Tag Archives: 1920s

Plume, formerly the Ernest Adams shop

Built: 1909 (building), 1929 (shopfront)
Address: 310 George Street
Architects: James Clark (1909), Miller & White (1929)
Builders: George Lawrence (1909), Ross, King & Mullenger (1929)
Glass artist: Robert Fraser

The glasswork at Plume

The Adams Bruce Ltd shopfront, photographed by A.A. Ancell in 1929. Hocken Collections – Uare Taoka o Hākena, MS-2931/050/001.

An illustration of the rebranded Ernest Adams shop, from an advertisement in the Evening Star, 27 May 1936. Image courtesy of Allied Press through Papers Past.

The lead-lighted shopfront of Plume has added a touch of panache to George Street for over ninety years. Built for the retail bakery chain Adams Bruce Ltd in 1929, it originally showed off arrays of cakes and biscuits, and the company’s Queen Anne brand of chocolates. Just a few months after its completion, Adams Bruce split in two, and the South Island operation became Ernest Adams Ltd. The shop operated under this name for nearly fifty years.

Ernest Adams (1892-1976) was an English-born baker. His father, Herbert Adams (1860-1953), had owned a large bakery business in Taunton, Somerset. Herbert went bankrupt after planned expansion went wrong, but successfully re-established himself in Melbourne in 1909. He made his fortune and introduced mass-production cake baking to Australia, where the Herbert Adams brand survives to this day. Herbert’s sons followed him into the bakery trade and Ernest opened his own shop in Melbourne in 1915. He soon moved to Ballarat, where he married and did well in business, but tragically his wife died in childbirth. He moved briefly to Tasmania, and in 1921 decided to try his luck in New Zealand, where economic prospects looked brighter.

An Ernest Adams advertisement from 1934, outlining some of the product range. Christchurch Star, 30 August 1934.

Ernest met Hugh Bruce, an established baker in Christchurch, and they agreed to pool resources to form Adams Bruce Ltd. Ernest had already bought the Dunedin bakery of his brother, Joe, and within two months the new company had three shops in Christchurch, two in Dunedin, and one each in Timaru and Oamaru, with further distribution to independent ‘agencies’. This was also an eventful time for Ernest personally, with his marriage to Jean West in 1922. Early that year Adams Bruce expanded into the North Island, and by 1925 it used over four million eggs per year and even had its own poultry farm.

The first Dunedin shops were at George Street and Cargill’s Corner. A third shop opened at the Grand Hotel corner in 1922, and a fourth at the Gardens in 1928. Ernest initially lived in Dunedin, as did his three sisters, but in 1923 he moved to Christchurch, home to the Adams Bruce head office.

Adams Bruce expanded into chocolate, bringing over an expert from Canada and establishing a factory in Wellington. Launched in 1926 under the Queen Anne brand, the chocolates were sold both loose and in boxes, with a portrait representing the queen on the lid. This looked little like the real Queen Anne, with dress that appeared more Tudor than early eighteenth century, but the image served its marketing purpose well. The extensive product range included such delights as the Strathcona Vanilla Cream, Kismet (‘cocoanut cream’), Ginger Jellies, Nips (rum flavoured, with a darker coating), Gloucester (Brazil nut in cream), Trinidad Plain blocks, and marshmallow bars.

An advertisement for Queen Anne Maple Walnuts. Christchurch Star, 4 July 1929.

In 1929, Hugh Bruce decided to sell his share of the firm, but Ernest didn’t have enough capital to buy him out. Shareholders bought the North Island business and retained the Adams Bruce name. Ernest took ownership of the South Island assets and formed a new company, Ernest Adams Ltd. Each company agreed only to sell bakery products within its respective island. Adams Bruce retained the chocolate factory and operated separate Queen Anne shops in both the North and South islands. Ernest Adams continued to stock Queen Anne chocolates.

The George Street shop had moved only weeks before this restructuring, from 203 to 209 George Street. Those are the old street numbers. The current numbers date from 1950 and the move was from the northern half of where The Good Oil café is now (316 George Street) to the Plume site (310 George Street).

The existing building had been erected in 1909 for the bootmakers and repairers Lawry & Restieaux, with architect James Clark and builder George Lawrence replicating the facade treatment of an adjoining building on the corner of Hanover Street. Edward Walden had designed this in 1906 but it was demolished in 1991, so now only the mimic survives. The bullnose verandah on the 1909 building featured decorative cast ironwork by Brinsley & Co., bearing the words ‘Rugby House. Lawry & Restieaux. Bootmakers and Repairers’. The firm also had its name burned into tiles below the window frames. Fitted out in Oregon pine, the shop opened into a large ladies’ fitting room with adjoining lavatory. This lavatory was an important facility as there were no public conveniences for women in the central city until 1910. A single-storey workshop occupied the back of the property. Upstairs, a professional’s room faced the street, with a separate three-bedroom dwelling behind it.

Architect James Clark’s drawing for the new Lawry & Restieaux building of 1909. DCC Archives.

A postcard showing George Street in late 1909 or early 1910. Rugby House, the premises of Lawry & Restieaux, can be seen at the far left, adjoining similarly styled buildings demolished in 1991.

The building facade, 2023.

Detail of pilaster capital. Meg Davidson photo.

Lawry & Restieaux appeared to be flourishing, repairing 5,000 pairs of boots per year, but they lasted less than a year in their new premises. Other footwear businesses succeeded them: first Hilliker & Co., and then Rugby House Shoe Stores.

From the 1920s the building was owned by John Hillsdon Hutton (1873-1949), who since 1918 had operated a music and sports shop in the adjoining building to the north. It seems he used the top floors of both buildings, and for time ran a studio where he taught violin, piano, banjo, Hawaiian steel guitar, and other instruments. He is best known for owning Cargill’s Castle and opening a cabaret there. After serious illness he experienced a religious epiphany, and in 1944 he dedicated the castle as ‘a church to save souls, to heal the sick, and to help the distraught minds of the people of this country’. Part of his George Street buildings became the ‘Cargill’s Castle Mission Hall’.

Adams Bruce leased their premises from Hutton. Architects Miller & White designed the alterations made at the time of the move. The relatively new partners, Eric Miller and Jim White, had recently bought the local practice of Edmund Anscombe when he moved to Wellington. Their other late-1920s projects included the Regent Theatre, the Fels Wing of Otago Museum, and the remodelled Allbell Chambers in Stuart Street. Rodney Dalziel, the last principal of the firm, credited the Adams Bruce shopfront to Miller in particular, but I haven’t found any further evidence to confirm this. The drawing isn’t enough to go on. It looks more like White’s hand to me, but the practice was big enough to employ numbers of draughters adept at preparing finished drawings under the supervision of the principals and in the house style. The drawings show many aspects of the completed work, including the ‘birdcage’ entrance structure, the stylish doors, bevelled glass panels, and some of the lead-light patterns. A striking feature not shown is a stained glass Queen Anne emblem.

The Adams Bruce Ltd shopfront, photographed by A.A. Ancell in 1929. Hocken Collections – Uare Taoka o Hākena, MS-2931/050/002.

‘Proposed alterations to shop front George St for Messrs Adams Bruce Ltd’. Drawing by Miller & White, architects. Hocken Collections – Uare Taoka o Hākena, MS-2758/0554.

The clients presumably contributed to the design to some degree. A 1970s source attributes it to Jim Quin, who it turns out was both the first manager of the shop and Ernest Adams’ brother-in-law.

