Amalgamated Brick and Pipe, 1929 Prospectus

I visited members of the Crum family  the other day, descendants of Albert Crum who (with Hugo Friedlander) started up the New Zealand Brick, Tile & Pottery at New Lynn in 1905. A prospectus was produced from 1929 -- the first for the then-new Amalgamated Brick and Pipe Company Limited. My thanks to the Crum family for allowing me to photograph this important document in Auckland's brickmaking history.

Amalgamated was the joining together of Glenburn in Avondale, NZ BT&P and Gardner's in New Lynn, and Clark's at Hobsonville. It soon gathered others up as well, such as Archibalds.

Avondale's Glenburn works.

 On Glenburn's factory floor.

Hollow tiles made at Glanburn.

The Hobsonville works.

Main drying floor at Hobsonville.

New Lynn's NZ Brick, Tile & Pottery worls, Rankin and Clark Streets. Note the railway overbridge -- this was the days long before trenching.

 NZ BT&P dying sheds.

NZ BT&P factory.

Loading at Gardner's No.2 works, New Lynn.

Corner of the  electric power house at Gardner's No.2.

Steam navvy at Gardner's No. 2 -- "showing wonderful gace of high-grade clay".

The World Grasped on a control box

Will I run out of control box art to photograph and post here on Timespanner? Not if Newmarket keep up their stirling record in the field -- no.

This latest one spotted is based on Terry Stringer's "The World Grasped", previously blogged here.

Egginess in Newmarket's street art

Ducking down Teed Street in Newmarket yesterday evening, on the way to a meeting -- and I find eggs. At first I thought these were some sort of retail adwork. Promoting something, well -- eggy, maybe? Modern design store? Minimalist furnishings?

No, this is street artwork. $70,000 worth of street artwork, commissioned by the Newmarket Arts Trust which raised funds for this sort of thing from local businesses.

"Artist Seung Yul Oh says the work is designed to challenge the public's imagination and people can make of it whatever they like. The egg shaped sculptures are being called Globgobs."

The eggs - er, sorry, Globgobs -- were installed as part of an overall upgrade of Teed and Osbourne Streets, off Broadway. Considering I was seeing this for the first time on a bit of a stormy grey day, late on an autumn afternoon, I was really impressed with how wonderful the two streets look right now.

But -- eggs? There's nine of them, so that makes each one just over $7777, unveiled on a cold wet night last year, 25 June.

According to a press release:

Chairman of the Newmarket Arts Trust, David Haigh, says the artist has cleverly created a marriage of the old and the new with his nine brightly coloured egg-shaped 'Globgobs'. "The egg, as a symbol of new life and hope, goes back into ancient times and through many cultures. In a similar fashion, the streets of Osborne and Teed are now transformed into a desirable retail centre. To me the eggs are a joyous and colourful attraction to the area and are at a level that children can enjoy their visual beauty," says Mr Haigh.

 To be fair, they do, at least, catch the eye.

Back Roads and Timespanner blogs referenced by NZHPT report

Always nice to see what a bit of puddling around with NZ history will do.

Back in July last year, I did a post on the Kakaraea Church at Tanoa, the remains of the Gittos Cathedral. Liz of Mad Bush Farm fame did a post on her Back Roads blog about the church back in 2008. Both blogs were listed on the bibliography of the registration report done by NZ Historic Places Trust about the church, prepared last year by Stuart Park.

The latest newsletter from NZHPT now advises that the church has been registered, Category II, by the Trust.

Katikati Heritage Museum

Back to a couple of weekends ago. I'm with my friends, on the way back from Tauranga, and we passed through Katikati. These shots were the result of a very, very quick stop at the Katikati Heritage Museum, just to look around the outside, not to visit the museum itself (which is a tour which does take time because virtually every inch of the walls inside has something of interest to look at. Trust me. I glanced through an entrance door, and knew my friends were indeed wise to make this just a five-minute snap-and-run.)

If you're not into the museum, or the souvenirs, there's always the Miniputt ...

According to the sign beside it, this is a steam-driven butterfat testing device, "used in dairy factories to determine the amount of butterfat the Farmer produced so as to pay him."

At the moment, the museum is owned and run by Ken and Nancy Merriman, but earlier this year, they announced plans which would have meant the museum's closure.

The debate about the museum's future began earlier this year when the Merrimans, after trying to sell it as a going concern, announced plans to auction the collection, land and buildings to begin "the second stage of their retirement".

 Bay of Plenty Times, 28 April 2011

At this point, it seems that a community committee has been formed to look at ways at either buying the land, to maintain the museum, or at least buying part of the collection, keep it in storage, and then work on a means to display it in the future.

Not sure whether this character was part of the Miniputt course or not ...

Nicely done, with the horse hitched to the cart. But -- why the horse-blanket?

Some pukekos who look like they won't take much nonsense.

I remember when almost all schools in the 1960s-1970s had play equipment like this. Today, this sort of stuff is probably frowned on by the Powers That Be as far too dangerous for little boys and girls. There certainly were a lot of scrapes and war wounds from the jungle gyms.

It would be a shame if this character's vigil over the highway had to come to an end.

Omaka Air Show, Blenheim

More images received from Bryan Blanchard, from this year's Omaka Air Show, held on alternate (odd number) years at Easter.

The show is put on by Classic Fighters, and raises funds for the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre, which according to their website:

... began with a resurgence of heritage aviation interest in Marlborough in the late 1990's when a group of enthusiasts imported two Chinese Nanchang trainers and established the Marlborough Warbirds Association as a way to foster interest and provide a social network of support ...

At this point, in 1997, a small group of aircraft owners and enthusiasts got together to discuss the means by which these aircraft could be made accessible to the public on a more practical and sustainable basis, and grow the public understanding and appreciation of aviation. It culminated in the formation of the New Zealand Aviation Museum Trust. Their vision was that this facility should be a hub; a focal point of activity reaching not only aviation but also tourism, education and industry to the benefit of the Marlborough community, New Zealand and aviation enthusiasts throughout the world.

Featured in the show were some tanks, made of fibreglass according to Bryan and put together for Weta Workshop of all things.

" ... the Panzer 4, a German tank replica appearing for the first time at Classic Fighters. It was built for Weta Workshop, in Wellington, which has loaned it to Omaka for the airshow along with two replica Allied tanks from World War I. 

"Asked how the huge machines were transported, Dave just grins ad says: "You put them on a loader, take them to a ferry and drive them on, then drive them off again." 

Marlborough Express 23 April 2011

Sadly, there are question marks as to whether the show will continue in succeeding years.

The Classic Fighters airshow at Omaka is a great event, put on at great risk, organiser Graham Orphan says.It is too early to say whether the show would be put on again in two years, Mr Orphan said.The organisation team had yet to evaluate how it went financially. 

"It would be folly of us to say that we would always keep doing it." 

... Bad weather could ground planes and scupper a show, causing a large loss."I have started to think this is aeronautical Russian roulette: [each time you think] will this be the time where we lose hundreds of thousands of dollars?" Organisers were keen to continue; they were just being prudent and mindful of risk, he said. They would meet to refine the formula of the show and look at ways to make it more profitable. 

They were also exhausted after months of voluntary toil and putting their lives and businesses on hold, he said. "There's a lot of pluses, a lot of good things about it; it's difficult to have too many negatives. All we have is caution."

Marlborough Express 26 April 2011

Update, 2 May 2011: Since posting this, the link to the post has been picked up by a Polish message board, apparently (I don't know Polish, so I'm guessing) about old military vehicles. Thanks for the link, folks!