one of the ships caught in Timaru’s disastrous Black Sunday wrecks of May 14, 1882. The Benvenue and City of Perth were driven onto the rocks at the northern end of Caroline Bay. It was reported in The Timaru Herald that 1000s of people lined the cliffs and witnessed the chaos in the sea below, including the Alexandra Lifeboat and crew rushing to the rescue.

Captain Alexander Mills, Timaru’s harbourmaster from 1867 to 1882 and captain of the Timaru Volunteer Rocket Brigade, had witnessed many of the district’s shipwrecks. He led the attempt to save the City of Perth.

Mills and eight other men lost their lives that day, and another died a few months later with injuries attributed to Black Sunday. A memorial was erected on Perth St.

When the lighthouse was retired in 1970, its future was far from certain. Its survival was not simply the result of an official decision.

Members of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust and other local volunteers worked for years to save it. A surviving file of minutes, correspondence and newspaper reports records their research, advocacy, fundraising and careful planning.

Their efforts helped secure the lighthouse’s relocation to Māori Park in 1980, where it was restored rather than lost. This community heritage work, recognised the value of an old structure, persuading others that it mattered and finding a way to preserve it for the future.

Their work reminds us that heritage rarely survives by accident. We can stand beneath Blackett’s Lighthouse today because local people decided it was worth saving and then did the work required to make that happen.

The lighthouse was entered on the New Zealand Heritage List as a Category 2 historic place in 2003 before being carefully relocated to Benvenue in 2010.

Photographs from the 1882 Benvenue shipwreck suggest the cliffs were then largely bare, indicating that the present macrocarpa were planted after. However, by the time Blackett’s Lighthouse was relocated to Benvenue the trees were an established part of the coastal landscape.

Today this headland tells a few stories at the same time.

It is a place where we can recognise the knowledge of mana whenua, who understood and travelled this coastline before charts were drawn. We can stand above the waters where the Benvenue and City of Perth were wrecked and remember the Alexandra lifeboat, heroes and Captain Alexander Mills and the eight other men who lost their lives on Black Sunday.

We can see the mature macrocarpa which have become part of the character of the reserve. And we can admire Blackett’s Lighthouse, preserved through decades of research, advocacy and restoration by members of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust and many dedicated local volunteers.

So, perhaps we are looking at three generations of navigation.

First came the knowledge of the land and sea. Then came the surf-boatmen, pilots, harbourmasters, engineers and lighthouse that helped ships find Timaru safely. Today, another generation helps us navigate the past through research, restoration and stewardship.

Taken together, the reserve, the cliffs, the shipwreck story, the trees and the lighthouse have become far more than the sum of their parts. They create a place where Timaru’s maritime story can be experienced, not just remembered.

There may always be somewhere else that offers a clearer view of the lighthouse. But heritage is about more than what we can see. It is about understanding the connections between people, places and stories.

Sometimes the greatest value lies in keeping those connections together. Heritage is not about preserving the past for its own sake.

It is about keeping our history tangible, so we can better understand the people who came before us, the choices they made, and how those choices shaped the Timaru we know today.

In doing so, we are better equipped to make thoughtful choices for tomorrow. While the lighthouse may no longer guide ships, from its place on the cliff it continues to guide us, connecting us with our past as we navigate our future.

The Timaru Herald

By Roselyn Fauth

Once you start look­ing down in Timaru, it is sur­pris­ing how much his­tory can appear under­foot.

In last week­end’s column, I wrote about blue­stone beneath our feet in the cent­ral busi­ness dis­trict. This week, I want to pause over one spe­cific small strip of it.

On the south side of the former Timaru and Glad­stone Board of Works build­ing in Stafford St is a strip of blue­stone cobbles. I sus­pect most people walk past without noti­cing it. I prob­ably did too, until one of my blue­stone side quests made me slow down and look closer.

It is not as obvi­ous as a stone facade, but it is charm­ing. It looks old, and if you get on your hands and knees as I did, you can see moss grow­ing in the cracks, even a very old bottle top wedged in a gap.

Here is the thing about a street. It only looks simple once the hard work has been done.

A well-designed street is a small civic machine. It tells wheels where to go, people where to walk, and water where to run. Kerbs, drains, cobbles and asphalt all have jobs. When they work well, we barely notice them. When they fail, every­one notices.

The cobbles sit beside one of Timaru’s import­ant civic wit­nesses. The former Board of Works build­ing was com­pleted in 1874, designed by Thomas Roberts and built by Thomas Machin. The board was cre­ated after South Can­ter­bury pushed for more local say over roads, bridges and har­bour works.

Inside these walls, prac­tical civic work was planned. The cobbles beside the build­ing help us think about one of the key tasks of a grow­ing town: turn­ing mud into order.

Stafford St was once known as the Great North Rd. It began as a rough route used by people, carts, anim­als and trade.

Today, our cent­ral street has edges, sur­faces and water dir­ec­ted away before it becomes a nuis­ance.

It is strange and rather fun to ima­gine it once as a dusty, and some­times muddy, bul­lock route.

