More old postcards

Somewhere along the line, I found these postcards and bought them. No idea where the photographs were taken -- but the colourisation is effective and does add to them, I feel.

 

 

A memorial under the Harbour Bridge

These are photos from and by my friend Bill Ellis.

There's a memorial at the Auckland Harbour Bridge, in memory of those workers who died in the course of the construction of the bridge.

TO THE MEMORY OF

THOSE MEN WHO LOST THEIR

LIVES ACCIDENTALLY DURING THE

CONSTRUCTION OF THE

AUCKLAND HARBOUR BRIDGE

JAMES NICHOL WILLIAMSON - AGED 48

CARPENTER 26.1.58

JAMES ALEX WESTERN - AGED 28

STEEL ERECTOR 7.2.59

JOHN JOSEPH PATRICK McCORMICK - AGED 46

CARPENTER 21.4.59

A small memorial, over which thousands unknowingly pass every single day of the year.

A Bethell headstone mystery

Back when I was last at Motat a few weeks ago, on the way out and walking past the side of the complex, at the rear of the old St Saviour's Church buiding which is part of the Victorian Village there, my friend and I spotted these.

One in particular caught my eye.

I thought, "Hang on ... wasn't Clara one of John Neale Bethell's wives?" This being the John Bethell buried at St Ninians in Avondale. The answer is yes.

The above headstone, for John Bethell  and both of his wives (one, Catherine, died in 1900; he later married Clara, who died in 1918), leaves off the second "e" in his middle name Neale. Was it installed later, after his own death in 1943?

I had wondered why the Bethell headstone was part of the same block as that of Jessie Ingram, the wife of an Avondale postmaster (1902-1906) Duncan Ingram.

 

A Miss Jessie Bethell was noted in 1895 as having found a message in a bottle in 1895 on the West Coast of the Waitakeres (perhaps close to Bethell's Beach? -- Brisbane Courier, 8 October 1895, p. 3), so at some stage she may have married Duncan Ingram -- and was buried in the Bethell family plot here in Avondale. A number of the Ingrams married Bethells, according to the Presbyterian Church marriage register.

But -- that still doesn't explain why and how Clara's headstone ended up all the way over in Western Springs, close to Chinaman's Hill. As soon as I find out more information, I'll post an update.

Update posted.

The Astley House

Image: AWHS Collection

At the St Jude’s “Avondale Then and Now” photo exhibition, a member of the local community approached me and asked why I had identified an image of the house at 160 New Windsor Road as the “Astley House”. She felt sure it was the “Dickey House”.

The answer, as I suspected, was that we were both correct, always a good thing in terms of local history.

The Astley family arrived in Auckland in 1880, Elijah Astley and his sons worked at the Ireland Brothers tannery in Panmure, before shifting to the Gittos Tannery at Avondale. After first living in Richardson Road, the family saved enough to purchase a 12-acre section along New Windsor Road in September 1882, and had their house built there in 1883 “The rooms were large, but some of them were left unfinished, though habitable, for a considerable time. To our eyes it seemed, and was, a fine family home and our own property, but it was sadly deficient in the amenities which are regarded as indispensable in a modern home today.” (John E. Astley, “The Astley Saga, A Post-Pioneer Auckland Family”, Journal of the Auckland Historical Society, [Part One] October 1966)

The two-storey English Colonial style building was the size it was, most likely, to accommodate the large Astley family (total of 10 children when they arrived from England). Elijah Astley founded the Astley Tannery in New Lynn, one of the district’s most enduring industries.

Eijah Astley died 10 December 1905. In 1907, his son John Edward Astley and Thomas Atherton transferred the property to Mr and Mrs. Lamey from Morrinsville, who in turn transferred to Robert Dickey of Penrose in 1918. The Dickey name remains in the name Dickey Street, close to the original land holding.

So yes: the house at 160 New Windsor Road is both the Astley House and the Dickey House. Call it what you will – but most use the first name.

Upper Rosebank Road Mural

I'm grateful to a very kind friend of mine who regularly gets up as early as the dawn chorus and so offered to take a couple iof snaps of the mural in Avondale which faces onto the Auckland City Council carpark beside the upper part of Rosebank Road (former Brown Street). I can't say who he is (but he and his good lady regularly view Timespanner) so -- hey there, you guys know who you are, so thanks!

The early 1950s scene looks from across on the western side of Rosebank Road, up "Station Hill" (Upper Rosebank) towards the railway goods shed at the top. Our post office building is on the left, and Unity Building on the right.

Usually, there are cars parked here all day, so it's hard to get a good shot of the wall. Luckily, as I said, I have an early riser friend.

 

Avondale Then & Now exhibition

A photo taken Friday, while the old 1907 Church Hall at the back of St Jude's Church was being set up. The committee members at St Jude's have done a huge amount of work setting the exhibition up -- and running a very successful and well-patronised first day yesterday.

The exhibition was a golden opportunity for the Avondale-Waterview Historical Society to display two of our treasures -- a c.1966 aerial of the Airest Factory on Rosebank Road, and our December 1957 aerial of Avondale (right).

 

City Councillor (and local community member) Noelene Raffills (left) did the honours in opening the exhibition at 9 o'clock yesterday morning.

 

Part (only a small part!) of the finished display. Excellent value for money in refreshments put on too, by the way -- in return for $5, the customer received a small cuppa, a sandwich, small meat pie, and a small cake. Plus, a chance to see a comprehensive slideshow of images from the past and present of the suburb, and chat with community membgers past and present, all of us pointing out where places were, familiar faces.

