Whitianga Heritage Area Heritage Report
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Whitianga Heritage Area Location: The Whitianga Heritage Area includes a portion of the town centre bounded by The Esplanade, Monk and Albert Streets, as well as Thomas Peacock’s 1882 subdivision of Victoria, Isabella, Owen, Campbell and Coghill Streets. The area incorporates the esplanade reserve south of the Whitianga Wharf. Introduction: Whitianga owes its colonial genesis to the timber industry. The catalyst for the European settlement of Mercury Bay from the 1830s was the timber export trade, which gave rise to timber camps at Ferry Landing and further inland on the Whitianga Harbour. It was not until the early 1880s, however, that the western flats across the harbour mouth from Ferry Landing were the scene of burgeoning settlement and economic activity. Known as both Whitianga and Mercury Bay, the new settlement was dominated by the Mercury Bay Timber Company’s mill (built 1882-83) and dependent on shipping for its connection to the outside world. The town of Whitianga initially developed to the south and west of the timber mill, which operated until 1922. Thomas Peacock’s 1882 subdivision south of the timber mill, which he called ‘Campbell Town’, introduced a tidy colonial grid into an environment where the roads were predicated on the dimensions of the timber mill and the need to provide access to both Whitianga Harbour and Buffalo Beach. The Whitianga Heritage Area features a variety of building types, including a number of late 19th and early 20th century structures that embody the pioneering period of the town’s history. Commercial, residential, civic, governmental, and religious buildings are to be found in close proximity to one another. The former Mercury Bay Dairy Factory and St Andrew’s Undenominational Church are significant heritage resources within the area, which is also notable for its open spaces, civic amenities, harbour setting, and the mixture of small-scale colonial and modern multi-unit residential development. Fig. 1. Detail from the 1882 survey plan of Campbell Town prepared for Thomas Peacock. DP 95. Source: Land Information New Zealand. 1 Distinctive Physical Characteristics: a) The Esplanade, Albert, Victoria and Isabella Streets run roughly parallel to the harbour foreshore. Owen, Campbell, Coghill Streets, Blacksmith Lane and Monk Street run at right angles to the foreshore. b) Carina’s Creek runs perpendicular to Albert Street and The Esplanade, north of Blacksmith Lane. It is crossed by a footbridge and drains into Whitianga Harbour, via a pipe under the roadway and esplanade reserve. c) Near views of Ferry Landing and Whitianga Rock are available from The Esplanade, thanks to the narrowness of the Whitianga Harbour mouth. The Whitianga Marina is immediately adjacent to the heritage area in the vicinity of the Whitianga Hotel. d) The size and shape of both residential and non-residential properties varies throughout the area, arising from historic survey patterns and land ownership. e) Commercial premises and residential buildings may be either built to the street front boundary or set back from it to accommodate parking areas, or fencing and gardens. Both building types are typically one or two storeys in height. f) Building materials include timber, corrugated iron, concrete and brick. Generally buildings erected before c.1950 are of timber frame and weatherboard construction. g) Residential, civic, religious, financial, light industrial and commercial uses co-exist in close proximity to one another. h) Residential buildings within Campbell Town are typically stand-alone, single-family dwellings, ranging in style from Victorian cottages through to post-war bungalows. Higher density apartment buildings may be found in Victoria Street and The Esplanade. Notable non- residential buildings embody residual Classical and Gothic Revival architectural motifs. i) Soldiers’ Memorial Park and The Esplanade Reserve provide historic open-space amenities for residents and visitors. Palm trees, pohutukawa and stone retaining walls are key features within the public realm. Fig. 2. Foreshore retaining wall south of the Whitianga Hotel, adjacent to 5 Victoria Street. Source: A McEwan, 21 July 2010. 