In 1887, coun­cil­lor Hill objec­ted to streets being “ploughed and har­rowed” in future. What a phrase. Plough­ing and har­row­ing belonged to pad­docks, not town streets.

Timaru was some­where between rough ground and organ­ised pub­lic space, between mud and muni­cipal order.

Two years later, a news­pa­per notice described improve­ments at Woollcombe St. The foot­path was ker­bed in blue­stone, chan­nelled in con­crete and asphal­ted.

I can­not say, without fur­ther proof, when each cobble beside the Board of Works build­ing was laid. But when you stand there and look closer, they seem to belong to an older street story.

Built her­it­age is not only held in façades. It can also sit in a kerb, a worn step or a cobbled strip most people pass without see­ing.

Next time you walk past the former Board of Works build­ing, look down. That strip of blue­stone may look mod­est, but it is a clue to something much big­ger: a town learn­ing to organ­ise itself and solve local prob­lems, one prac­tical decision at a time.

That feels timely as New Zea­l­and again debates how coun­cils should func­tion; this small strip of stone reminds us why know­ing our his­tory can be help­ful. It helps us know what we want for our future. Roads, drains, bridges, foot­paths and pub­lic spaces have always required local decisions and pub­lic money.

This old blue stone cobble strip, shows how her­it­age is not just about keep­ing old things for the sake of it. The cobbles are clues, that can help us under­stand the choices people made before us, so we can make wise choices about what comes next.

Brought to you by the Timaru Civic Trust, cel­eb­rat­ing our built her­it­age and the people who keep it alive.

I caught up recently with my friend Kirsten Wilson, a land­scape archi­tect, and our con­ver­sa­tion took a side quest into foot­paths.
​I have been on a side quest of my own, look­ing closer at the mater­i­als that shape Timaru’s his­toric streets­cape. I had noticed blue­stone in old build­ings and retain­ing walls, but Kirsten helped me look closer at something I had been walk­ing over without fully appre­ci­at­ing: the blue­stone pav­ing at our feet.

She poin­ted out how much she admired it, and sud­denly I saw it not just as a sur­face, but as a link between our streets and old build­ings, geo­logy and archi­tec­ture, and the vol­canic land­scape beneath us and the built her­it­age around us.

That feels espe­cially timely when parts of our CBD pav­ing are being repaired or replaced. Before we lose too much of this mater­ial, it is worth under­stand­ing what it con­trib­utes to our built her­it­age.

Timaru’s blue­stone is basalt, formed from lava flows from the Waipōuri/Mt Hor­rible vol­canic area about 2 mil­lion to 2.5 mil­lion years ago. It is recog­nised as the most recent vol­canic activ­ity in the South Island.

When we walk on our CBD foot­paths, we are step­ping across a local vol­canic story, not just in the pavers, but also in the basalt deeper under­ground.

Around the world, places with access to good basalt blue­stone have long val­ued it for pav­ing, walls, and civic land­scapes. Not every town has dense vol­canic stone so close at hand. Timaru is for­tu­nate that its geo­logy gave us a spe­cial and effect­ive build­ing mater­ial.

Long before the town was built, this vol­canic coast­line and its reefs were part of a much older liv­ing land­scape. The reefs provide hab­itat for mar­ine life and, for a long time, have been con­nec­ted to mahika kai, the gath­er­ing of food and resources by Māori. Later, this same geo­logy helped shape Timaru’s devel­op­ment as a land­ing place, port, and hub for exchange.

In many towns, her­it­age is something you look up at: a church tower, monu­ment or façade. In Timaru, we have a spe­cial story also under­foot. Blue­stone kerbs, steps and pav­ing stitch our streets­cape together, giv­ing the town centre tex­ture, weight and con­tinu­ity.

From church and ware­house walls to kerbs, retain­ing walls, har­bour struc­tures and foot­path details, blue­stone runs like a seam through Timaru’s his­toric fab­ric.

One of blue­stone’s best qual­it­ies is its unique, vari­able tex­ture and nat­ural slip res­ist­ance. Formed from vol­canic lava, the stone con­tains tiny pores and tex­tures cre­ated by escap­ing gases as the mol­ten rock cooled. Each piece tells the story of how it was formed. This por­ous tex­ture also absorbs mois­ture, so the sur­face is not slip­pery when wet or frosty.

Kirsten’s land­scape archi­tect eye helped me under­stand that pav­ing can frame a place, guide how we move, and affect what we notice. In a her­it­age streets­cape, pav­ing can strengthen the story of our people and place.

After the dev­ast­at­ing 1868 fire des­troyed three-quar­ters of the early wooden town centre, Timaru rebuilt stronger and more per­man­ently in stone and brick. Blue­stone became part of that trans­form­a­tion, giv­ing the town a solid­ity that still shapes the CBD today.