The AWHS supported the exhibition by providing images. A lot of those finally chosen came from us, which was cool to see. Some, originally colour, have been on view in their original form for the first time in public.

I've done one heritage walk in conjunction with the exhibition, starting and finishing at the church -- today is walk number 2. (I think I've recovered enough!) I'm fortunate that Auckland City Council loaned the use of an amplifier for it, otherwise last night I'd not only have been knackered, I'd have been hoarse as well!

All in all -- while I'm tired, it's been a great weekend for Avondale's local stories.

Happy birthday, Timespanner

This time last year, I was tinkering around in the Blogger site, after having had an odd dream about ordering a blog from a post office of all things (!), and Timespanner was born. Kicked off initially because I wanted a better online description of The Zoo War than was provided in library catalogues, it soon became an integral part of what I like and feel compelled to do, more often than not -- find out why things are the way they are, who people were, and generally explore through time.

Thank you to regular readers of this blog, and to those who've stumbled across it from out of the Internet wildernesses, found something here of help for their own nresearch, and were kind enough to add to the storehouse here as well.

And thanks especially to Liz, who assured me for months before 20 September 2008 that blogging was fun. As I'm not particularly into keeping diaries myself, and that's what blogs seemed to me to be, nor did I think I was a long-term spouter of opinion, I doubted I'd ever be doing this. I'm glad, very much so, that I was wrong.

Cheers, all.

Why I love St Matthews-in-the-City

A photo essay.

"Lost at the bottom of Swanson Street ..."

From the Auckland City Council's City Scene, 24 February 2008:

"A new public sculpture marks the site of the city's original foreshore on the corner of Swanson and Queen streets. The 7m tall artwork created by well-known New Zealand sculptor Fred Graham is entitled Te Waka Taumata o Ngati Paoa or resting canoe. Mr Graham used Corten and stainless steel in the design, which will develop a weathered, rust-like appearance over time.

"The sculpture provides a strong visual presence on our main street. It captures the historical and cultural significance of the area, and most importantly, it tells a story of our city," says Councillor Greg Moyle, chairperson of the council's Arts, Culture and Recreation Committee."

Brian Rusdman, NZ Herald, 19 March 2008:

"...Fred Graham's newly installed stylised waka sternpost, 7m high, is lost at the bottom of Swanson St."

It is certainly a visual surprise -- if you're doing what I was doing last night along Queen Street, looking at old building facades, thinking, "Hmm, would that look interesting on Timespanner, I wonder...?" So, my eyes caught sight of the birds, and then the anchor stone.

People flow around the sculpture in rush hour, as waves flow around the prow of a waka, but -- I agree with Brian Rudman. The sculpture is somewhat lost beside the glare of Burger King, at the foot of Swanson Street. Back in the 1860s, the Royal Oak Hotel was on one side, the Victoria Hotel on the other (check out photo 4-414, Heritage Images online.) Today, it's just part of Queen Street's consumer landscape.

Measuring the fish

St Matthews-in-the-City, on Hobson-Wellesley-Federal Streets, is one of my favourite all-time buildings. I'll post more images a little later, but ... I couldn't resist showing you this sign:

As usual, click to enlarge.

Wingate Street mural

The local Avondale Community Board have completed a number of heritage mural projects in the area -- this is one of them. The images are of the Five Roads Intersection (Wingate-Great North Road (X2), St Georges and St Judes) ...

... and the Rahiri, said to be the last or one of the last scows on the Whau.

Revived website for the Avondale-Waterview Historical Society

The original website being on Geocities, which is closing down its free website now, I've shifted the Avondale-Waterview Historical Society's website over to Google Sites, at this address. It looks bare, I know, but -- it's a web presence, and that's the main thing at the moment. As soon as I can, I'll tinker with it, add stuff, that kind of thing. Hopefully!

Domain Stories – 1870s

The Domain’s fourth decade as a park began with water concerns. The Province’s District Engineer, Henry Allwright (1827-1906), expressed his concerns as to the ability of the water supply from the Domain to provide the growing city with enough water to fight its fires, as well as supply water to public buildings and private owners alike. After a fire, the water supply was a mere trickle, and Allwright detailed in a report to the council that major work on the pipes leading to the city and supplying the side streets would be required. But – this was supposed to be a temporary supply, wasn’t it? Was it really worth it to expend more and more money on “this imperfect supply of a very inferior quality of water”? (Southern Cross, 5 February 1870)

Allwright, by the way, was the architect (working by then for the Auckland Board of Education) of Avondale’s first purpose-built school in 1882. He worked right up to five years before his death.

In the same month as Allwright made his 1870 report on the water situation, the Domain Board offered 26 residential sites for lease along Grafton Road “above the Bowling Green” (Southern Cross, 2 June 1870) in a bid to get more income for maintaining the Domain. This need by the Domain Board to try to get more income led to a confusing series of reports about the Domain water supply. The 1870s was the decade the Auckland City Council came into existence, in 1871. In 1873, the first Mayor, Philip Philips learned that the Domain Board had made an offer to the Provincial Council for the latter to buy the Domain waterworks outright – and put in a counter offer for the new City Council to buy the water-works instead. The issue then became as muddy as the bottom of the Domain lagoon.