I almost gave up trying to identify the glass artist responsible for expanding upon and realising the vision. The building permit issued in June 1929 records the builders as Ross, King, & Mullenger, but the glass subcontractors are not named in council, architect, or newspaper records. The main local firms carrying out lead-lighting at this time were Smith & Smith, Arnold & Raffills, John Brock, and Fraser’s Art Glass Works. It was only when looking through my photos that I saw ‘Queen Anne’ had been staring me in the face with the answer the whole time! Her background is subtly signed ‘R.H.F.’. These are the initials of Robert Henry Fraser of Fraser’s Art Glass Works. He was one the country’s best glass artists and his work featured in many churches, houses, and commercial premises. He produced lead-lights but was best known for his stained glass. Examples of his work include the Stuart Memorial window in Knox Church, several panels in the house Melrose on Highgate, and the Salisbury Cathedral window for Arthur Barnett Ltd (now in the Meridian Mall).

‘Birdcage’ glasswork

The Queen Anne emblem

Robert Fraser’s initials: R.H.F.

The original doors with their bevel-edged glass happily survive, although a carved feature above them has long gone. Granite facings have twice been covered over, the last time when found to be too damaged to practically restore. A rubber carpet with the firm’s monogram in the centre reportedly led to the front door, but it is not seen in early images. The 1929 changes included the replacement of the original verandah with a suspended one, and this might have been when steel-framed windows replaced the original wooden sashes on the first floor. Pressed metal ceilings date back to the original Edwardian build.

The ‘birdcage’ glasswork seen from inside the shop, photographed by Meg Davidson in 2013

Ceiling rose, photographed by Meg Davidson in 2013

The elaborate shopfront reflected the successful marketing strategies of the Adams family companies. In Australia, Herbert Adams put his shops on streets with heavy foot traffic, presenting massed displays of cakes on glass shelves, often with their cut faces to the window. Ernest made similarly special features of his window displays.

Ernest Adams Ltd removed its George Street commercial bakery to new buildings in Great King Street in 1931, with Miller & White again employed as architects. The bakery stood where the Bella Vista Motel is now.

Gourley’s delicatessen, or ‘Delicacies Ltd’, shared the shop between 1931 and 1950. This business was well-known for its pies, meats, and ready-cooked meals.

Gourley’s delicatessen advertisement from the Otago Daily Times, 20 December 1934

After the Second World War, the centre of shopping activity shifted northward, benefitting some established George Street businesses. Small business associations formed to promote their own particular blocks. The block with Arthur Barnett, Penroses, and the DSA, was promoted as the Golden Block from 1956. Malls opened here: Harvest Court (1970), the Golden Centre (1979) and Centre City Arcade (1985). The block to the north, which included the Ernest Adams shop, contained many small businesses. From 1955 its business association marketed it as the Progressive Shopping Centre. In 1977 this name gave way to New Edinburgh Way. The Dunedin City Council and its architect Bill Hesson supported a project that aimed to facelift the businesses ‘in authentic style and colours of the early twentieth century’. Verandah fascias were painted in dark red, giving something of a unifying effect. The Ernest Adams shop fitted right in with the new theme, one article stating: ‘Old-fashioned goodness is a key-phrase at Ernest Adams and in its windows you can still see the cakes that grandmother might have bought fifty years ago when she was too busy to bake. There are simnel cakes, Genoa fruit cakes and even Napoleon sponges.’

In 1974, Ernest Adams bought out the bakery business of Adams Bruce, reuniting the firms and creating a nationwide company. The company decided to rationalise its business, phase out the retail shops, and concentrate on distributing its products wholesale. The George Street shop closed on 3 August 1979. Control of the company fell to a corporate raid in 1995, leading to the end of Adams family involvement. The Great King Street bakery closed that year, and Goodman Fielder bought the business in 2000. The Ernest Adams brand continued until 2022, when Goodman Fielder deleted the range without offering its customers even the courtesy of an announcement. The Queen Anne brand had been withdrawn in 1976 but remained a separate entity. It was successfully relaunched by Sarah Adams, granddaughter of Ernest, in 2011.

Margarita and Chris Robertson opened Plume in 1979 and the space has retailed exclusive ranges of fashion for 44 years – nearly as long as it offered Ernest Adams cakes! Margarita launched the now famous label NOM*d (as in nom-de-plume) in 1986 and you can read about its nationally significant history at the New Zealand Fashion Museum. In 1994 the retail space at 310 George Street nearly doubled when a new steel stairway opened up the shop into the disused first-floor flat. The alterations retained many heritage features. As it did in 1929, the shopfront continues to impress, and it seems as well suited to promoting clothing as to showing off tasty treats to eat.

310 George Street is listed as a Category 2 Historic Place by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

The Plume shop interior in 2010. Photo by Dunedin NZ on Flickr (CC-BY-ND).

The Plume entrance in 2010. Photo by Dunedin NZ on Flickr (CC-BY-ND).

Newspaper references:
Evening Star 1 October 1909 p.6 (Lawry & Restieaux opening), 10 September 1929 p.2 (brief description in ‘The Home Builder’), 19 May 1936 p.10 (Gourley’s), 6 July 1938 p.16 (advertisement listing Ernest Adams shops and agencies), 2 November 1940 p.1 (J.H. Hutton, above Ernest Adams), 19 January 1945 p.5 (Hutton and Cargill’s Castle); Otago Daily Times 1 October 1909 p.7 (Lawry & Restieaux opening), 24 July 1925 p.12 (four million eggs), 8 May 1933 p.8 (fire, ownership), 19 May 1936 p.9 (brief history of Gourley’s Delicatessen), 24 October 1950 p.9 (closure of Gourley’s George Street branch), 30 November 1967 p.14 (Progressive Shopping Centre feature), 29 November 1977 p.16 (New Edinburgh Way feature); 27 September 1978 p.9 (New Edinburgh Way, James Quin), 24 July 1979 p.12 (closure of Ernest Adams George Street shop), 29 September 1995 p.19 (closure of Great King Street bakery), 21 September 1994 pp.32-33 (Plume supplement); Auckland Star 28 August 1931 p.10 (Queen Anne range); New Zealand Herald 18 September 1931 p.3 (Queen Anne range).

Other sources:
Adams, Hugh. A Baker’s Tale: The Life and Times of Ernest Adams (Christchurch: Hazard Press, 2005).
Ledger (Miller & White) from Dalziel Architects records MS-2758/0146, Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena
Entwisle, Peter. Schedule Heritage Place Report B126 for the Dunedin City Council, 2013.
Stone’s, Wise’s and telephone directories
Dunedin City Council permit records and deposited plans

Acknowledgments:
Special thanks to Meg Davidson, for her interior photographs; to Brian Miller, for sharing his expert knowledge of glass artists; Prue Milbank, for help with council records; and to the late Peter Entwisle, with whom I discussed the history of the building back in 2013. Hugh Adams’ book, referenced above, is a great read and a mine of information.

Ruby and Ambrose Hudson’s house

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Built: 1926-1927
Address: 28 Tweed Street, Littlebourne, Roslyn
Architect: Henry McDowell Smith (1887-1965)
Builders: Fletcher & Love

One of Dunedin’s most impressive 1920s homes is on the market. Its listing provides an opportunity to take a closer look at some remarkable architecture and history.

Built for Ambrose and Ruby Hudson between 1926 and 1927, the house cost over £6000 at a time when a standard three-bedroom house could be built for about £800. The only local houses I can think of that matched if for cost between the two world wars were the Brinsley house on Forbury Road and the Stevenson house, now University Lodge, at St Leonards. There was so much buzz around the house when it was new that the architectural writer in the Evening Star devoted no fewer than five articles to it. The columnist, known only by the pen-name ‘Stucco’, wrote: ‘Without exaggeration it can be claimed that Mr Hudson’s new residence is of the most magnificent in the dominion’.