Blue­stone con­nects us to quarry work­ers, stone­ma­sons, har­bour build­ers, and craftspeople who quar­ried and shaped the heavy stone by hand. It also reminds us that local mater­i­als can help a town endure harsh weather, coastal con­di­tions and time itself. Per­haps that is why blue­stone still feels so “Timaru”. It is not an impor­ted iden­tity. It is part of a much older land­scape, built into the walls, kerbs, and foot­paths of the town around us.

So next time you are walk­ing through town, look down as well as up. See if you can find one of Timaru’s best her­it­age stor­ies that has been beneath your feet all along.

By Roselyn Fauth

​Next time you are near 47 Wai-iti Rd, Timaru, pause at the Aigan­tighe Art Gal­lery gates before you look at the house. The focus is often the house, but these gates have their own story too.

Coated in glossy black paint, the orna­mental entrance has three pil­lars, a wider vehicle gate, and a smal­ler ped­es­trian gate. Across the cent­ral arch, the name Aigan­tighe is worked into the metal.

It is more than a prop­erty label. It announces that you have arrived. Before any­one reached the front door, the prop­erty had made an impres­sion.

That feels fit­ting, because Aigan­tighe was built as a town­house for Alex­an­der and Helen Grant around 1905 to 1908, and its design has been attrib­uted to Timaru-born archi­tect James S. Turn­bull in a Queen Anne style.

The Grants had pre­vi­ously farmed Gray’s Hills Sta­tion, north­east of Lake Ben­more. They had three chil­dren, includ­ing James, who took over Gray’s Hills, and Jessie, who became a painter. “Aigan­tighe” is said to mean “at home” in Gaelic. Helen Grant left Aigan­tighe to the people of Timaru, and the house reopened as an art gal­lery in 1956.

Crouch down at the gates, and you will see, low in the iron, a maker’s mark: W. Faulkner Maker Dunedin. Sud­denly, this Timaru entrance con­nects us to Dunedin work­shops, trade cata­logues, indus­trial skills, and people often left out of archi­tec­tural his­tor­ies.

J.W. Faulkner began advert­ising smith­ing and wire­work ser­vices in Dunedin in 1887. By the early 20th cen­tury, J. W. Faulkner and Sons was a sub­stan­tial man­u­fac­tur­ing firm, known for orna­mental wire­work, iron­work, and prac­tical metal­work. This mat­ters because the gates are built her­it­age evid­ence: a named entrance fea­ture, orna­mental iron­work by a known maker, part of Aigan­tighe’s designed street present­a­tion, and a clue to the South Island net­works that sup­plied build­ings with fin­ish­ing details.

Per­haps Turn­bull spe­cified them, or selec­ted something sim­ilar from a Faulkner cata­logue. Per­haps the Grants chose them. Per­haps Faulkner sup­plied the metal­work to suit an entrance already planned for the house.

Aigan­tighe may not be the only Timaru place where Faulkner’s work sur­vives. Sim­ilar gates, also bear­ing the Faulkner Dunedin mark, can be found at the Timaru Botanic Gar­dens, at the bound­ary of the care­taker’s house. Unlike the Aigan­tighe gates, prom­in­ent and main­tained, the garden gates are quieter sur­viv­ors, left to age and barely noticed unless you know where to look. If you have Faulkner stamped into your iron­work at home, please let us know.

Aigan­tighe was designed to present itself well to the street. The gates car­ried its name, wel­comed guests, trades­men, and garden­ers, and later opened to the com­munity for art, exhib­i­tions, and garden vis­its. Today, they also wel­come the staff, volun­teers, artists, and sup­port­ers who help make it the home of art in South Can­ter­bury.

The house behind them will always com­mand atten­tion, but the gates ask us to notice the threshold. Her­it­age is not only found in grand rooms or fam­ous Timaru facades. Some­times the clues are stamped low in the iron­work, still hold­ing the bound­ary, still wel­com­ing vis­it­ors.

Brought to you by the Timaru Civic Trust, cel­eb­rat­ing our built her­it­age and the people who keep it alive.

By Roselyn Fauth

Arrive at West End Park from Onslow St in Timaru, and you notice something curious.

On the eastern side of the reserve, old gates still stand, hinting at a more formal entrance than most people now associate with this park.

Today, many people arrive from Wai-iti Rd for the playground and sports field, or drive in off Maltby Ave to the hall, and there is also access from the Kiwi Drive side.

Onslow St is no longer the obvious way in. Yet it may be the entrance that keeps the park’s older ambitions most visibly in view.

The record comes close to confirming that, without quite letting us say it outright. In 1924, the West End Ratepayers’ and Householders’ Association wanted gates at both entrances to West End Park, with Maltby Ave specifically named.

By 1930, The Timaru Herald credited the association’s leaders with helping erect entrance gates and recorded £30 allocated towards the Maltby Ave entrance. Then, in 1936, the association thanked the council for making “a substantial job” of erecting gates in Onslow St. That makes the old Onslow St gates an important clue, even if we cannot yet prove they are the original fabric.

That uncertainty tells us what sort of West End story this is. Not a tidy survival story like Gloucester, and not quite like Ashbury either. Here, the built heritage lies partly in what survives, and partly in the very clear documentary evidence that entrances mattered.