There was mention of a grant from the Crown to the Provincial Council concerning the water-works, possibly from the 1860s, but this had been lost, and Dr. Daniel Pollen was tasked to look into it. The Board asked the Provincial Council’s Superintendent to prove their claim. (Southern Cross, 22 May 1873) There then began a state of dithering as the City Council tried to decide whether to have a pumping system to supply the city with water, or a cheaper gravitation system. Come September that year, and the Provincial Council stepped in, agreeing to lease the water-works from the Domain Board. They must have given up proving that they owned the water-works as of right. (Southern Cross, 4 September 1873)

The whole question of ownership of the Domain water supply was approaching an end, however. Auckland City Council commissioned a report on water supply options in October 1873. By May 1874, engineer William Errington was drawing up plans in line with the report, which favoured Western Springs. Negotiations with William Motion for his land at Western Springs were already underway from 1872. The foundation stone for the Western Springs pumphouse was laid on 29 March 1875. (Southern Cross, 30 March 1875) So, by the time the Provincial Council was abolished at the end of 1876 and the water system at the Domain became the property of the City Council, the Council was well on the way to a better water reticulation system. The complex at Western Springs opened on 9 July 1877. (NZ Herald, 10 July 1877) From then, the Council began to uplift the pipes across the Domain, leading from Seccombe’s Well at Khyber Pass. (Domain Board minutes, Auckland City Archives)

The last mention of the washing grounds came in this decade. In November 1870, when a Mr. Baird asked the City Board of Commissioners if he could lease the old washing grounds as a nursery and “place for testing seeds”, the Board felt that they weren’t certain they had the power to grant a 7-year lease, although they did hold Crown title. They voted to send a surveyor out to determine the exact boundaries. (Southern Cross, 1 November 1870)

There was a smallpox scare in Auckland in the winter of 1872, when Henry Thompson died from the disease at the hospital. (Southern Cross, 25 June 1872) Then Thomas Seymour, staying at the Thames Dining Rooms near the Queen Street wharf came down with smallpox as well. As the dining rooms was where Henry Thompson had been staying, it was suggested that the government might decide to set up an emergency isolation house in one of the Domain blockhouses, while converting the other into lodgings for the family who ran the dining rooms, the Gardiners. (Southern Cross, 12 July 1872) Whether that happened or not isn’t known, but the dining rooms were certainly closed for business until the beginning of August.

The Domain at this time, despite the bare beginnings of a cricket ground the previous decade, was still primarily a mix of farm and a place for passive recreation.

“To the Editor: Sir, - Can you tell me if persons are liable to be fined if they play games, such as football, cricket &c., in the grassy Domain? If you would enlighten me on this subject, you would oblige – Yours, etc., W.A.R. [Permission would require to be obtained from the lessee before games could be played in the Domain – Ed.]” (Southern Cross, 6 August 1872)

An unknown child’s body was found in the Domain in 1873, in tragic and horrifying circumstances.

“As a man named Robert Cliffe was engaged yesterday morning in cleaning out the dam which is used to back up the water in one of the Domain creeks, that it may be conveyed by means of piping into the boxes in the Acclimatisation Society's fish-house, he was horrified by suddenly striking his spade into the skull of an infant corpse. Upon exanimation it proved to be the body of an apparently new-born child; but it was in such a state of decomposition that its sex could not be ascertained. The body was wrapt up in an old piece of cloth, which was not large enough to cover it altogether, and there was what appeared to be some human hair also inside the cloth. The discovery was made at about 11 o'clock in the morning, and the police were at once communicated with. Sergeant-Major Pardy proceeded to the spot, and had the body, which is little more than a mass of pulp, conveyed to the dead house at the Provincial Hospital, to await examination by Dr. Philson, who will send in his report to-day.

“Upon a reporter from the office of this journal visiting the spot, which will now be made somewhat famous as having been the scene of a frightful and unnatural crime, he found that the dam is situated in the creek at a point where it runs within a few feet of the Lover's Walk. The creek winds its way over its rocky bed at a level a few feet below the path, and is completely hidden from view in many places by the trees and shrubs which grow upon its banks. The spot where the body was found is of easy access from the walk by descending a few rough-hewn steps cut in the earth. The dam had not been cleared out for about two years; but, as it had become full of leaves and other rubbish, the work which led to the present discovery was undertaken when it was noticed that some of the stones had been removed from their original position.

“The body of the child is supposed to have been lying in the water for a considerable period, probably a month or more, to reach such a state of decomposition, and had been buried— as it was doubtless supposed by its guilty parent, for ever— under some rubbish with a large stone on top of it. The spot, from its quiet and secluded position, is one well suited for the commission of such diabolical work. Late last night we ascertained that Dr. Philson, Provincial Surgeon, has made an examination of the body of the child, but he has been unable to ascertain its sex. Dr. Philson states that it is the body of a white child, and it is his opinion that it may have lain in the spot where it was found for several months, or even years, as it is a fact well known to medical men, that when a human body is kept under water or buried in a damp place, and the air wholly excluded, as in this case, it undergoes a peculiar change and becomes a fatty mass that will retain much of its original form for a very lengthened period. It is not likely that an inquest will be held.”

(Southern Cross, 21 August 1873)

The Domain Board, at the end of 1873, asked the Government for legislation giving them control over the old mill race at the bottom of the Domain, also known by that time as “Coolahan’s mill goit” (after Hugh Coolahan, first lease-holder of the Hospital Trust land which was to become Carlaw Park in the following century – see Mechanic’s Bay Timeline.) In 1874, the mill goit was transferred back to the Domain.