Ambrose Hudson was a director of the chocolate and confectionery business R. Hudson & Co. Established in 1868, this became one of Dunedin’s leading industrial concerns. Cadbury bought a controlling interest in 1930, but for many years the Hudson family remained closely involved in the restructured Cadbury Fry Hudson.

Born in 1877, Ambrose was the fourth of six sons of the firm’s founder, Richard Hudson. He became a director while still in his twenties, and remained in that role until his retirement in 1931. He often went overseas to buy machinery for the factory and was credited with modernising the manufacturing. Gregarious and well liked, he was also a bit of a practical joker. Ambrose made a special chocolate for company chairman Carl Smith that had a castor oil filling!

Ambrose Hudson (1877-1969)

Ruby and Ambrose Hudson (front left) at a family wedding in 1965.

Ambrose married Ruby Christian Cooke, an Australian, at Sydney in 1906. Ruby was announced as the granddaughter of Mrs Tait of Granby Towers, Granville. The couple’s first son, Sydney, was born in 1907, and a second son, Ralph, followed in 1910. In the same year the family purchased the Tweed Street property. It was not until sixteen years later, with the boys all but grown up, that they rebuilt. The old house was only demolished after the new one was completed, so presumably it was on the adjacent site where no.30 stands today. Ambrose’s younger brother William bought the house next door (no.32) in 1922 and the two families had a tennis court between them.

I have been unable find out much about Ruby, but she was active socially. Her interests included women’s cricket, the Otago Women’s Club, and the Kaikorai Kindergarten. Both Ruby and Ambrose enjoyed motoring, and Ambrose also took an interest in aviation, eventually becoming a life member of the Otago Aero Club. He was a keen gardener with a particular fondness for sweet peas and poppies, which he entered in competition. He developed his own variety of poppy, which he named ‘Ambrosia’.

He also kept pigeons. A 1926 report stated that when he left home in the morning about twelve birds accompanied him, ‘flying around, resting now and again on his head and shoulders’. At the intersection of Smith and Stuart streets several of the birds returned to their loft, while about three followed Ambrose all the way to the factory offices in Castle Street.

For the architect of their new house, the Hudsons chose Henry McDowell Smith, a well-established Dunedin practitioner. Born in Manchester, England, in 1887, he worked in Newcastle before coming to New Zealand in 1909. He managed Edmund Anscombe’s Invercargill branch for some years and became his business partner in 1913. He returned to the Dunedin office after his war service and started an independent practice in 1921. McDowell Smith’s building designs of the following decade included other high-spec houses, notably the already-mentioned University Lodge. Other work up to 1930 included St Michael and All Angels’ Church at Andersons Bay, extensive additions to Selwyn College, and the hospital complex at Ranfurly.

The Dunedin City Council issued a building permit for the Hudson house in April 1926. James Fletcher of Fletcher & Love took the building contract. The Fletcher Construction Company had temporarily joined with Love Bros for the purpose of erecting the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition buildings at Logan Park. Fletcher left Dunedin after the exhibition, and while the Hudson house was under construction, so the completion of the project passed to Love’s.

North elevation. C.M. Collins photographer. The upper balcony was glazed in 1941, and two gables added to the roof.

The view down to the house from the front path.

East elevation. C.M. Collins photographer.

A view looking up towards Tweed Street.

One of the generous balconies.

The front gate.

The house has a transitional style between English Arts and Crafts and the emerging Modernism, and is outwardly characterised by clean lines, neat brickwork, and generous glazing and balconies. Window sills of blue burned blocks were specially made at Abbotsford. The Arts and Crafts influences are particularly evident in a charming entrance gate, and a herring-bone brick path leading down to the house, which sits below the street.

The ground floor sun porches were designed with dancing in mind and originally had a loud speaker for music. The terrazzo flooring was claimed to be the first in Dunedin, slightly predating local manufacture. On the balconies above, the kauri flooring is constructed like a ship’s deck. Stucco commented, ‘it has a delightful spring to the feet, and should send the least sprightly visitor jazzing along its inviting surface’. The views of the harbour from here are stunning. The north elevation was altered in 1941, when the balcony on this side was glazed and two small gables added, all carefully matching the original style. It is surprising the gables were added but they successfully soften this aspect of the building and give it a more domestic quality.

The steel-framed windows were originally painted green, and feature imported British plate glass and exceptional bevelled fanlights. There are also impressive leadlights in the bathroom, over the stairwell, and in a panel in the front door featuring a female figure. This was the work of local craftsman John Brock, of Arnold, Brock, & Raffills.

Floor plans published in the Evening Star (from Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand).

The house originally had five bedrooms (including a maid’s room), drawing room, dining room, meals room, kitchen, billiard room, dressing room, and extensive basement. Stucco observed there was ‘nothing unduly ostentatious, everything being designed and executed in the most artistic manner’, but at the same time thought the interior sumptuous, magnificent, and a ‘miniature palace’. He wrote: ‘The visitor is immediately impressed by the chiselled perfection of everything, and, though he might pardonably go into rhapsodies about what he sees, there is no vulgar flaunting of ornamentation’.

The entrance hall. The coffered ceiling was originally gilded.

Landing. C.M. Collins photographer.

The upstairs landing.

Meals room. C.M. Collins photographer.

Originally the ‘meals room’.

Dining room. C.M. Collins photographer.

The dining room.

Drawing room. C.M. Collins photographer.

Drawing room.

The spacious entrance hall features figured beech panelling with maple panels. Coffered plaster ceilings by the Wardop Fibrous Plaster Co. were originally gilded, and said to give a magnificent golden effect when the hall was lit up. Original light fittings include a blue Venetian glass ball with bronze eagles, from which hang individual lamps. The flush internal doors, by Henderson and Pollard of Auckland, were unusual in Dunedin and the latest fashion.

Both the drawing room and meals room have enormous tiled fireplaces that are architectural works in themselves. Stucco mentioned that a visiting manager from one of the biggest tile firms in England thought the slabs the best he had ever seen. The Wardrop ceilings again impress here. The two rooms are separated by sliding doors with more bevelled glass. English wallpapers originally decorated the walls. All of the spaces on this level flow well into each other and the house must have been excellent for entertaining.

The billiard room is a standout space of the house. It is a single-storey projection, allowing natural light from three sides. It has a coved ceiling, originally stippled with biscuit and cream colours, and massive wooden beams terminate over beautifully carved brackets. Panelling is stained ‘Jacobean’ and the floors are jarrah.

The bedrooms are less ornate but plaster ceilings again feature, and three of the rooms have access to the balconies. The master bedroom was built with a large adjoining dressing room. S.F. Aburn decorated the house, and many rooms and the entrance hallway originally featured stippled paintwork, blending two colours to shade up from dark to light. In one bedroom this was from pink to white, in another from biscuit to white, and in another from grey to white.

Billiard room. C.M. Collins photographer.

The billiard room.

A carved corbel in the billiard room.

Master bedroom. C.M. Collins photographer.

The master bedroom.

Bathroom. C.M. Collins photographer.

The main bathroom.

The kitchen. C.M. Collins photographer.

The Hudsons were keen on their mod-cons and the house boasted over 80 ‘electric points’. J. Hall & Sons installed electric fittings from the British General Electric Co.

Of the kitchen, Stucco commented that ‘everything has been planned with the object of lessening domestic drudgery’, with the coal range banned in favour of gas and electric cookers. This has since given way to a yet more convenient modern kitchen.

The bathroom featured a swivel nozzle tap, a hot rail for drying towels, and modern fittings from Twyford’s exhibit at the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition. This is another room of beauty, and still largely original. The mosaic floor tiles were specially imported, with other features including grey wall tiles and a streamlined bath.

