Ellerslie's Bridge of Memories

I was at Ellerslie on Friday to give a talk, so used the opportunity to take photos of whatever Ellerslie had to offer a travelling history buff. The Bridge of Memories was a good start.

Even though it crosses the Southern Motorway, and I have a leery thing about crossing bridges over busy roads. The mind just keeps wondering if today will be the day the bridge collapses into the stream of traffic below ... I'm nervy crossing the bridge over Wellesley Street in the city as well. This shot is from whwen I'd reached the other side from the train station.

Anyway ...

In 2006, the Ellerslie Town Centre received a bit of a do-up, and the Bridge of Memories was part of the work done. These panels represent Ellerslie School.

Historical places in the village itself.

Horse racing, of course. You can't possibly have Ellerslie without its racecourse.

A tribute to Robert Graham's Ellerslie Gardens. They weren't a zoological gardens at all, despite what's on the mosaic -- just a sports ground and walking areas with a small menagerie of a couple of cages. So, here's an urban legend, enshrined in tiles.

Ellerslie Hotel. The c.1860 date is interesting. Do they mean the Harp of Erin Hotel, at Ellerslie, from around that date (said to have been on the Panmure Road?)  Or the "first-class hotel at Ellerslie Station" designed by G W Hollis and owned by Robert Graham, where tenders for the building of same were advertised in the Southern Cross in April 1874? The Ellerslie Business Association's webpage on the hotel stays out of any arguments.

Surviving logos like this (although this was of course a mosaic made long after the logo was obsolete) are historical enough now in the changing landscape of Auckland's territorial authorities. This one will be even more so after the end of this year.