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.

By Roselyn Fauth

In the final instal­ment of a four-part series, Timaru Civic Trust mem­ber Roselyn Fauth looks at the archi­tect behind sev­eral of the town’s land­marks.

Over the past few weeks we’ve stood on Stafford St, looked toward Car­oline Bay, and paused in the Botanic Gar­dens.

We’ve traced the stor­ies of the Ōrari Build­ings, the Hydro Grand Hotel and the South Can­ter­bury War Memorial.

There is one name con­nect­ing them all – the archi­tect Her­bert Wil­liam Hall.

Born in Christ­ch­urch in 1884, Hall stud­ied at Can­ter­bury Col­lege School of Art under Samuel Hurst Seager and won a gold medal prize in archi­tec­ture while still a stu­dent.

He moved to Timaru in 1908, the same year the North Island Main Trunk rail­way opened, trans­form­ing the way tour­ism oper­ated in New Zea­l­and.

In Timaru he entered into a part­ner­ship with civil engin­eer Fre­d­er­ick Marchant.

Together they designed the Hydro Grand Hotel in 1912. The Hydro was con­struc­ted as Timaru developed its port resort devel­op­ment.

Later, work­ing inde­pend­ently, Hall designed both the Ōrari Build­ings and the South Can­ter­bury War Memorial at the Timaru Botanic Gar­dens in 1925.

Hall’s influ­ence exten­ded far bey­ond South Can­ter­bury. In 1928 he designed the Chat­eau Tongariro in Tongariro National Park, which opened in 1929.

Owned by the New Zea­l­and Gov­ern­ment’s tour­ism depart­ment, the lux­uri­ous neo-Geor­gian hotel stood in delib­er­ate con­trast to the dra­matic vol­canic land­scape behind it. Pub­li­city imagery of the period showed eleg­antly dressed guests step­ping from a refined por­tico into the alpine wil­der­ness. The rail­way had opened the cent­ral plat­eau to trav­el­lers, and Hall’s design helped shape New Zea­l­and’s emer­ging tour­ism iden­tity.

In 1935, Hall was awar­ded the New Zea­l­and Insti­tute of Archi­tects’ Gold Medal for St David’s Memorial Church at Cave, the pro­fes­sion’s highest hon­our.

He died in Temuka in 1940, aged 57. Hall’s leg­acy of built her­it­age con­tin­ued on through his son Humphrey.

His son, Humphrey Hall (1912-1988), also became an archi­tect. In 1938–39, Humphrey designed his own house at 11 Park Lane in Timaru, now a Cat­egory A her­it­age build­ing.

Flat-roofed, with strip win­dows, pilotis and a roof garden, it was one of New Zea­l­and’s earli­est Mod­ern­ist houses and marked a dra­matic shift from his father’s clas­sical lan­guage. I have been inside, and it is really inter­est­ing prop­erty, while the spiral stair­case is stun­ning.

After serving in World War II and sur­viv­ing as a pris­oner of war, Humphrey later entered into part­ner­ship as Hall and MacK­en­zie.

In 1958, the firm co-designed the Her­mit­age Hotel at Mount Cook, earn­ing national recog­ni­tion and a Gold Medal from the Insti­tute of Archi­tects.

Within one fam­ily, archi­tec­ture in New Zea­l­and moved from clas­sical columns to Mod­ern­ist forms over a gen­er­a­tion.

When we look at the Ōrari Build­ings, stand at the War Memorial, or drive past the Mod­ern­ist house on Park Lane, we are see­ing two archi­tects named Hall – father and son – shap­ing Timaru at dif­fer­ent moments in its his­tory.

They are two gen­er­a­tions of archi­tects who helped define how this town wanted oth­ers to see itself.

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.