The Domain Gardens from the 1850s, which by the end of the 1860s had become a market garden, took on a new, brief role from the end of 1873 as the gardens leased by William Brighton, the former curator at the Acclimatisation Society’s garden close by. He offered a range of delights to attract the summer visitors to the Domain -- “prepared to Supply all Private Parties, Family Parties, or Visitors with Hot Water, Glass, Crockery, &c., &c., as may be required. He has now always on Hand Gingerbeer, Lemonade and other Cordials. If Refreshments are required a short notice will be necessary. Strawberries and Cream always on hand. Charges moderate.” (Advertisement, Southern Cross, 30 December 1873)

Business did not go so well for Brighton, however. In 1875, he was found not to have paid his advertising debts to the Southern Cross:

“Daily Southern Cross v. Brighton.— Claim £1 17s. 6d. for advertising. —Mr. Bennett for the plaintiff, and Mr. Rees for the defendant. — The defendant is the lessee of the Domain Gardens, and the charge was for several insertions in the Daily Southern Cross of an advertisement headed "Strawberries and Cream." The defence was that no instructions were given to insert. — Charles Macindoe deposed that he had charge of the advertising department of the paper. Mr. Brighton, while paying for one insertion of the advertisement on the 2nd. December, gave instructions that it should be continued every Friday until countermanded. Witness at the time pasted the advertisement on a slip of paper, and wrote underneath "T.C.," which meant "till countermanded." The advertisement continued to be inserted until after the strawberry season, when witness, thinking that the defendant had forgotten all about it, discontinued it on his own responsibility.—U. G. Hurrell, clerk in the office, said he was present and heard the defendant give instructions for the advertisement to be inserted until he stopped it. — The defendant in his evidence denied that he ordered the advertisement to be inserted as stated. On the occasion in question he only ordered one insertion which he paid for. — By Mr. Bennett: He was told that the advertisement was appearing in the paper, but he did not stop it because he thought it would render him liable. There was a similar dispute in the Herald. Witness had not instructed the Herald to continue the advertisement during the season. This was all the evidence. — The learned counsel having addressed the Court, his Worship gave judgment for the plaintiffs.”

(Southern Cross, 12 July 1875)

In 1873, the beginnings of a brief dispute over the Bowling Green began with an observation made by Domain Board members.

“Mr. Mitford drew attention to the bowling-green, which he said did not look unlike a market-garden. He thought that as the party at present in possession had incurred some expense, he should receive some notice to the effect that the Board would shortly require the green.— This suggestion was adopted, and the secretary was instructed to prepare the necessary notice.” 

(Southern Cross, 7 August 1873)

By December, members of the Board had duly inspected the grounds, and decided that it should be up for lease, for a term of 33 years. (Southern Cross, 4 December 1873) Perhaps, this meant the Domain Board considered that the bowling green would make a wonderful market garden to be leased out and earning income. Naturally, this upset the Bowling Club. Thomas Macfarlane wrote a letter to the Board, promising that the club would “resist to the death” any attempts to take the ground away from them. The Board responded by instructing their solicitor to take legal steps to recover the ground from the club. (Southern Cross, 8 January 1874)

In March, the Board’s solicitor delivered bad news: the bowling green wasn’t part of the Domain, and never had been. It came under the 1858 Auckland Reserves Act, not the 1860 Public Domains Act, so the Governor retained the right to handle the land as he pleased. However, there was a silver lining: the club’s title was as a “tenancy at will”, and the Board could appeal to the Commissioner of Crown Lands to sell the land from underneath the bowling club. (Southern Cross, 5 March 1874) In August, the Domain Board remained adamant: they were to get the land back, no matter what the bowling club said.

In October, the beleaguered bowling club wrote to the Board, offering to relinquish the ground if the Board refunded them for their expenses incurred in draining the boggy ground, planting trees, and generally landscaping the area. The Board’s response? That the club send them a letter, proving that they had an agreement with the Crown entitling them to be there. (Southern Cross, 8 October 1874) By November, however, there was a change of heart. The Board resolved to declare that they had no objection to the bowling club remaining on the ground, provided they used it as intended when granted. (Southern Cross, 5 November 1874)

The failure to obtain the bowling green as a potential money-making market garden was compensated somewhat by Mr. R. Baird coming back into the picture, offering to lease what appears to have been the site of what was to become the market garden alongside Stanley Street. At one point a little earlier, the Domain Board considered using it as the site for an ornamental fountain. (Southern Cross 2 July 1874) The lease was cheap for the 6 acres - £17 per annum, but the term was restricted to five years. (Southern Cross, 4 March 1875) The lease was taken over in 1879 by Ah Hung, for the same rental, with the proviso that he had to submit plans for a house to be erected there to the Board. (Minutes, 3 February 1879) Ah Hung seems to have been the first documented Chinese market gardener in Mechanics Bay. Two months later, residents of Stanley Street petitioned the Board not to let Ah Hung have “the free use of the water near the allotments.” The Board complied. (Minutes, 7 April 1879)

Brighton’s lease of the Domain Gardens site, meanwhile, was transferred to a Mr. Gundry in 1877, with Gundry saddled with Brighton’s rent debt to the Board. (Board minutes, 12 February 1877) Gundry wasn’t there long, however; the Board took back possession of the grounds from 5 June 1878, then tried leasing it to John Hamilton (who had been looking after the cricket ground) the following month. (Minutes, 1 July 1878) More on this in the next decade’s post.

Blandford Park

1940

While looking at the Auckland Regional Council's collection of online aerials the other day, I spotted this shape in the old Grafton Gully, 1940. It was right alongside Grafton Road, so I checked the trusty old directory for the period -- and found that this was Blandford Park. I went looking for some of the park's background.

The original owner appears to have been Morgan Blandford, who in 1913 negotiated with Auckland City Council over the formation and dedication of a roadway just to the north of the site. The land was held in the name of the Agnes Blandford Trust by the middle of the century, anyway, the trustees being New Zealand Insurance.


