The strip of blue­stone cobbles that helped turn mud into order

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.

1910 New Zealand Government Life and Accident Insurance building, Stafford Street, Timaru, with men, horses and carts in the foreground. The Press (Newspaper) :Negatives. Ref: 1/1-008809-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/29939829