Ambrose was particularly pleased with the separate shower room. ‘This is one of the best things in the house,’ he exclaimed to Stucco ‘as he entered the glass door to demonstrate how some of the mysterious nickel-plated contraptions work. There are three different sprays, and a special mixer for the hot and cold water… one can splash merrily for hours, if so inclined, without risk of flooding out the house and home’.

A visit to the basement revealed a space with huge concrete pillars, and Ambrose boasted the foundations would carry the biggest building in the city. Stucco described it as like inspecting the engine room of a ship, there being boilers and pipes everywhere. The heating system was served by a coal boiler and two electric elements, and hot water provided by a 100-gallon circulator. There was also a well-equipped laundry.

In their 70s the Hudsons downsized, selling the the house to the Gardner family in June 1953. Later owners were the Cottle, Shearer, and Lane families. About 1963 Ruby and Ambrose moved to Auckland, where their sons lived, and they led a quiet life at Mission Bay. Ambrose kept up his interest in the factory and last visited it in 1967. He died on 17 November 1969, aged 91, and Ruby died on 6 March 1974, also at the age of 91.

Their former home has been lovingly cared by the current owners of 28 years, while also adapted for modern living. It now awaits the next chapter in its story.

A view of the house when new in 1927. C.M. Collins photographer. Ambrose and Ruby Hudson’s old house on the right was demolished not long after this photograph was taken.

West elevation and forecourt, with Tweed Street on the left. C.M. Collins photographer.

Acknowledgment:
My special thanks to Andrew and Denise Lane, to Alice Munro and Craig Palmer of Bayleys Metro, and to the Hudson family. Images by Bayley Metro reproduced by kind permission.

References:
For the full series of 1927 Evening Star articles follow these links:
12 July 1927 (Stucco, ‘The Home Builder’)
19 July 1927 (Stucco, ‘The Home Builder’)
26 July 1927 (Stucco, ‘The Home Builder’)
23 August 1927 (Stucco, ‘The Home Builder’)
30 August 1927 (Stucco, ‘The Home Builder’)
2 September 1927 (Hydro, ‘Let Electricity Help’)
9 September 1927 (Hydro, ‘Let Electricity Help’)

For more of the early photographs, see the next post.

Cavendish Chambers

Hewitt’s Building

Irvine & Stevenson buildings (part two)

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Built: 1929 (rebuilding of structures erected 1882-1888)
Address: 59-67 St Andrew Street
Architects: Miller & White
Builders: Ellis & Glue
The 1920s neo-Georgian facade of this building disguises its industrial origins as Irvine & Stevenson’s nineteenth-century factory complex. In my last post I looked at the company’s shop and office buildings next door, on the corner of George and St Andrew streets, which were designed by J.A. Burnside and built in 1882. Irvine & Stevenson were one of New Zealand’s leading producers of preserved meats, jams, soups, starch, and other (mostly food) products. By 1919 the company had nine subsidiary factories in other parts of New Zealand and it remained a large player in the food industry until it wound up in 1977.

To begin with, old buildings on the site were used for factory activities. They were replaced in stages, beginning with a two-storeyed bacon factory/curing house designed by Burnside in 1882 and completed in 1883. Later development can be pieced together (though not with complete confidence or clarity) from a surviving company ledger. Between the curing house and the shops were a double cottage and brick stables, which were fitted with gas in 1884. In 1886 ‘sheds’ were demolished and replaced with a smoke house for sausages. The cottages were then replaced with a new jam factory building, built between January and June 1888. This was likely designed by R.A. Lawson, as the ledger shows that fees of £33 10s 6d were paid to him in connection with the project in June 1888. The contract price was recorded as £634.

In 1891 Irvine & Stevenson acquired the local operations of the Australian jam company Peacock & Sons., and all jam production moved to their factory in Moray Place, which became known as the ‘no.2 factory’. In 1894 the St Andrew Street factory was described as having 100 x 66 feet of floor space on each of its two storeys. Activities on the site at that time included bacon curing, sausage making, tea blending, coffee and pepper grinding, and washing powder manufacturing. The company purchased Keast & McCarthy’s large brewery in Filleul Street in 1896 and afterwards consolidated most of its Dunedin manufacturing on that site.

The buildings (in the box at left) as they appeared c.1895. W.R. Frost photograph.

A late 1880s view, showing Irvine & Stevenson’s buildings behind the A. & T. Inglis store. They include the tall chimney stack and the building immediately to its right. Ref: Te Papa O.002091.

With the old jam factory no longer required, that portion of the St Andrew Street complex was converted into a freezing plant with insulated rooms and a large engine ‘of the compressed air type with enormous pistons’. There were few such facilities in Dunedin, and a writer for a promotional piece observed in 1895:

Messrs Irvine and Stevenson have on their premises power refrigerating machinery, which is used partially for the curing of bacon, and also for providing cold storage for the city. A glance into the chambers reveals that the contents are surprisingly miscellaneous. Lake Wakatipu trout, caught months previously, and fish of many other varieties, wild ducks, hares, pork, mutton, veal, large numbers of the omnipresent rabbit – these are awaiting shipment to some distant part; and in separate chambers are stored large quantities of butter belonging to various local factories.

The freehold of the St Andrew Street property was purchased in 1916 and in the 1920s soda crystals (for laundering) were still being produced there. The buildings eventually became surplus to requirements for production purposes but they were kept as an investment property for the I&S Trust, the property arm of Irvine & Stevenson which operated as a separate company for some decades. In 1929 the refrigeration plant was removed and the old buildings were rebuilt with structural strengthening (steel and concrete), a new brick facade, new shops and shop fronts, and altered roof lines. A curious dogleg vehicle access and yard remained, and old slates were also reused. The style chosen for the facade was freely interpreted Georgian Revival and the architect was Eric Miller (1896-1948) of Miller & White. The building is similar in style to another Miller & White design, built for W. Duke & Sons, at the corner of King Edward Street and Hillside Road in South Dunedin. A larger brick-faced building Miller designed was the South Block (now Hercus Building) of the Otago Medical School, completed in 1948.

Miller & White drawing for the 1929 work (elevations and sections), Hocken Collections MS-2758/0378.

Miller & White drawing for the 1929 work (sections and floor plans), Hocken Collections MS-2758/0378.

In September 1929 the finished buildings were described in the Evening Star newspaper:

A building with a rather striking and dignified appearance is that just constructed by Messrs Ellis and Glue in St Andrew Street. The structure referred to is situated on the site used at one time as a bacon curing factory by Messrs Irvine and Stevenson. Now this firm has converted the building into four modern shops on the ground floor with two spacious rooms upstairs which are now being utilised by Mr J.W. Finch, of the Octagon Billiard Parlours, as an up-to-date billiard parlour. The extensive alterations were constructed about six months ago by the contractor, who first of all was called upon to shift about 1,000 bags of pumice and a large quantity of charcoal. The finished building shows a new brick front, with the curtains on the windows of the top floor giving it a homely appearance. The shops below are fairly large, and are given quite an impressive finish with terrazzo around the basements and piers of the windows. The doors and other woodwork are in oak, while the ceilings and walls are tastefully designed in fibrous plaster. The billiard parlour, which has been leased for a period of ten years, is divided into two rooms, with five tables in each, and it is intended to make further provision for another table. Messrs Miller & White were the designers of the building, which cost something in the vicinity of £5,000.

A 1936 letterhead for Irvine & Stevenson. By this date the company had stopped using the St Andrew Street buildings for manufacturing. Hocken Collections AG-200-11/04/1319.

The Dunedin Cue Club in 2014.

