Timaru Civic Trust: North St

Andrew Paul Wood

​The story behind Timaru’s North St highlights its historical importance.
Timaru’s North Street has many sites of historical interest.

The eastern end is rich in old commercial buildings, and the California-style bungalows that became popular in New Zealand from around 1913 onwards.

At the port end, the contaminated red brick Chrome Platers Ltd. Building, formerly the Old Mill nightclub, dates to 1883.

There is the classical 1910 building on the corner of Stafford St, and the Courthouse, designed by colonial architect W. H. Clayton, built in 1877-78, and the 1879 Queens Hotel designed by Frederick Marchant.

But why “North” St. It runs through the middle of town. The answer is that prior to 1869, Timaru was not one town, but two.

Except for the Great South Rd, and the awkward intersection at Woodlands Rd near the lovely 1912 Methodist Church Hall, no roads cross North St.

In 1856 the Canterbury provincial government (until 1876 the provinces had their own legislative bodies) had foreseen Timaru becoming the main town in South Canterbury and dispatched surveyor Samuel Hewlings to draw up what became known as “Government Town”.

Government Town extended from Pātītī Point to its northern boundary, North St. It was expected that this would be the town with a port north of Pātītī.

This was not to be. The Rhodes brothers had already freeholded 50 hectares of land north of Government Town.

The brothers had surveyor E. H. Lough lay out a rival plan, “Rhodes Town”, based on old bullock tracks. Because it lay immediately inland from the boat landings where the bluestone Landing Service Building was built in the 1870s, it gazumped Government Town as future Timaru’s commercial centre.