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.

Roselyn Fauth
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When I walked through the old Union Bank of Aus­tralia build­ing recently, I found myself ima­gin­ing being in Charles Gri­er­son’s shoes.

He was the first bank man­ager to step into this new blue­stone bank when it opened on Stafford St in 1877, and lived upstairs, keep­ing watch over the safe.

Stand­ing there dur­ing the recent renov­a­tion by Timaru Dis­trict Hold­ings Ltd (TDHL), I felt unex­pec­tedly con­nec­ted to that earlier world.

The Union Bank story began far from Timaru. It issued its first pro­spectus in Lon­don in 1837 and became the first bank to oper­ate in New Zea­l­and, open­ing a branch in Wel­ling­ton in 1840. By the time it reached Timaru in 1867, it was well estab­lished across the coun­try and staffed here by a man­ager and six bank­ing officers.

Gri­er­son was in charge when the new build­ing opened.

The bank would remain in this spot for 74 years before mer­ging in 1951 with the Bank of Aus­tralasia to become the ANZ.

The build­ing was designed by Thomas Roberts, a Timaru archi­tect who trained as an engin­eer in Eng­land before emig­rat­ing to Can­ter­bury in 1870. He later designed Sealy House, now Shand House at Craighead Dio­cesan School.

The con­tractor was Thomas Machin, who would later prac­tise as an archi­tect.

Together they cre­ated a Vic­torian com­mer­cial clas­sical build­ing with real pres­ence, con­struc­ted in Timaru blue­stone with cement plaster, brick, slate and cor­rug­ated iron. The project cost about £3000, a sig­ni­fic­ant invest­ment for a town still recov­er­ing from the dev­ast­at­ing 1868 fire that des­troyed much of its wooden CBD. It was a build­ing that needed to look trust­worthy, and it did.

Over the years the facade evolved. A sus­pen­ded ver­anda was added and, in the 1950s and 1960s, mod­ern shop fronts were built in front of the ori­ginal struc­ture.

This is the build­ing I remem­ber grow­ing up in Timaru, where I bought cla­ri­net reeds and Theatre Royal tick­ets from New­man’s Music Store. See­ing the scaf­fold­ing come down to reveal the restored blue­stone was a real thrill. Remov­ing the later plaster has brought back a strong sense of her­it­age char­ac­ter that anchors the whole streets­cape.

Inside, sev­eral ori­ginal fea­tures have sur­vived. Fire­places, a koru stair ban­is­ter, columns with Cor­inthian cap­it­als and the won­der­ful old safe door that still opens into the stron­groom. These details make it easy to ima­gine those early bank­ing staff step­ping between coun­ters and ledgers.

TDHL pur­chased the prop­erty in 2018. In 2023, they com­mit­ted to strength­en­ing and restor­ing it to sup­port and com­ple­ment the south end redevel­op­ment.

The former bank man­ager’s res­id­ence on the first floor has been the TDHL office since 2024, and the ground floor is now home to Ven­ture Timaru.

TDHL gen­eral man­ager Frazer Munro showed me around upstairs and said it had been a fant­astic project to be involved with, espe­cially reach­ing the com­ple­tion of the facade res­tor­a­tion. The high ceil­ings and her­it­age ele­ments in all the rooms cre­ate a calm­ing and invit­ing atmo­sphere.

Ven­ture Timaru oper­a­tions and des­tin­a­tion man­ager Di Hay told me what a priv­ilege it was to now be loc­ated in this her­it­age build­ing, where the care­ful renov­a­tion pro­cess has cel­eb­rated the past and also the present, with some nice mod­ern touches.

Build­ings like this help us under­stand where we have come from and who we are today. Keep­ing them alive means allow­ing them to evolve while hon­our­ing their past. Every­one involved should feel proud. It is won­der­ful to see this place hum­ming with life again at the south end of Stafford St.

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