A billiard parlour or pool hall has been operating continuously from the upper floor since 1929. For many years named the Grand Billiard Parlour, it later became the Grand Billiard Rooms, and then the Grand Snooker Centre. In 1998 it became the Dunedin Cue Club and it currently also offers internet and gaming facilities. Director Mark Peisker kindly showed me around and said that one of the tables is thought to have been there since the hall opened 85 years ago.

Downstairs, a cycle shop was the first occupant of the shop at no. 59. Originally Ernest Packer Stevenson’s Cycle Works, it became Knight’s Cycle Works in 1951 and later diversified into prams and children’s nursery goods. In 1969 the business moved to the shop at no. 67 as Knight’s Nursery Centre and it closed around 1991.

Other tenants have included the Laurier Floral Studio (at no. 61 from 1938 to 1970), and the T.W.T. Engineering Co. (at no. 67 from 1939 to 1959). The Presbyterian Social Services Association (now Presbyterian Support Otago) Opportunity Shop opened at no. 59 in 1972. It later expanded into the shop next door and is still there today. The other retail businesses currently in the building are Paint the Town Red (boutique fashion clothing) and Rockshop (musical instruments and audio).

The I&S Trust relinquished its last interests in the property in the early 1960s and for many years it was owned by the Butler Family. It may be considered part of the Larent Buildings that front George Street (but do not include the corner site which is on a separate title). The unspoilt St Andrew Street facade demonstrates how a relatively modest building can have a distinctive street appearance while still being in scale with and sympathetic to its surroundings. The square-paned windows with their timber frames are a particular delight, and I seldom walk past this building without appreciating it. You might also spare a thought for Dunedin’s rich industrial past and eight decades of billiards as you wander by!

Newspaper references:
Otago Daily Times, 22 October 1873 p.2 (James Irvine, ham and bacon), 18 January 1882 p.2 (auction of leasehold), 20 January 1883 p.2 (description of George Street buildings), 3 June 1887 p.1 (opening of pork and provision shop), 19 May 1894 supp. (description of Irvine & Stevenson premises), 27 January 1908 p.7 (freezing plant), 20 November 1919 p.10 (‘The Preserving Industry’); Evening Star, 3 September 1929 p.2 (description of rebuilding work)

Other references:
Irvine & Stevenson’s St George Co. Ltd records, Hocken Collections UN-016
Leading Business Establishments of Dunedin: Being a Series of Illustrations and Descriptive Letterpress (Dunedin: Otago Daily Times and Witness Co., 1895)
Stevenson, Geoffrey W., The House of St George: A Centennial History 1864-1964 (Dunedin: Irvine & Stevenson’s St George Co. Ltd, [1964])
Baré, Robert, City of Dunedin Block Plans (Dunedin: Caxton Steam Printing Company, [1889])
Jones, F. Oliver, Structural Plans of the City of Dunedin NZ, ‘Ignis et Aqua’ series, [1892]
Council of Fire and Accident Underwriters’ Associations of New Zealand, block plans, 1927
Stone’s Otago and Southland Directory
Wise’s New Zealand Post Office Directory
Telephone directories
Dunedin City Council permit records and deposited plans

RSA Building (Arrow House)

4 Replies

Built: 1920-1921 (additions completed 1938, 1946)
Address: 469 Moray Place
Architect: William Henry Dunning (additions by Miller & White)
Builders: Fletcher Construction Co.

Living in extended peacetime and the relative indulgence of the modern middle class, I find it difficult to imagine how the soldiers who returned from the First World War adjusted to life back in Dunedin, let alone what they had been through on active service. It was only natural that many, though not all, wanted to preserve social bonds they had formed and build new ones based on common experiences. The need for a soldiers’ club was recognised early in the war, and in 1915 a group from the Otago Boys’ High School Old Boys’ Association purchased Atahapara, the two-storeyed former residence of the historian and long-serving local coroner Dr Thomas Morland Hocken (1836-1910). Here on the corner of Moray Place and Burlington (formerly Macandrew) Street, they began the Anzac Soldiers’ Club, and Hocken’s old residence became known as Anzac House.

The cover of the sheet music for ‘When the Boys Come Home’, a song written and composed in Dunedin about the return of soldiers from the First World War.

A larger national organisation, the New Zealand Returned Soldiers’ Association, formed in 1916 and quickly grew a large membership. In January 1918 a local committee was put together for the purpose of procuring a site and erecting a memorial club building. The architect W.H. Dunning prepared plans for a site on the corner of Moray Place and View Street, and a drive to raise funds was begun. The Anzac Club then bowed out, going into voluntary liquidation and offering its property to the RSA. Dunning’s plans for new buildings on the Anzac House site were approved in April 1919, and in March 1920 a description was published in the Otago Daily Times:

The club will be-a two-storeyed edifice in the modern renaissance style, and will be carried out in brick, finished with concrete. The frontage to Moray place will be 34ft, to Burlington street 87ft. The entrance will be at the corner of these streets, and will give access to a wide vestibule, on the right of which will be the reading room, with the offices on the left. The hall leading from the vestibule will give access to the canteen and tea lounge on the ground floor, and to the billiard, board, and common rooms, by means of a wide staircase, on the upper floor. The canteen is to be lighted by a dome roof, and will have a cosy inglenook round the wide tiled fireplace. This may also be used later as a supper room in connection with the social hall, which will be built subsequently, or when funds permit. The spacious tea lounge will be 40ft by 24ft in area, and this will give access by French doors to a covered verandah, occupying nearly the whole length of the Burlington street frontage. A very complete kitchen and servery will be attached to the lounge, and also to the canteen. The billiard room upstairs will be sufficiently large to accommodate four full-sized tables. Hot and cold showers will also be provided upstairs; in fact, the sanitary arrangements throughout the building are to be of the most complete and up-to-date character. The hall, which it is intended to annex to the building at a later date, will be provided with a stage and eating accommodation, up and down stairs, for about 400 people. The exterior decoration of the building, without being of a very elaborate order, will be most imposing, and, with the advantage of a wide street frontage, the clubhouse will have a most imposing and monumental appearance, of which our soldiers and the city generally may well be proud.

General Sir William Riddell Birdwood laid the foundation stone on 12 June 1920, and J.H. Walker (chairman of the fundraising committee) officially opened the completed building on 24 June 1921. The Fletcher Construction Co. were the builders and the cost was £8,500.

The building covered a site essentially triangular in shape. The style of architecture was transitional, and reminiscent of other Dunning designs including Barton’s Buildings (Stafford House) and the Albany Street flats. Columns, pilasters, cornices, rustication, and decorative mouldings suggest a stylised take on the Renaissance Revival manner, and the term ‘Renaissance’ is found in reports about both this building and Barton’s Buildings.

The Burlington Street elevation as it originally appeared, prior to additions and alterations.

The original ground floor plan.

Additions were made 1938, when the ground floor social hall was extended down Burlington Street. The steepness of the street and the rock beneath the additions gave a striking effect to the enlarged structure. The architects were Miller & White, who effectively worked in the existing style, possibly based on drawings left by Dunning, who had died some years earlier. The same firm designed more extensive additions in 1944, but these were not completed for another two years. They extended the first floor to the same extent as the earlier addition, making space for another billiard room. At the same time a miniature rifle range and assembly room were built beneath a new roof structure, increasing the height to three storeys, though the top floor was set back and obscured from the street. Existing internal spaces were also rearranged making room for a lounge, women members’ room, committee room, and recreation and games room. The work was carried out by Mitchell Bros and the redeveloped building was opened by Sir Donald Cameron (Mayor of Dunedin) on 18 December 1946. The redevelopment cost a little over £20,000.