The association itself had been active by 1924 and said it existed simply to further the interests of the West End. By 1930 membership had grown from 75 to 150. It raised money, petitioned the borough, and kept pressing for improvements. Its achievements were not minor. The association spent its first years building up £700 for Oldway Baths, secured a government subsidy, allocated £30 towards entrance gates, and handed over a children’s playground costing £104.

The 1929 council report makes the scope of that ambition even clearer. The association asked for Oldway Park to be renamed West End Park, sought permission to erect a paddling pool and swings at its own cost, wanted more cubicles at the baths, requested repairs and asphalting, and pressed for kerbing and channelling beside the park. This was not just a reserve. It was being imagined as a properly equipped civic recreation ground.

That low ground had to be remade too. A stream once flowed through the park and is now piped underground. The reserve we see today has been shaped by drainage, earthworks, access routes, and repeated alteration over time. That helps explain why entrances mattered so much. A gate was not just decorative. It gave form and identity to a place that had been deliberately made.

And the story did not stop with the original association. West End Hall remains in the grounds. In the 1960s, the park was even seriously considered as a site for a major covered tepid pool, which could have changed Timaru’s recreational geography altogether. Later again, a little playground sign acknowledged the contribution of Timaru Round Table 48. So this park has kept attracting local effort in various forms.

That is what makes West End Park worth looking at differently. Its heritage is not just an old gate. It opens us to a story of people trying to make this reserve more visible, more useful, and more central to the life of the town.

Brought to you by the Timaru Civic Trust, celebrating our built heritage and the people who keep it alive.

​By Roselyn Fauth for Timaru Civic Trust

The Ashbury Park gates on Evans St are easy to pass without much thought.

Cars move along State Highway 1, people walk dogs, children head to and from kindergarten, sports play out on the grounds, and the playground provides some park side fun on swings and see-saws.

The entrance simply does its job, marking the street access. But pause for a moment, and the gates open to say something interesting: this place was noticed, valued, and deliberately marked by the people who lived nearby.

The plaque records that the gates were erected by the North End Ratepayers and Improvement Association in 1926. A neighbourhood was leaving its name at the entrance to a public place.

The gates are rendered piers and low walls frame red brick panels, while the black metal gates use circles, vertical bars and spearhead finials to give the entrance its formal rhythm. They may not be as grand as the Botanic Gardens park gates we wrote about last week, but they are carefully designed and considered for the park’s street appeal. They turn the edge of Ashbury Park into an invitation to enter.

Ashbury Park was not always the open recreational ground we know today. The wider landscape was once connected to Waimātaitai Lagoon and Creek, a wetland and hāpua environment remembered as a source of tuna and īnaka. For mana whenua, places like this were not empty or waiting to be improved. They were part of a living network of waterways, food gathering, movement and memory.

That makes the latter park story more layered. European settlers and later residents often looked at low-lying wet ground through the language of drainage, usefulness, recreation, and civic improvement. The area was prone to flooding, and the coastline changed rapidly as the harbour developed, which impacted wave action and the way sediment moved up the coast. Many genuinely believed they were doing something good for the neighbourhood by turning what they saw as difficult ground into a public park. But that public benefit also sat within a longer story of environmental change, altered waterways, and the loss or disruption of mahika kai.

Captain Belfield Woollcombe, who arrived in Timaru in 1857, later built his home here for his wife Frances and their children. The land they purchased was known for a time as Woollcombe’s Gully, and their home, Ashbury, looked over the Waimātaitai estuary and lagoon. The house has been demolished, but the name remains, and the landscape below it has been gradually reshaped into public parkland and sports fields.

By the 1920s, North End residents looked to improve the area. The association met at Waimātaitai School, set subscriptions, and formed committees for beautifying, ground work, finance, and suggestions. This was not just a few people complaining about what the council had not done. It was local people organising themselves to make things happen and be helpful.

Their contribution was physical as well as financial. In 1922, the association helped organise a tree planting ceremony at Ashbury Park. Reports stated the ground had been cultivated, cleaned, and drained, seven chains of pipe drains had been laid, and nearly 1000 trees had been planted, including oak, elm, ash, sycamore, English beech, New Zealand birch, Douglas pine, Pinus insignis, and cypress. Mayor F. J. Rolleston planted a scarlet oak, to be known as the “Rolleston oak”, schoolboys helped with the planting, and local women provided hospitality afterwards. Ashbury Park was being physically remade into a park.

By 1924, the association wanted to raise up to £500 to help complete the park scheme. That same year, GH Andrews argued that a “decent entrance” should be erected so people would know where the park was and appreciate what a pleasant place it had become. That was the method: subscriptions, volunteer labour, public pressure, council support and a strong belief that local effort could unlock wider investment. Two years later, the gates were formally handed over to the council.

There is a wider New Zealand story here, as suburbs grew across the nation in the early 1900s, parks became more important for recreation, health, and civic identity. Communities wanted land improved, planted, and recognised as belonging to everyone. Today, we can value that civic effort while also recognising that the land already held meaning before it became a park and what has been lost.