On 1 June 1923, Morgan Blandford came to an agreement with the Auckland Football Association for the latter to lease the property for 30 years. At that point, according to the Auckland Star, "it was a marshy, willow-covered area terminating in a dump for road spoil and old tins at the point where the gully under Grafton Bridge opens onto Grafton Road, almost at the junction of that road with Stanley Street." (18 April 1925) Today, the site is almost directly down from the line of St Paul's Anglican church on Symonds Street, past Whitaker Place.


Within 18 months, the Association had worked to transform the old swampy dump. "To-day Blandford Park is a beautiful level area in the centre, banked on three sides, and obviously capable of development into  an ideal sports ground. It has been thoroughly drained, and the playing area is already under grass, which has taken well. On the bank opposite the entrance from Grafton Bridge accommodation has been made for several thousand people by convenient terraces, while on the entrance side is a gentle slope which will provide natural vantage spots for spectators, and there is also in course of construction here a small grandstand which will seat several hundred people, and under which will be dressing rooms for the players." The Association had an agreement in their lease that after the expiry they had an option to buy the park outright.


The park's easy access to tramlines was put forward by the Star as a real bonus -- a couple of minutes from Symonds Street, a few more from Parnell and Stanley Street.


It was officially opened on 9 May 1925 by the Governor-General, along with an unfurling of the Association's banner and musical presentations by the Auckland Artillery Band. The first game was a Brown Shield match, Auckland v. Waikato.

Things at Blandford Park weren't exactly as cut-and-dried as all that, however. It appears that the AFA came to an arrangement with a group called the Stadium Company to sub-lease Blandford for 28 years for the months of October to March -- football's off-season -- in order for the Stadium Company to be the ones engaging in the levelling, grandstand building, etc. This group ran cycling competitions on the ground. By 1927, with subsidence at the embankments  bordering surrounding properties causing court litigation, the AFA tried to regain total control, but failed. (NZ Truth, 27 October 1927)

In November 1927, it was announced that the Auckland Motor-racing Club had taken out a six month lease of the park, and planned to lay down a fast cinder track. Their meetings were to begin in December that year. (Sun [Auckland] 24 November 1927.) In September 1929, Blandford Park Stadium Ltd announced they would be converting the park into a dirt racing course, (Star, 2 September 1929) with an opening night of 18 December. Advertising for meetings at Blandford Park ceased from April 1930, but with a resurgence in 1945.

Still, by the 1940s, the AFA were the main body using the park. This was when Auckland City began to keep a file on the park, kicked off by NZI in 1948 offering to sell the park to the City Council once the AFA's lease had expired. The right of purchase offer in the lease was £13,200, a lot of money to suddenly find from the funds.


The Council officers examined the situation. They found that the park had been formed in a low-lying basin, the surrounding hillside unstable, and the ground becoming very heavy in winter. It wasn't big enough to serve as an athletics stadium, or a site for band contests involving marchers. The accommodation and seating was inadequate, and it was badly oriented, so tennis matches on the provincial level were out. To cap it all off, in an era when trams were waning before the popularity of the motor car, there was no off-street parking at Blandford Park.

No, that's not quite what capped it all off. That same motor car popularity meant, the planners advised, that there was a strong possibility that the area of Grafton Gully would be "involved in major road proposals." In other words -- a motorway.


The motorway was some time off, though. so the Council resolved in 1949 to acquire the leasehold of the site, sub-let it to the AFA for 21 years, and do the place up a bit. There ensued a period of legal wrangling between the estate's trustees and the Council, which ended in 1952 with the Council advising they would take over the park for recreation purposes, changing in 1953 to "street purposes". The park was proclaimed Council property in October 1953. The park was still maintained as a base for the AFA up until the early 1960s.

c. 1960

Then, with motorway plans now imminent, the Association moved out of Blandford Park and relocated to Newmarket Park in May 1964. By March 1966, Blandford Park had reverted to its older use -- as a dumping ground for spoil from the Grafton Road cutting. This spoil was later levelled, burying the park beneath 30 feet of ground, over which the motorway system passes today.

2001

The man who named a terrace

Between March and June of 1903, a new road was formed in the heart of Avondale. It was marked out, formed, gravelled and surface drained, and in July the firm of Brown Barrett & Co applied to the Avondale Roads Board to take over the road, which they did. When it came to naming it, the owners dubbed it Geddes Terrace, after one of the two partners in the land deal: Herman Brown, and John McKail Geddes.

Geddes was born in Malta on 10 October 1843, the son of Captain Alexander Geddes of the 42nd Black Watch. Educated in Perth, Scotland, he started work in a solicitor's office at the age of 17, but that lasted only two years. He set sail for Dunedin, and joined the southern firm of Gregg and Co, then trading as coffee and spice merchants.

In 1870, he came to Auckland, joining the firm of Brown Barrett & Co. By 1892, he was sole partner, and controlled the business until ill-health caused his retirement two years before he died in 1910. During this time, he came to be in possession of the block bounded by Great North Road, St Judes St, Layard Street and Crayford Street West. When Arthur Page wanted to build a shopping block in 1903, he purchased the site from J. McKail Geddes.

His death was tragic: around 1906, three years after he had subdivided his central Avondale property, he was diagnosed with diabetes. In those days before the development of insulin, there was little hope for those with diabetes, only suffering and certain death. His weight fell from nearly 16 stone to 7 stone 10lb at the time of his death.

He was a hero: in July 1874, he was presented with the bronze medal of the Royal Humane Society for the November 1872 rescue of a Mrs Edgar from drowning, at Tararu Wharf, near Thames. He was also a philanthropist, a successful businessman, a husband, a father of six, and served for over 20 years as captain of the volunteer A battery. At least in part of central Avondale, he is commemorated.