A large fire broke out in the early morning of 17 April 1962. The building was so extensively damaged that the Otago Daily Times initially described it as being destroyed. The following day it was reported that ‘apart from repair work, little structural rebuilding will be necessary on the first floor…but the second floor and roof will have to be rebuilt’. The cost of the damage was estimated at £60,000. Extensive reinstatement work was designed by N.Y.A. Wales (of Mason & Wales). A small corner tower and other masonry and detail at parapet level were removed, and the reinstated rifle range or indoor bowling space on the second floor featured sloping glazed walls. The building was officially reopened on 6 April 1963. Around the same time the RSA acquired the freehold of the land (previously held leasehold from the Presbyterian Church Board of Property).

The next major renovations were carried out between 1971 and 1972 at a cost of approximately $70,000 to $80,000. It was reported that the work ‘will modernise the clubrooms, turning the second floor into an area for social activities and extending the charter activities throughout the first floor, except for the offices and reading room’. A permit for glassing in the balcony was issued in 1978. After facing a financial crisis, the Dunedin RSA sold and vacated the building in 1996. In 2009 it was extensively refitted as commercial office space for owners Beach Road Limited (Grant McLauchlan). It was subsequently renamed Arrow House after its anchor tenant, Arrow International.

It is many years since the RSA occupied the building, but although it is not an official memorial like the nearby cenotaph in Queens Gardens, it remains a significant built connection to the soldiers who served in conflicts overseas.Newspaper references:
Otago Daily Times, 23 October 1915 p.5 (Soldiers’ Club House), 14 January 1916 p.8 (Anzac Soldiers’ Club), 29 December 1917 p.8 (sketch plans by Dunning), 24 September 1917 p.4 (liquidation of Anzac Soldiers’ Club), 21 January 1918 p.2 (plans for Moray Place and View Street site), 24 April 1919 p.8 (plans approved), 27 March 1920 p.6 (description), 14 June 1920 p.6 (laying of foundation stone), 19 December 1946 p.8 (opening of new wing), 17 April 1962 p.1 (fire), 18 April 1962 p.1 (fire), 19 April 1962 p.5 (fire), 6 April 1963 p.10 (opening of reinstated and redeveloped buildings), 8 May 1963 p.1 (purchase of land), 28 March 1995 p.1 (future of building to be debated), 13 August 1996 p.4 (RSA vote to sell buildings), 18 February 2009 p.22 (Beach Road Ltd redevelopment); Evening Star, 24 May 1921 p.7 (opening)

Other references:
Council of Fire and Accident Underwriters’ Associations of New Zealand, block plans, 1927
Dunedin City Council permit records and deposited plans (with thanks to Glen Hazelton)

Hogg, Howison, Nicol & Co. Building

2 Replies

Built: 1881
Address: 19 Vogel Street
Architect: Robert Forrest (c.1832-1919)
Builders: King & Co. (bricklaying), John Blackie (carpentry)

The building as it appeared in the first decade of the twentieth century, when it was occupied by Paterson & Barr

Vogel Street is home to some of Dunedin’s most substantial Victorian warehouses. This one, which has frontages to both Vogel and Cumberland streets, was built for the importing and general merchants Hogg, Howison, Nicol & Co. The firm had recently succeeded Hogg & Hutton, who traded as grocers in Dunedin from 1863, and the partners were James Hogg, Charles Macandrew Howison, and Lancelot Douglas Nicol. The building site was only formed after 1879, when a large-scale harbour reclamation project began. Being handy to the harbour, railway, and central business district, the newly formed Vogel Street was a logical location for large commercial warehouses. It extended an established precinct of similar warehouses centred around Crawford and Bond streets, the latter having been named after the bonded warehouses that sprang up there twenty years before.

Tenders for the construction work were called in May 1881, and the building was complete by the following January. It was a three-storey structure, not including the concrete cellar and an attic level. Because of the poor quality of the land, the foundation was laid on a system of planking, with ‘a wall of concrete three feet in depth, surmounted by Port Chalmers stone, laid right round in inverted arches, in order to equalise the weight on the foundations by throwing it on the piers’. Above the ground floor the walls were built from 250,000 bricks, and arched throughout. Strong kauri storey posts ran right through from the cellar, carrying cross-beams fourteen inches by ten inches which took the floor joists.

Stores were spread over three levels with an entrance on Cumberland Street and a lift capable of raising loads of up to 1,500kg at a time. They housed the firm’s imported goods, which included tea, tobacco, sauces, hardware, guano fertiliser, and many other things. The office entrance was on Vogel Street, and the first floor included separate rooms for each partner of the firm, a general office for about eight clerks, and a room for commercial travellers connected with the firm. The office partitions were kauri and cedar, with glass on the upper part. An impressive counter was framed in cedar with sunk panels of plain kauri, raised panels of mottled kauri, and fitted with mouldings in rewarewa (New Zealand honeysuckle).

Robert Forrest designed the building, which was one of his earlier works after he gave up being a building contractor to become a full-time architect. King and Co. were the contractors for the bricklaying, and John Blackie for the carpentry work. The Vogel Street and Cumberland Street facades were essentially identical. Renaissance Revival was the style used for their design, which included pilasters, quoining, a bold cornice, and a high parapet and pediment (with volutes and acroteria) which masked the gable ends of the roof structure. Each facade was cemented and tuck-pointed, ‘to give it a lighter appearance’.

Detail from an 1885 view, showing the Vogel Street frontage before the erection of buildings on the south side. The Union Steam Ship Company head office is the prominent building at the centre, and the large Donald Reid stores can be seen at the right. (Toitu / Otago Settlers Museum 57-121-1)

Guano advertisement from the Bruce Herald, 24 October 1893 p.3 (Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand)

James Hogg (c.1839-1903), senior partner of Hogg, Howison, Nicol & Co.

A second building, immediately to the south, was erected for Hogg Howison between 1887 and 1888, and let to the Mutual Agency Company of New Zealand. Its design closely resembled the first building, the most obvious difference being that the outer bays of the first and second floor facades were given pairs of windows rather than single ones. It was later occupied by Remshardt & Co. (wool, skin, and hide merchants), and later still by Milne Bremner Ltd (wholesale wine, spirit, and grocery merchants). It survives, but its facades were stripped of decoration in the 1940s and it is no longer the close match with its neighbour that it once was. Between 2006 and 2008 the Milne Bremner Building was redeveloped and strengthened to a high standard by Adrian Thompson and his company Hyperstella.

View from Cumberland Street showing the Milne Bremner Building when it was occupied by Remshardt & Co. The facades of the two buildings were very similar but not identical.

Hogg, Howison, Nicol & Co. wound up in 1895, and their building was taken by Scoular Bros & Co. (importers) from 1896 to 1900. From 1903 to 1938 it was owned and occupied by Paterson & Barr Ltd, ironmongers and hardware merchants. They soon built an iron yard and store for heavy goods on the half section immediately to the north, and in 1929 they commissioned the architect W.H. Dunning to design a second three-storey warehouse for that site, to work as an extension. Tenders were called in December 1929 and Thomas Ferguson was awarded the contract. The brickwork and mouldings of Dunning’s design suggest something transitioning from the so-called ‘Queen Anne’ style, which was really eclectic rather than characterised by the architecture of Anne’s reign. The glazing has a more modern aesthetic.

Paterson & Barr moved to High Street in 1938, where they continued to trade into the 1980s. The tyre and rubber merchants E.W. Pidgeon & Co. occupied a portion of the Vogel Street building from 1938 to 1962. A large fire in 1942 gutted the upper part, which included the softgoods factory of J.W. Bradley and its fifty workers. It may have been after the fire that the prominent cornices, gable ends, and elaborate parapet ornamentation were removed, and the tuck-pointed brickwork to the facades rendered. These features are not present in an aerial photograph dated September 1946.