That is what makes the Ashbury Park gates so interesting. They mark the moment when North End residents volunteered together. They also invite us to look further back, to the Waimātaitai landscape beneath the park and to what was changed when wetland became a recreation ground.

Next time you pass them, look for the plaque, brick and iron, and the path beyond. The gates still welcome people in, and invite us to notice the layers of place: mahika kai, homestead, park, neighbourhood gift.

Brought to you by the Timaru Civic Trust, celebrating our built heritage and the people who keep it alive.

​By Roselyn Fauth for the Timaru Civic Trust

After writing about the cemetery gates opposite the Timaru Botanic Gardens, I found myself looking across the road with fresh eyes. If gates can hold stories, what about these ones?

Opened by the Duke of Gloucester on January 10, 1935, the gates led people off Queen St and into the Timaru Botanic Gardens, once known as The Park. They seemed to be doing more than simply marking an entrance. The 1935 opening formed part of a wider royal tour, giving the occasion civic weight. But the gates also belong to a longer Timaru story about civic pride, public improvement, and ceremony.

As the first in a short series on Timaru’s park gates, the Gloucester Gates tell a different story.

Ashbury and West End had ratepayers’ associations closely involved in park improvements. Timaru South had its own association too.

But by January 1934, when proposed new gates at Timaru Park were being discussed at a Borough Council meeting, the South End body was described in the newspaper as “now defunct”. A follow-up report made clear its money had already gone towards a shelter near the children’s playground, not the new gates. So the Gloucester Gates look less like a neighbourhood subscription project and more like a planned public work.

Land was set aside for the gardens in 1864, making the Timaru Botanic Gardens among the oldest public gardens in New Zealand. These gates stand at the threshold of a place tied to Timaru’s earliest civic planning and to a belief that public green spaces were key for a thriving community.

They also belong to a wider tradition that came from Britain. In the 1800s, towns created public gardens and pleasure grounds as places where people could stroll, meet, enjoy beauty, and get some fresh air. Lawns, paths, flower beds, specimen trees, and framed entrances were all part of that idea. The Timaru Botanic Gardens grew from that tradition.

So, in that sense, as well as control access to protect what was inside after hours, the Gloucester Gates gave the gardens presence and signalled that what lay beyond was important. This visual impact was achieved through a curved footprint, local bluestone pillars, iron pedestrian and vehicle gates, a pair of lamps, and the carved words “Gloucester” on one side and “Gates 1935” on the other. At the base of a pillar are the names of those who contributed to the project: architect V. H. Panton, builder W. J. Harding, and engineers Parr & Co. Ltd. Another plaque above names the Duke of Gloucester and mayor T. W. Satterthwaite. This was planned public work, important enough to be named and commemorated for a significant dignitary visit.

One of my favourite details when learning about the opening ceremony was the silver key that was made locally by F. J. Dunn. However grand the day may have seemed, local hands still shaped the large and smaller details of the moment.


The Gloucester Gates on Queen St are an important built heritage. Next time you are in the area, call in and admire the garden gates. When we look closer and appreciate our built heritage we can connect to our past people and place... of one of New Zealand’s oldest public gardens, an Victorian idea carried into a growing town, to royal occasion, and the locals effort and pride. They remind us that the public beauty we appreciate today is a legacy from earlier generations who planned, grew, built, and marked occasions.

These gates still do what good gates have always done. They tell us that what lies beyond is worth entering.

By Andrew Paul Wood for Timaru Civic Trust
Photography By Roselyn Fauth

​The Troopers’ Memorial on a triangle of land between Memorial Ave, King St and Catherine St remains one of the district’s most eloquent reminders of the South African (Boer) War (1899-1902), the first overseas conflict in which New Zealand soldiers served.

Erected in 1905, the monument was originally placed at the corner of High and King streets, before being relocated to its present site on Memorial Ave around 1926.

Its origins lie in a determined civic effort: Timaru residents raised funds, debated designs, and insisted that the memorial should honour not only the fallen but the district’s sense of imperial duty.

The design process was competitive.

In May 1903 the Deceased Troopers’ Memorial Committee considered multiple proposals, ultimately selecting local stonemason S. McBride’s ‘Design No. 3’ by a narrow vote.

His scheme featured a Carrara marble trooper, six feet high, depicted “in action” loading his rifle, standing on a polished red granite pedestal with grey granite corner pillars.

The total height reached seventeen feet, and McBride guaranteed absolute accuracy of uniform and equipment if supplied with photographs.

The committee rejected his idea of concreting the entire site but accepted the monument at a cost of £450.

The statue itself was carved in Italy, based on a photograph of a New Zealand mounted rifleman.

When unveiled on 23 February 1905, the event drew a large crowd, bunting, flags, and a mood of patriotic celebration rather than mourning.

The memorial’s inscriptions list 28 men who died in the Boer War, and a later addition (c.1919) records 12 local men who served in South Africa and later fell in World War I.