2 Surroundings & Contribution to Context The roading pattern within the area is derived from the standard colonial grid, with some accommodation made for the curvilinear foreshore and the size and scale of the former Mercury Bay Timber Company site. The proximity of the town centre to the harbour reflects the settlement’s early reliance on shipping for transport and communication, as well as its historic relationship with Ferry Landing. Carina’s Creek [aka Carini’s] is a minor natural feature within the area, which appears to have had relatively little impact upon the development of the built environment. The bush-clad hills of Ferry Landing and Whitianga Rock, in addition to the harbour itself, are significant landscape features within the town centre, especially when seen from The Esplanade and as the terminating vista of Monk Street, Blacksmith Lane and Campbell Street. The palms planted along The Esplanade and the pohutukawa in Sleeman’s Park are defining features of the Whitianga foreshore. Gardens belonging to the area’s residential properties are generally informal, bordered by hedges or low-level fencing. The combination of asphalt or concrete footpaths with grass berms throughout the area signals the mixed-use commercial/residential character of the town centre. Fig. 3. View south along the Whitianga foreshore with the Whitianga Hotel and passenger wharf in the distance. December 1950. Source: Whites Aviation Ltd, Alexander Turnbull Library, WA-26250-F. 3 History of Area: An 1852 survey map of Mercury Bay indicates the location of Hukihuki pa and a neighbouring urupa (burial ground) on the site of modern-day Whitianga (Auckland City Libraries, NZ Map 881). By this date European extraction of the local kauri timber resource was well established at Ferry Landing, where Gordon Davis Browne had built a timber mill, with the aid of local Maori, in 1836. Fig. 4. Plan of Mr Browne’s wharf, stores and settlement, Mercury Bay. Map also shows the wreck of HMS Buffalo and an encampment on the present-day site of Whitianga. Dated 28 July 1840 and signed by J Laslett. Copyright Trustees of the Royal Naval Museum (Portsmouth, England), Admiralty Library Manuscript, Portfolio A/26. By the 1860s timber milling was becoming widespread throughout the district and by the early 1870s there were at least two hotels located on the town site, both serviced by and servicing a wharf. Hotelier Thomas Carina had a large land holding on which stood, at the time of his death in 1888, Carina’s Whitianga Hotel, two stores, a public hall, a house, cottage, engine house, stables, a blacksmith’s shop and harness room (Auckland Star 3 September 1888, p. 8). In November 1874 the Mercury Bay population was reported to be 500, including local Maori (Daily Southern Cross 3 November 1874 p. 2). The most significant impetus for promoting the growth of Whitianga was the relocation of the Mercury Bay Timber Company’s mill from Ferry Landing in the early 1880s. The company’s new mill opened in the autumn of 1883 and it was to dominate the physical environs of Whitianga, as well as its economic and social life, until its closure in 1922. The mill occupied a large parcel of land bordered by what are now Albert Street, Monk Street and The Esplanade. In addition to the mill buildings, the timber company built a wharf and workers’ housing and, at the height of the bay’s timber boom, reputedly employed 70 men on each of the two daily shifts. In 1888 the Mercury Bay Timber Company was taken over by the Kauri Timber Company, who rebuilt the mill after it was destroyed by fire in February 1904. 4 Fig. 5. Detail of SO 3920, dated July 1885, showing Carina’s Whitianga Hotel and wharf. The two buildings shown in outline between the ‘I’ and ‘N’ of Carina are the music hall (top) and a store (bottom). Source: Land Information New Zealand. Fig. 6. ‘The Kauri Timber Company’s Mill, Mercury Bay’ Auckland Weekly News 14 July 1899, p. 6. Source: Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-18990714-6-3. 5 Boat building and the district’s kauri gum industry also created employment and a demand for services in Whitianga, which was widely known as Mercury Bay until the 1930s. Increasing population on the town site led to the establishment of the Mercury Bay School in 1883. The school was built northwest of the new timber mill overlooking Buffalo Beach. In 1898 the Mercury Bay Hospital was also given a Buffalo Beach aspect, west of the school property. The school and hospital proved to be exceptions, however, to the general pattern of development in the 1880s and 1890s, which saw the consolidation of the town centre south of the mill. Fig. 7. Whitianga Hotel seen here in the 1900s. Source: Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 7-A14241. By 1880 Carina’s Whitianga Hotel was a well-established hub within the embryonic settlement. After Auckland optician and Mercury Bay Timber Company shareholder Thomas Peacock acquired a long rectangular parcel of land immediately adjacent to Carina’s holding this became the southern limit of the township until the 1950s. Peacock subdivided and sold off lots through the 1880s and 1890s, having laid out a neat block pattern framed by streets named after members of his family. While it was largely residential in character until the second half of the 20th century, Peacock’s Campbell Town also accommodated the Mercury Bay Police Station (c.1880), Courthouse and Post Office (c.1886), the Catholic (1898, replaced 1978-79) and Undenominational churches (1898), and a cluster of commercial premises along Albert Street. Fig. 8. Portrait of Thomas Peacock reproduced in the Cyclopedia of New Zealand – Auckland Provincial District 1902.