From 1952 to 1989 the buildings were home to the Dunedin Working Men’s Club. Established in 1938, this was a social club which had a bar and provided facilities for darts, snooker, pool, indoor bowls, and table tennis. In 1976 the club boasted a membership of over 1,800. It admitted women from 1980 and in 1989 it changed its name to the Dunedin Metropolitan Club and moved to Melville Street.

The building is looking rather scruffy these days, but hopefully it will play an important part in the revitalisation of Vogel Street that has included the recent sympathetic redevelopment of the nearby NMA and Donald Reid buildings.

Detail on Vogel Street

Vogel Street frontage, with the 1929 building on the left

Cumberland Street frontage

Newspaper references:
Otago Daily Times, 18 April 1881 p.4 (tenders for bricks), 6 May 1881 p.4 (tenders for foundations and construction), 10 January 1882 p.2 (description on completion), 3 February 1887 p.3 (fire), 25 August 1942 p.2 (fire), 28 August 1942 p.4 (fire), 22 December 1976 p.16 (history and description of Dunedin Working Men’s Club), 10 March 1989 p.3 (admission of women), 28 February 1989 p.5 (name change and removal of club to new premises); Evening Star, 3 December 1929 p.2 (call for tenders), 7 January 1930 p.2 (contract to Ferguson)

Other references:
Cyclopedia of New Zealand, vol.4 (Otago and Southland Provincial Districts), 1905.
Baré, Robert, City of Dunedin Block Plans Dunedin: Caxton Steam Printing Company, [1889].
Jones, F. Oliver, Structural Plans of the City of Dunedin NZ, ‘Ignis et Aqua’ series, [1892].
Stone’s Otago and Southland Directory
Wise’s New Zealand Post Office Directory
Telephone directories
Dunedin City Council permit and rates records

Barton’s Buildings (Stafford House)

21 Replies

Built: 1928
Address: 2 Manse Street
Architect: William Henry Dunning (1872-1933)
Builders: G. Lawrence & Sons

The building in July 1975, photographed by and reproduced courtesy of Ray Hargreaves. Hocken Collections S13-127b.

For decades, neon signs at Barton’s Corner brightened Dunedin’s night life and made the 1920s butchery buildings a city landmark. Little pink pigs ran along the verandah, green lambs leapt along the parapet, a suited pig doffed his top hat, and a large bullock capped it all off. The signs were especially popular with children, and many parents would slow their cars so the kids could enjoy the display.

The history of occupation on the site goes back to Māori settlement, although the level of the land was reduced by early Eurpean settlers. In 1851 James Macandrew, later Superintendent of Otago, built a store here. His single storey building was described nearly fifty years later as being ‘more attractive in appearance than any other in embryo Dunedin’. Macandrew was succeeded by James Paterson, who sold up in 1863.

Meanwhile, in 1853, Benjamin Dawson established Stafford House as a private boarding establishment on the site above in Stafford Street. Under John Sibbald it became Sibbald’s Private Hotel, which was given a license in April 1858. It was renamed the Provincial Hotel in 1859 and enlarged in 1861. It was probably in 1863 that the timber hotel buildings were extended down to the Manse Street corner, and at the end of the decade the ground floor portion became a shop (it was a grocer’s for some years). This extension was very narrow and a separate brick building took up most of the site facing Manse Street. The occupants of this second building included the Caxton Printing Company from 1889 to 1913.

An advertisement showing the Barton & Trengrove butchery in 1918. It is housed in both the old Provincial Hotel additions (left) and the former Caxton Printing Co. building (right). Otago Witness, 16 October 1918 p.33. Hocken Collections S13-184.

Barton & Trengrove, butchers, opened on the site in 1913 and took both of the old buildings. George Barton was a young Australian who had been making his way to America when he saw an opportunity to go into business in Dunedin. His partner was John Trengrove, and both men were enterprising horse racing enthusiasts. Barton’s pacer Indianapolis rode to victory in the New Zealand Trotting Cup in three successive years and won over £10,000 in stakes. Trengrove sold his share in the butchery in 1924 and from 1928 it was known simply as Barton’s. In the same year a new building was erected, with demolition work started in January.

The building under construction. Otago Witness, 25 September 1928 p.44. Hocken Collections S13-127e.

Permit papers and deposited plans record the work as ‘additions and alterations’, as the new building incorporated an existing basement and some ground floor walls. Steel frame construction was used and the business was able to remain open on the site during the rebuilding. The upper storeys had steel-framed windows with fine decorative detail on the first floor bay windows. There was a light well within the building. The contractors were Lawrence & Sons and the architect was William Henry Dunning, who had previously worked in Tasmania before arriving in Dunedin in 1908. Dunning’s early designs here included the National Bank in Princes Street and Ross Home in North East Valley. A later work was the block of shops at the corner of Albany and George Streets, which has some similar decorative features to Barton’s Buildings, including Art Deco elements.

Dunning’s design was described in an Evening Star newspaper report as being in Renaissance style. This might seem a stretch, but the composition can be read as ‘stripped classical’, a style then in vogue and used on contemporaneous Dunedin buildings such as Queen’s Buildings and the Public Trust Office. There are also hints of an Egyptian Revival influence, including a winged cartouche at the top of the splayed corner. The facades were finished in white Atlas cement, lined with a block joint, and the shop fronts and internal staircase were finished with terrazzo. Crown Derby tiled panels depicting sheep and Highland steers were fixed to the ground floor facade facing Stafford Street.

Detail from one of the panels of Crown Derby tiles next to the Stafford Street entrance.

Barton’s flourished and a branch was established in Rattray Street in 1930, while George’s brother Douglas operated a butchery in the Octagon. In 1942, following the Japanese bombing of Darwin, an air raid shelter for up to 30 people was built in the basement of the Manse Street building. Quite a few of these were constructed in the central city and other businesses that built or planned shelters around the same time included the D.I.C., Penrose’s, and Woolworths.

George Barton junior eventually returned from service in the Air Force and took over the business together with his brother Reg in 1946. He later remembered that ‘After the war, all of the town was dull and dreary. We thought the place needed brightening up, so we decided to make a statement’. This was when the first of the neon signs were installed.

Neon lights c.1962, photographed by and reproduced courtesy of Bruce Murray.

The gentleman pig on display in Toitū / Otago Settlers Museum.

The signs were made by Claude Neon, who for more than 30 years owned them and leased them to Barton’s. A photograph taken in the early 1960s shows the running pigs, the lambs, and the cattle beast in place, with the name Barton’s displayed vertically down the splayed corner. In 1965 the name sign was replaced by a suited pig built by Trevor Hellyer, who was then a junior at Claude Neon. Hellyer also built the Fresh Freddie fish sign that was a familiar sight in St Andrew Street for 40 years. Another large sign reading ‘Barton’s’ was added to the Manse Street facade.

A night view from 1970, photographed by and reproduced courtesy of Lloyd Godman.

George Barton senior died in 1963 following a fall at the Burnside sale yards. He was 82. George junior and Reg ensured Barton’s remained a family business and took the butchery to its peak, when it employed over 200 staff, including 63 butchers. From 1967 special lamb cuts were exported overseas in a joint venture with PPCS, and major alterations and additions were carried out to allow the increase in production. Trade restrictions made this venture less successful than it might have been. The original shop fronts were taken out in 1969.