Chinaman's Hill, Grey Lynn

Right: Detail from DP 19781, Faulder Estate subdivision, 1926, LINZ records. Click to enlarge.

Updated: 4 January 2012

Looking into the past of the land now part of the Great North Road (since the deviation was completed just after World War I) is still work-in-progress as bits and pieces crop up, but -- most of the line of Great North Road which sweeps up from its intersection with Tuarangi Road (the old line of the Great North) was part of a farm owned by the Faulder family. The most noted member was Thomas Faulder, a respected citizen of Newton Borough, according to the Cyclopedia of New Zealand:

"Mr. Thomas Faulder, who was elected as a councillor of the Borough of Newton in 1889, was a man much respected by his fellow citizens. He was born on the 24th of June, 1838, at Braithwaite, near Keswick, Cumberland, England, and was educated at Cockermouth College. Mr. Faulder was apprenticed to the drapery trade with an uncle and at the age of nineteen years left England for Australia by the “Royal Charter, which was wrecked on the voyage. He was very successful for several years on the goldfields of Victoria, and sold out his interest there with the intention of returning to the land of his birth, but following the advice of friends he came to this Colony. After residing in Otago for a short time, and for three years in Christchurch, he went to Auckland in 1868, and established himself as a builder and contractor. In 1889 he retired to his residence “West Home,” Richmond, where he died on the 13th of February, 1897, after an illness patiently born for seven months. Mrs. Faulder was left with a family of five sons and five daughters."

 The Cyclopedia though was published three decades after Thomas Faulder's earlier claim to fame -- as one of Auckland City's early night-cart contractors, in the early 1870s. He used his holdings along the Great North Road as a night-soil depot, ploughing in the sewage. If it was indeed his land which was later known for the Chinese market gardens, from which the local name "Chinaman's Hill" for the new portion of Great North Road comes from -- no wonder it was so fertile, stretching across from Surrey Crescent to the Newton Gully.

There's a Faulder Avenue in Westmere, once part of the Newton Borough. If that street is named from the Faulder family -- Thomas Faulder may well be the only night-cart contractor to be so immortalised in the city.

Up above Faulder's Great North Road land, by the way, was the Marshfield Estate which met up with the top of the ridge. Here, according to Kaaren Hiyama in her book High Hopes in Hard Times (pp. 27-28), there were problems regarding obnoxious stuff in the neighbourhood in the early 1880s.

"Letters and a petition from tenants to the trustees from 1884 all complain of the storage of night-carts and the stabling of  'from twelve to twenty horses' on Marshfield. A Mr. Anderson bemoans the fact that he has built three cottages, one of which he and his wife live in, and the other two rented out at 6 shillings weekly, from which the tenants have been driven out by the smell. He went to his lawyers who concluded that: 'lands of the [St John's Anglican] Trust are occupied mainly by men connected with the night-soil, stabling and piggery business and that people of other occupations therefore shun the neighbourhood.'"

They complained about Maurice Casey as well, but of course, by 1888, he had a poudrette factory option way out west.

A lease for Allotment 21 of Section 7, Suburbs of Auckland (bottom of the hill, south side, bounded today by Great North, Tuarangi, Wexford Roads and the St Lukes motorway onramp) was taken out in April 1879 by Lee Chung and Si Lee (lease likely organised by James Ah Kew whose name appears on the deeds index - DI 1A.551). This lease possibly continued through to c.1902 -- there is no mention of the lease on the title sought at that date (NA 111/84). These gardens were in full operation by at least the mid 1880s. They, along with others in the vicinity, became a cause of concern for letter writers to the NZ Herald when questions were raised as the the purity of the Western Springs water supply:

"I think the general public will be surprised to learn that -- barring a very low estimate from the number of loads that pass through Newton -- ten tons daily, or over three thousand tons yearly, of stable manure, besides a great quantity of urine, is deposited in the Chinese gardens, within a quarter of a mile of and in the direct line of drainage to the springs from which our water is pumped ..."

("Aqua Pura", NZ Herald 26 February 1887)

Thomas Wong Doo, the patriarch of the successful Wong Doo family, is said to have joined older brothers on the market gardens at Chinaman's Hill, sometime during the 1880s. (Information from his obituary, NZ Herald, 21 November 1958). However, there is no mention of the family involvement in market gardening in a memoir by Mrs Lily Doo, published in Home Away From Home: Life Stories of Chinese Women in New Zealand, by Manying Ip (1990). I have yet to find contemporary documentation as to that family's involvement with the Chinaman's Hill story.

Kaaren Hiyama identified some more names:

"Transliteration and the reversal of Chinese name order makes connections difficult. In the 1890s valuation rolls show a Fong Chaw living in one of Thomas Faulder's houses on the southern side of Surrey Crescent  opposite Billington's block, and possibly working that land. Thomas Billington's property, between Stanmore and Old Mill Roads and Francis Street, was leased from 1884 to four Fong brothers and in 1890 a Quong Fong Ming, gardener, is listed as the occupier of the house and land belonging to Billington ... Memories of elderly local people of the market gardeners hawking their produce in horse and cart are the only remaining evidence of large-scale cultivation which continued for decades, supplementing home-grown vegetables." (pp. 28-29)

Mrs. Faulder appears to have inherited Thomas's estate, and when she in turn passed on, the family commenced the major subdivisions. Chinese market gardening at Chinaman's Hill may have survived the formation of the new part of the Great North Road, but not by much.