Today the Troopers’ Memorial stands not only as a work of imported craftsmanship and local pride but as a marker of Timaru’s early military culture, once centred on the nearby Drill Hall (demolished 2021 as part of the Theatre Royal redevelopment).

It anchors a chapter of national identity shaped by loyalty to the British Empire and the sacrifices of young Canterbury volunteers far from home.

If you want to under­stand how a town thinks about death, one way to learn is to start at the gate.

​Most of us pass through the gates of Timaru Cemetery with pur­pose. We might be vis­it­ing graves, look­ing around or walk­ing or cyc­ling through. But if we pause at the entrance and look closely, the gates tell a layered story of loss, law, archi­tec­ture and civic respons­ib­il­ity.

The blue­stone entrance piers, built of local basalt, anchor what The Timaru Her­ald described in 1904 as “a length of neat iron pal­is­ad­ing fence on low stone wall”, with orna­mental car­riage gates and smal­ler ped­es­trian gates “hung on massive stone gate posts”. This was delib­er­ate civic design.

In Janu­ary 1897, the Timaru Cemetery Board called for tenders for a stone wall and entrance piers under archi­tect James S Turn­bull.

His father, Richard Turn­bull, had earlier gif­ted iron gates to the cemetery in 1869.

Prac­tical neces­sity drove much of this work. In the 1860s, stock wandered in and dam­aged graves as fen­cing deteri­or­ated.

In a young set­tle­ment bordered by graz­ing land, enclos­ure was essen­tial as well as dec­or­at­ive.

Timaru Cemetery was estab­lished as a pub­lic muni­cipal cemetery rather than a church­yard. The land was ves­ted under the Pub­lic Reserves Act 1854 along­side another reserve, near what is now the Aigan­tighe Art Gal­lery, that was reportedly never used. The first recor­ded inter­ments took place in 1860. Among the earli­est were Deal boat­men Mor­ris Clayson Cory and Robert Boubius, who drowned dur­ing a res­cue attempt off Timaru’s coast while work­ing for the land­ing ser­vice.

From 1870, the cemetery’s man­age­ment was reg­u­lated under pro­vin­cial legis­la­tion.

The Cemetery Reserves Man­age­ment Ordin­ance allowed burial fees to be waived for those without means, but exclus­ive rights had to be pur­chased before monu­ments could be erec­ted.

So, buri­als could be guar­an­teed, but memori­al­isa­tion required pay­ment. Later acts form­al­ised trustee gov­ernance and even­tu­ally trans­ferred respons­ib­il­ity to local author­it­ies under the Burial and Crema­tion Act 1964.

In 1881, archi­tect Maurice de Har­ven Duval added a brick mor­tu­ary chapel just inside the entrance with a care­taker’s cot­tage nearby.

A 1904 news­pa­per walk-through described the “pretty mor­tu­ary chapel in stuc­coed brick” and noted that by then about 3400 inter­ments had taken place and the ori­ginal reserve was nearly full.

By the 1930s, ideas about burial were chan­ging. In 1933, the cemetery board debated estab­lish­ing a crem­at­orium and con­sidered a pro­posal pre­pared by Percy Watts Rule, who had worked in part­ner­ship with James Turn­bull.

The plan would have added a gas-fired crem­at­orium to the west side of the exist­ing chapel. It was cos­ted and ser­i­ously dis­cussed but never built.

The gates, designed a gen­er­a­tion earlier, had already wit­nessed a shift from tra­di­tional burial to the pos­sib­il­ity of mod­ern crema­tion.

The chapel was demol­ished in 1968, and gov­ernance later passed fully to local author­ity con­trol under the Burial and

Crema­tion Act. The Sex­ton’s res­id­ence is gone. The admin­is­trat­ive build­ings have changed. The gates remain. They have framed epi­demic buri­als in 1918, war­time losses, pub­lic debate about buri­als, and the daily acts of remem­brance that con­tinue today. They frame grand monu­ments and unmarked ground alike. Within the gates, regard­less of status or story, most of us arrive in the same place at the end.

The cemetery in many ways has also become a timeline of Timaru’s past, writ­ten in stone – and in the marker’s absence. It is also import­ant to recog­nise that burial tra­di­tions here long pred­ate colo­nial legis­la­tion. Māori have ances­tral con­nec­tions to this land­scape, and con­cepts of tapu and remem­brance exis­ted here well before this muni­cipal reserve was formed.

Today we con­tinue to pass through these gates to remem­ber, to reflect and some­times simply to walk. Built her­it­age mat­ters because it shows us what earlier gen­er­a­tions val­ued enough to build in stone. These gates tell us that Timaru chose pro­tec­tion, order and pub­lic respons­ib­il­ity. As we con­sider the future of our cemeter­ies, per­haps they quietly ask what we will choose to value now.

Brought to you by the Timaru Civic Trust, cel­eb­rat­ing our built her­it­age and the people who keep it alive.