Reg Barton said the best way to beat the supermarkets was to offer a different product by going back to old-fashioned ways, and in 1978 the business announced it would revert to selling unpackaged rather than pre-packaged meat. By the end of the decade, however, the firm faced an estimated cost of $100,000 to bring its building up to Health Department requirements. The Manse Street shop closed for the last time on 29 January 1980. Other shops in Rattray Street and the Golden Centre remained open for a little longer (the Octagon shop had closed in 1966). The neon signs were removed in September 1980 and some were put into storage at the Dunedin Museum of Transport and Technology. The restored gentleman pig can now be seen at the Settlers Museum, and some of the running pigs are on display outside Miller Studios in Anzac Avenue.

From 1985 to 1995 Dick Smith Electronics were the ground floor tenants. G.S. McLauchlan & Co. bought the buildings in 1988 and redeveloped them to the plans of Mason & Wales, the work being complete by April 1989. The upper floors were converted to offices, the original central light well was built over, and more than 90 truck loads of rubble were removed from the site. The building was painted grey with details highlighted in white. The original ‘Barton’s Buildings’ lettering was removed and replaced with the new name, ‘Stafford House’ in black plastic lettering. This was a pity as the old lettering had a distinctive period style, and the material and font of its replacement is out of character.

The current name may reference the original Stafford House of the 1850s, although it’s not on the same site. To add confusion, the pink building on the opposite corner was also known as Stafford House for some years, as was the building that fronts the Golden Centre in George Street.

In the 1990s Stafford House got its current colour scheme and the Pet Warehouse has been the ground floor tenant since 2001. An association with animals continues, but in a very different way!

The building in 2013

Facade detail

Update: Since I wrote this the building has undergone major refurbishment. Below is a view of the exterior taken in September 2014. The Barton’s name has returned and Dad’s photograph of the neon lights now decorates the lift!

Newspaper references:
Otago Witness, 17 December 1853 p.2 (Benjamin Dawson), 13 May 1854 p.1 (stable), 7 February 1854 p.4 (John Sibbald), 3 May 1856 p.2 (Sibbald), 14 April 1860 p.1 (Provincial Hotel).
Otago Daily Times, 16 November 1861 p.5 (hotel enlargement), 6 April 1863 p.2 (James Paterson), 7 September 1864 p.5 (transfer of licence), 20 June 1872 p.2 (grocery), 3 April 1899 p.6 (Macandrew’s store), 4 April 1963 pp.1 and 3 (obituary of George Johnson Barton), 29 June 1967 p.13 (exporting and expansion), 22 October 1970 p.13 (history of Barton’s), 1 March 1980 p.1 (closure), 4 September 1980 p.1 (neon signs), 17 September 1980 p.5 (signs), 7 April 1989 p.12 (redevelopment), 3 January 1995 p.25 (signs), 24 August 1996 p.1 (signs), 7 April 1989 p.12 (redevelopment), 25 October 2008 (Trevor Hellyer), 23 June 2012 p.36 (obituary of George Hobson Barton).
Evening Star, 27 December 1927 p.2 (description of building), 12 June 1928 p.2 (building progress).

Other references:
Stone’s Otago and Southland Directory
Wise’s New Zealand Post Office Directory
Block plans (1889, 1892, 1927)
Dunedin City Council permit records and deposited plans (with thanks to Glen Hazelton)

The Rio Grande

2 Replies

Built: 1927-1928
Address: 73 Princes Street
Architects: David Gourlay Mowat
Builders: G. Lawrence & Sons

This wee gem often catches my eye. The Rio Grande was the restaurant of Dimitrios Pagonis (1893-1976), a Greek immigrant from the island of Evvia. Pagonis had arrived in Dunedin in 1915, when he went into business as a confectioner and opened the Anglo American Candy Kitchen. He sold the business in 1927, when he commissioned architect D.G. Mowat to replace the 1860s building at 73 Princes Street (part of a larger block of shops) with a new structure. Plans dated 24 August 1927 show a building with three levels (two above the street and one below) on a concrete foundation that would allow the height to be increased to a total of five levels if required. The restaurant occupied the ground floor and basement, and the first floor was used as office space. The builders were Lawrence & Sons.

The building was completed by April 1928, when an Evening Star report described it:

‘Only last week the proprietor of the Rio Grande restaurant served the first meal to the public, and if internal decoration has anything to do with a cafe’s popularity then the Rio Grande should find a warm spot in the heart of patrons. The fibrous plastering has been very well done by Messrs Forman and Nicol, and Messrs Arnold, Brock, and Raffils have put their best work into the lead-lighting arrangements. The kitchen is fitted out with the usual culinary equipment of modern times. From the street the building has a remarkably fine appearance, the marble floor running in from the pavement being quite a feature.’

David Gourlay Mowat (1880-1952) was most active in Dunedin in the 1920s and 1930s. His designs included the St Andrew Street Church of Christ, the Maori Hill Presbyterian Church, Mann’s Buildings at the corner of Manse and High streets, and the building at 232 George Street which is now a McDonald’s restaurant. The last of these was built in 1929 and shares with the Rio Grande a distinctive first-floor window design with arched lintels and leadlight windows described as ‘sashed in the antique style’. Both buildings have similar decorative mouldings that frame their facades. In the Rio Grande, the international vogue for Egyptian decoration comes through in an understated way through the pilasters and curved entablature. Mowat’s front elevation drawing shows the faint lettering ‘The Rio Grand’ [sic] in the recessed panel that runs across the upper part of the facade. The spelling in later sources varies.

Restaurants operated from the building under various managers for ten years. During the Great Depression street riot of 1932, Pagonis opened the restaurant to rioters for the whole day, feeding them without charge. Not long after this he sold the building and left Dunedin, but he later returned and established the Beau Monde Milk Bar, further south and on the opposite side of Princes Street.

A wartime advertisement. Otago Daily Times, 27 April 1943 p.5.

View showing the building as it appeared in the mid 1970s with the clock in place. Detail from photograph by Hardwicke Knight.

The jewellers G. & T. Young took the premises in 1938, when new shop fronts and other alterations were designed by architects Salmond & Salmond. The large Birmingham clock that had been a feature outside their previous two premises since 1871 was moved and attached to the facade. G. & T. Young moved to George Street premises in 1988 and the clock was removed in 1990. When the firm went into liquidation in 2009 it was believed to be the oldest jewellery business in New Zealand. It had been established by George Young in 1862, with his brother Thomas admitted as a partner in 1876.

Most recently the Rio Grande building housed Rocda Gallery, and its plaster ceilings are still largely intact. For a small, domestically-scaled commercial building it attracts a lot of admiring comments, perhaps because its modest take on 1920s architectural fashion has more than a little sparkle to it, like a ring in a little jeweller’s box.

Do any readers have historical photographs of this building? I’d love to see a good view of it with the clock still in place.

Newspaper references: Evening Star, 10 January 1928 p.2 (construction progress), 2 April 1928 p.2 (description); 18 December 1928 p.2 (building at 232 George Street); Otago Witness, 18 May 1867 p.11 (earlier buildings), 15 April 1871 p.14 (G. & T. Young clock); Otago Daily Times, 17 April 1867 p.1 (earlier buildings), 14 May 1990 p.3 (clock removed), 27 January 2009 p.4 (liquidation of G. & T. Young).

Other references: Directories (Stone’s, Wise’s, telephone); Jane Thomson,‘Papers relating to Southern People’ (Hocken Archives MS-1926/1347); Dunedin City Council permit records and deposited plans.

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Built in Dunedin

a city's buildings and their stories

Tag Archives: 1920s

Plume, formerly the Ernest Adams shop

Ruby and Ambrose Hudson’s house

Cavendish Chambers

Hewitt’s Building

Irvine & Stevenson buildings (part two)

RSA Building (Arrow House)

Hogg, Howison, Nicol & Co. Building

Barton’s Buildings (Stafford House)

The Rio Grande

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