Even back then, they blamed it on the flicks

While looking for one thing in the newspaper reels at the library this afternoon, I found another -- a case of juvenile burglary in Avondale (from NZ Herald, 20 August 1917):

Two boys, aged 10 and 12 years, were charged with burglary at Avondale. It was stated that the elder boy had entered a shop at Avondale early one evening, and taken £1 3s 6d from the till.After coming out he met the younger lad, and persuaded him to accompany him to force an entry into another shop. After trying several windows, they found one that was unlatched. Again the till was raided, and £1 19s stolen. The elder boy also made an unsuccessful attempt to open the safe. The following day he left home, and obtained work in Auckland under an assumed name, with the result that several days elapsed before he was traced.

The probation officer reported that the elder boy had undoubtedly been the moving spirit in the enterprise, and had got beyond parental control. He had been in the habit of slipping out at night and, contrary to the instructions of his parents, going to the pictures. His conduct was possibly due to the influence of undesirable and suggestive pictures.

When questioned by Mr. Fraser [the magistrate], the boy said he had previously committed theft. In committing him to the Boys' Training Farm at Nelson, Mr. Fraser stated that, should his conduct be satisfactory, there would be no objection to his returning home in six or seven months' time. The younger boy, whose conduct was reported to be generally good, was admonished and discharged.

Field's pub

More from the Chapman letters -- No. 20, published in the Southern Cross, 6 November 1875.

The first publican's license, the first one granted in Auckland for the sale of spirituous and fermented liquors to be drunk on the premises — so ran the legend, the preliminary to drunk and disorderly. In the very first year of Auckland's existence, how few people now-a-days will believe me when I tell them that the great wealthy man — the richest man belonging to Auckland — began life and fortune-building in the grog business! But such is life. And he is now — he who was our first grog merchant — one of the twelve so-called apostles of Mammon, who worship together in the big money-shop in Queen-street—the shop that rules the destiny of this colony.

The meeting of justices presided over by our friend, Captain Symonds, was held— or holden, as the official document has it— in Matthew's house, in Official Bay, near about where F, Whitaker, Esq. now resides. They had a very protracted, earnest consultation on this first license. Dame Rumour had got it about sowing wild oats at the Bay of Islands; but, at last, the ledger was produced, and youthful indiscretion was debited with the oats. The license was granted to the first tent-holder, and the first grog-shop in Auckland was erected on the allotment in Shortland-crescent, next above Hobson's Buildings — the one now vacant. This site was long occupied by the old Victoria Hotel, facing Fort-street, occupied by Walter Scott, a well-known and much respected old identity. The old Victoria was burned down in 1863, and the allotment remains blank and vacant to this day.

I do not intend to give an account of all the grog licenses granted, as I might offend my friends the Templars; but old Field was such a well-known character for so many years in Auckland, I will give you some account of him, as he got the second license that was granted in Auckland; and his hotel—" Help me through the World," as he called it — had one or two original features in the structure and management of it that stood out bold and distinct in the gossip of the time. His first hotel was a very ragged makeshift of a tent, which he put up hurriedly at the special request of some "drouthy freens," and late one afternoon his bosom cronies were all invited to come and assist at the opening of the establishment. The first installment of stock, spirituous and fermented, was a cask of porter; and being something new to the twenty or thirty inhabitants of this infant city, he had a great run of trade, which continued beyond control till past eight o'clock, when old Field closed up the cask, and, for safe keeping, rolled it over to a raupo hut that stood about where Hassan 's boot and shoe establishment now is, and gave it in charge to the Government storeman, P. Harkins; and this closed the first act in the history of the cask of porter, Field went home and retired to rest, perfectly satisfied with his "day's doings," but not so the cask of porter; for Patrick having a few friends with him that night, jolly Tipperary boys, and for the sake of old times they determined to " wake " the cask of porter, by taking the bung out, and putting a tap in its place! And you may believe me when I assure you that they were all very merry that night, helping one another through the world.

Field came next morning for his stock-in-trade — the remains of the cask of porter— and he was surprised, quite startled, at his strength and vigour; for, the previous night, he had had considerable difficulty in managing the barrel; but now it seemed so easy to move! So, after taking it over, he examined it more critically, and discovered a most alarming deficiency. There was a regular flare-up and a careful analysis was made of each other's private character, not complimentary to either; and in future the Government storeman was not asked to care for Field's casks of porter.

Field prospered, however, and very soon dispensed with the old tent and erected a very curious edifice of raupo, somewhere between the Post-office and the corner of Queen-street, and not far from where the old tent stood. I do not feel capable of conveying an intelligible picture of it to our young settlers; but, at all events, old hands will remember it well, for it stood just then in the centre of the town. It was a longish affair, with two windows, back and front; a door in the centre; and at each end there was a projection that looked for all the world like two chimneys, but were in fact only recesses for two beds. From behind the door, on the right hand, a counter ran across the building to within three or four feet of the back wall. This counter, to show the lack of sawn timber at this time, was built of the same material as the building itself (rushes). The floor of thin primitive habitation was merely levelled and left in its natural state, so that the floor and the counter in a few days got saturated with slops, and became exceedingly filthy. The old man kept boarders as well as grog. He had also a female servant to attend to the boarders, and in the chronicles of the house it is recorded that one night one of the lodgers took to walking in his sleep. This is certainly a very bad practice at any time and in any place, but doubly so in a house with no partitions. The landlady was very much put about and annoyed, and so was Field; at all events, the girl was blamed for mesmerising the sleep-walker, and she was accordingly sent out of the settlement— banished, in fact, for life— to Coromandel.