Hydro Grand Hotel. Timaru. TePapa MA_I417454

​In the second instal­ment of a four-part series, Timaru Civic Trust mem­ber Roselyn Fauth looks back at the Hydro Grand Hotel, designed by archi­tect Her­bert Hall.
Last week we stood on Stafford St and looked up at the Ōrari Build­ings. To under­stand that 1925 corner, we can step back 13 years.

In 1912, the Hydro Grand Hotel opened on the corner of Stafford and Sefton streets.

Com­mis­sioned by Wil­liam Ken­neth Mac­don­ald, who also com­mis­sioned the Ōrari Build­ings, and designed by Hall and Marchant (Hall had also designed the Ōrari), it was con­ceived to be the east coast of the South Island’s sea­side resort.

Its style was Edwar­d­ian Baroque with Medi­ter­ranean influ­ence, sim­ilar to the grand hotels of Eng­lish coastal towns such as Brighton and Bournemouth.

Three storeys high, with a cir­cu­lar tower crowned by a domed cupola and view­ing bal­cony, it looked east, facing the view of the alps, the ocean and Car­oline Bay.

It was mod­ern for its time. It had an elec­tric lift, a mech­an­ical freight lift, and hot run­ning water.

The Hydro was named “Hydro” because of a planned hydro­ther­apy or salt water bathing facil­ity.

While it appears that the baths were not com­pleted, the build­ing com­ple­men­ted the sea­side infra­struc­ture devel­op­ing at the Bay.

Bathing sheds had been estab­lished from the 1890s, and ladies and men’s facil­it­ies were expan­ded by 1910, The Car­oline Bay Asso­ci­ation formed in 1911,

The Bay Car­ni­val star­ted in 1912, and by 1920 hot salt­water baths were near­ing com­ple­tion.

The Bay’s pub­lic amen­it­ies com­ple­men­ted the Hydro’s private ambi­tions, and helped to rein­force Timaru’s iden­tity as a coastal resort. By the late 1920s, excur­sion trains brought 25,000 vis­it­ors annu­ally.

Like the Ōrari Build­ings, the Hydro also occu­pied a tri­an­gu­lar site. Guests enjoyed open bal­conies. The ori­ginal ground floor included shops as well as din­ing and a bar.

The Hydro told a story about how Timaru saw itself in 1912. It was a town con­fid­ent enough to ima­gine vis­it­ors arriv­ing by rail and stay­ing by the sea. A town shap­ing its iden­tity around Car­oline Bay.

The build­ing remained part of the streets­cape for dec­ades. After storm dam­age in 1975, and years of decline, it was even­tu­ally demol­ished.

But in 1925, as Timaru developed its com­mer­cial heart of exchange, it also com­pleted something far more endur­ing.

Next week, we turn to the South Can­ter­bury War Memorial, also designed by Her­bert Hall.

By Roselyn Fauth

In the third instal­ment of a four-part series, Timaru Civic Trust mem­ber Roselyn Fauth looks at the South Can­ter­bury War Memorial, designed by archi­tect Her­bert Hall.

In 1925, the same year the Ōrari Build­ings opened, Timaru com­pleted its South Can­ter­bury War Memorial.

Stand­ing in the Botanic Gar­dens at 20 Queen St, oppos­ite Memorial Ave, the memorial takes the form of a fluted Cor­inthian column moun­ted on a stepped base and topped by a wreath, orb and cross.

Con­struc­ted of basalt, gran­ite, marble and bronze, it com­bines clas­sical tri­umph with Chris­tian sym­bol­ism. It is restrained, delib­er­ate and dig­ni­fied. The column form was inspired by clas­sical tri­umphal columns such as Nel­son’s Column in Lon­don.

The bronze cross at the top was made in Lon­don to Her­bert Hall’s design.

Dis­cus­sions about a memorial began in Octo­ber 1918, even before peace was form­ally declared.

The Returned Sol­diers’ Asso­ci­ation ini­tially pro­posed a build­ing that could serve as headquar­ters.

By mid-1919, the idea shif­ted toward a purely com­mem­or­ative monu­ment.

At one stage, a site oppos­ite the Hydro Hotel was favoured. When that could not be secured, the Botanic Gar­dens were approved in Feb­ru­ary 1924.

Charles St was renamed Memorial Ave in August 1925 to acknow­ledge the memorial’s place­ment.

Designed by Her­bert Hall and con­struc­ted by Messrs Par­kin­son Ltd, the memorial was com­pleted by July 1925 and unveiled on Armistice Day, Novem­ber 11, 1925.

The bronze memorial tab­let was unveiled on Anzac Day 1926.

The pan­els list the names of 875 South Can­ter­bury ser­vice­men from World War I, 497 from World War II, and those who served in later con­flicts, includ­ing Korea, Malaya, and Viet­nam.

Memorial walls flank­ing the column were erec­ted in 1997, and the paved fore­court was added around 2000.

Each Anzac Day the memorial remains the focal point of com­munity remem­brance in Timaru.

In 1925, Timaru built two very dif­fer­ent things.

