The gates that intro­duce Aigan­tighe

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.