Poor old Field was always in trouble with somebody. He was by trade a cabinetmaker, but seldom did any work, and when the day came round for renewing the license, "Help me through the World "was shut up. The justices refused the license, because Field had in a moment of enthusiasm hoisted the green flag of old Ireland, with the old harp on it, on St. Patrick's Day. His wife was a good manager, and a very active woman. So Field took to breaking up allotments into infinitesimal doses. Field's lane — between Shortland-crescent and Chancery-street — is a specimen of his handiwork. The site of Low and Motion's stores in High street is another. I think it was on this corner lot that the late Alexander Marshall lent him some money, and had to take violent possession of it: which is, I believe, the only title now held by the present occupier.

Of the first baker, and stray pigs in old Auckland

Another excerpt from G. T. Chapman's tales -- this one "Old Identities No. 19", Southern Cross, 30 October 1875.

Speaking of the camp-oven reminds me of the first baker's shop opened in Auckland about this time. It was a tent— rather a swellish affair — having been imported along with the baker from Adelaide, regardless of expense; it was erected near the Government store mentioned in a previous paper. But the baker himself  [in a later letter, his name was revealed as James George -- no. 45, 14 October 1876] was quite a curiosity, as crusty and independent as a Scotsman, or as if he had been head-baker to the lord lieutenant in Sackville or Dame-street, Dublin; to the Marquis of Lome in Princes-street, Edinburgh; or to her Majesty the Queen in Regent-street, London. It was quite a favour to be supplied by him with the staff of life.

His oven another original — was a large three-legged pot; and when he managed to get a small bag of Hobart Town or Sydney flour he would make a few dough-nuts, or loaves as he called them, and was as proud of them as a hen with one chicken. He would only sell bread to special customers, not that he demanded a large price for his nuts: the price asked was fair and satisfactory, for our first baker was honest as steel. What he demanded from his customers was a certain amount of civility, or "if you please, sir," and without this you could get no bread from him; and sure enough, once or twice, as old hands will still remember, he actually shut up his three-legged pot, because the police Magistrate's lady asked him to send home the bread to her!

About this time, pigs were a great pest in the little township; and as Goldie, our Nuisance (of an) Inspector, had not aimed from Aberdeen, the cooks in the Crescent in their al fresco kitchens were sadly tried with these vagrant cattle. Amongst other delinquents, our friend the baker had a few porkers of the pure racehorse bleed; and, you may believe, they were troublesome customers. One old sow, in particular, was always in the way of mischief — so glaring, that the baker sold the animal for thirty shillings to a reverend gentleman living in St. George's Bay.

The sow was removed to the residence of his Reverence, and peace was proclaimed among the cooks in the Crescent for a few days, but only for a few days for, about the end of a week or so, the sow returned to her old haunts, hungry, and as full of mischief as ever. But this time she was accompanied by six or eight young ones This was by the cooks at once declared emphatically to be a causus belli, the sword of vengeance was unsheathed (metaphorically), and justice was demanded ; but justice has never, so far as I have found on consulting history, troubled herself with either pigs or cooks. So, like Alexander tho Great with the Gordian knot, Mr. Watson's cook like a second Macedonian came to the rescue, and he killed the old troublesome sow with an axe.

Our friend Doughnuts went over to his reverence with a sad and melancholy countenance and reported the disaster. A Maori was sent with a gun and a bag to the Crescent. With the gun he shot the young pigs, and with the bag he shouldered the pork and carried it over to his Reverence.

The loud crackling of the fern -- fire in Auckland, early 1840s

George Thomson Chapman, from 1875-1876, sent a series of letters of remembrances to the editor of the Southern Cross under the heading "Old Identities". Chapman died in 1881, a noted early bookseller in Auckland, publisher of the original "Colonist" newspaper, and also founder of the Mechanic's Institute in Dunedin. This is an excerpt from one of his letters, published 10 July 1875.

About the earliest recollection is a little incident that happened while the surveyors ware laying off the Queen-street town sections. They were chaining and pegging what was then a dirty swamp behind the old Supreme Court site, and as they were very much impeded by the raupo in the swamp and the high fern on the banks of the creek, they took the opportunity of the wind blowing from the north, to set fire to it and thus more expeditiously clear the way before them. But scarcely had the fire fairly caught when the wind came round to the southwest, or right down the creek towards the infant city. It spread rapidly along both sides of the creek, and widened right and left, causing consternation in the little community. All hands (there might have been about 50 or 60) were out at once on the alarm being given by the suffocating clouds of smoke; and spades, picks, oars, and poles— the first thing that offered handy was snatched up, and off they went to fight the flames.

The dense cloud of smoke from the damp stuff on the margin of the creek, the loud crackling of the fern, and the pistol-shot-like sound of the raupo as it swelled with the heat and burst, was followed by a report that there was a large quantity of gunpowder in the wooden building on the beach (this was used as a Government store at this time) when the greater part of the inhabitants took to their heels and did not stop till they were well round Smale's Point. A few good and true men stuck to it, got to windward just in time to save Terry's tent (the large one under the tree) by dashing the fire out with long poles, and while engaged doing this discovered that the flames had caught some spouting that was lying alongside the stores just landed a few days from the 'Platina.'

The spouting was saved, and the store escaped with a good scorching, as some of the Government stores inside were found very much damaged by the fire. One man, a young man, then distinguished himself so much during this first scare, that Governor Hobson took the first opportunity to thank him for his bravery, and to tell him that he was proud that there was an Englishman in the settlement who could do his duty so manfully. The brave Englishman is now mine host of the Queen's Ferry Hotel, Vulcan-lane, and, as is often the case when some great work or some brave action has been done by an Englishman, it turns out that he was, as in the present case, only a Scotchman [John Robertson].