The Ōrari build­ings on the site oppos­ite the Hydro to con­tinue daily life. And the memorial to hon­our those who did not return.

Look­ing at the three struc­tures, it is inter­est­ing to note what we have lost, what we have endured, and how the built her­it­age helps us con­nect to our past, people and place.

When we know where we come from, we know who we are, and it can help us make bet­ter decisions and know what to advoc­ate for, for our future.

In the first instal­ment of a four-part series, Timaru Civic Trust mem­ber Roselyn Fauth looks at Man­awa Ora, formerly the Ōrari Build­ings, designed by archi­tect Her­bert Hall.

I was walk­ing up Stafford St when I noticed the scaf­fold­ing had come down from the Ōrari Build­ings.

In the late after­noon light, the refreshed façade was glow­ing. The new coat of paint feels sea­side fun and con­fid­ent.

I snapped some pho­tos and on the way home, I real­ised I knew very little about its his­tory.

The Ōrari Build­ings at 327-341 Stafford St were erec­ted in 1925 for Wil­liam Ken­neth Mac­don­ald of Ōrari Sta­tion.

Designed by archi­tect Her­bert Hall and built by J T Hunt, the two-storey com­mer­cial block stands on its tri­an­gu­lar site, its roun­ded corner soften­ing the junc­tion of Stafford St and Port Loop Rd.

Look up and you can see Hall’s dis­cip­lined style. A solid para­pet above a den­tilled cor­nice con­ceals the mono­p­itch roof.

First-floor win­dows sit within arched mould­ings, some dec­or­ated with plaster swags. A sus­pen­ded ver­anda to shel­ter ped­es­tri­ans from the weather wraps the corner. A small dec­or­at­ive bal­cony over­looks Port Loop Rd. Con­struc­ted of brick and cement plaster, I love this build­ing. It is a lovely example of com­mer­cial clas­si­cism.

When it opened, the build­ing con­tained seven shops and tearooms upstairs over­look­ing Car­oline Bay.Early occu­pants included Richard Hill, elec­trical engin­eer, the Misses L and D Ran­some serving tea,

Mrs Vick­ers’ lib­rary exchange, Mrs Lewis the hairdresser and a fur­niture dealer.

In 1954, the build­ing was dec­or­ated for the royal visit of Queen Eliza­beth II. A dec­ade later, a large Player’s cigar­ette sign was removed from the roof.

When I grew up I knew this as Mas­cot House, and have lovely memor­ies of a first fancy date with my now hus­band at Ginger and Gar­lic.

Today the facade dis­plays the build­ing’s new Man­awa Ora, mean­ing breath of life.

The Ōrari still stands. Its grand friend across the street does not.

Next week, we’ll step back to 1912 and revisit the Hydro.

Brought to you by the Timaru Civic Trust, cel­eb­rat­ing our built her­it­age and the people who keep it alive.

A stink pipe on Timaru's Pringle St overlooking Ashbury Park.
Christopher Templeton / Supplied

By Andrew Paul Wood

In a handful of spots around town you will come across tall, mysterious cast iron pipes sticking out of the footpath, with an ornamental base.

Some still have their elaborate top.

These are not, as sometimes supposed, the remains of old street lamps, but rather, “stink” or “stench” pipes, or stack vents, used to ventilate sewer gas.

The first stink pipes were installed in London after the “Great Stink” of 1858, based on the concept of a blast pipe from a steam locomotive, and allegedly invented by a Victoria surgeon, chemist and engineer Sir Goldsworthy Gurney (1793-1875).

It isn’t entirely clear when Timaru’s stink pipes were first installed, sometime between the 1880s and 1910s.

Timaru’s population nearly doubled between 1878 and 1901, and doubled again by 1911, making sanitation a priority.

A letter to The Timaru Herald on July 10, 1906 describes a sorry state of affairs with “150 water closets, besides numerous baths, lavatories and sinks” in the CBD draining directly into the two main sewers in George and Strathallan streets.

What sewers there were had originally been designed for stormwater and only with the growth of Timaru, pressed into service for general drainage.

The letter writer complains about the dangers of sewer gas, particularly the corner of Stafford St and Cains Tce, and “in other parts householders plug and fill their baths or put sacks over the drain inlets to prevent the escape of the sewer gas”.

Sewer gas is a mixture of mostly methane, hydrogen sulphide, ammonia and carbon dioxide, produced when organic material breaks down in low‑oxygen environments. It smells like rotting eggs, though the actual health risk was overstated.

The germ theory of disease dominated from the late 19th century, but the idea of “miasma” – that disease could be caused by bad air and foul odours – carried along with it the belief it contributed the right conditions for germs.

The other concern was the danger of sewer gas explosions, such as those reported from Auckland, Dunedin, Melbourne and London in the first part of the 20th century.

A report from the District Health Officer to the Timaru Borough Council from August 24, 1915 complains that the George St sewer, carrying a lot of industrial waste, was only serviced by three six-inch vents.

These functional artefacts are important reminders of Timaru’s developmental history, even if their purpose was less than glamorous.