If you’re a longtime Wellingtonian, then sometimes you pass a contemporary building and are reminded of the days when it was there for quite a different purpose. For a moment, you go back in time. Take, for instance, the sophisticated Chaffers Dock Apartments in Herd Street – now highly expensive real estate. Many of us pass this building when we walk from Oriental Bay to the central city. We enjoy the swathe of green grass on one side or the seafront promenade on the other with yachts bobbing at their moorings. And sometimes we go back in time to its previous incarnation.
Lynda Graham, a committee member who works on Bay View and other areas of the OBRA committee, has a strong memory of this building when it was the Herd Street Post & Telegraph building. Her father, Hugh Stanley, an architect, worked in the property division there.
Lillian Dowson (later Buckle) at the switchboard, pictured in the Free Lance Weekly. The photo was probably taken over the summer of 1941-1942.
Committee member Bob Buckle chuckles when he passes this spot, for his mother worked there during World War II years. Originally from Northland she came to Wellington and worked for several years on the switchboard with its complicated manual system – a far cry from our communications today. She was a brilliant tennis player, so the fact that there were originally two full-size tennis courts on the roof of the building may well have influenced her decision to work there.
The original building was totally fit for purpose, but it was also a well-designed and pleasing structure, built by noted architect Edmund Anscombe in the Art Deco/Art Moderne style. It had very good bones and they have stood the test of time.
It was built in 1938 to 1939 – a distinctive L-shaped structure of five floors. Its ‘Moderne’ horizontal emphasis was further stressed by its long low proportion with windows set in horizontal bands. A distinctive Anscombe touch was the monumental entry which made a dramatic vertical statement in contrast to the predominantly horizontal lines of the building. The elegant curved corners are another Anscombe signature.
Committee member Bob Buckle chuckles when he passes this spot, for his mother worked there during World War II years. Originally from Northland she came to Wellington and worked for several years on the switchboard with its complicated manual system – a far cry from our communications today. (See photo, probably taken over the summer of 1941-1942). She was a brilliant tennis player, so the fact that there were originally two full-size tennis courts on the roof of the building may well have influenced her decision to work there.
The original building was totally fit for purpose, but it was also a well-designed and pleasing structure, built by noted architect Edmund Anscombe in the Art Deco/Art Moderne style. It had very good bones and they have stood the test of time.
It was built in 1938 to 1939 – a distinctive L-shaped structure of five floors. Its ‘Moderne’ horizontal emphasis was further stressed by its long low proportion with windows set in horizontal bands. A distinctive Anscombe touch was the monumental entry which made a dramatic vertical statement in contrast to the predominantly horizontal lines of the building. The elegant curved corners are another Anscombe signature.
Committee member Bob Buckle chuckles when he passes this spot, for his mother worked there during World War II years. Originally from Northland she came to Wellington and worked for several years on the switchboard with its complicated manual system – a far cry from our communications today. (See photo, probably taken over the summer of 1941-1942). She was a brilliant tennis player, so the fact that there were originally two full-size tennis courts on the roof of the building may well have influenced her decision to work there.
The original building was totally fit for purpose, but it was also a well-designed and pleasing structure, built by noted architect Edmund Anscombe in the Art Deco/Art Moderne style. It had very good bones and they have stood the test of time.
It was built in 1938 to 1939 – a distinctive L-shaped structure of five floors. Its ‘Moderne’ horizontal emphasis was further stressed by its long low proportion with windows set in horizontal bands. A distinctive Anscombe touch was the monumental entry which made a dramatic vertical statement in contrast to the predominantly horizontal lines of the building. The elegant curved corners are another Anscombe signature.
Committee member Bob Buckle chuckles when he passes this spot, for his mother worked there during World War II years. Originally from Northland she came to Wellington and worked for several years on the switchboard with its complicated manual system – a far cry from our communications today. (See photo, probably taken over the summer of 1941-1942). She was a brilliant tennis player, so the fact that there were originally two full-size tennis courts on the roof of the building may well have influenced her decision to work there.
The original building was totally fit for purpose, but it was also a well-designed and pleasing structure, built by noted architect Edmund Anscombe in the Art Deco/Art Moderne style. It had very good bones and they have stood the test of time.
It was built in 1938 to 1939 – a distinctive L-shaped structure of five floors. Its ‘Moderne’ horizontal emphasis was further stressed by its long low proportion with windows set in horizontal bands. A distinctive Anscombe touch was the monumental entry which made a dramatic vertical statement in contrast to the predominantly horizontal lines of the building. The elegant curved corners are another Anscombe signature.
The Herd Street Post Office building in early days.
Now the Chaffers Dock Apartments
Alterations were made over the years. The tennis courts were sacrificed for a sixth floor in 1942. It is said that this addition was required for secret wartime communication activities. Correspondence was marked ‘secret’. Various internal changes were later made to accommodate changing technology and staffing requirements. The Post & Telegraph Department (later re-named New Zealand Post Office) used the building until 1987 when Telecom was created to manage the telecommunication business and was leaseholder of the building in the following few years.
In the 1990s there was great debate surroundings its possible demolition! But thankfully it was saved. In the mid-2000s, the 80-year-old landmark building was radically converted to the upmarket apartments of today. The interior is unrecognisable, of course, but the corner entrance remains and also the two main landward-facing facades with their lovely curved corners.
— Judith Doyle, Bay View newsletter 74, November 2019