A walk along Oriental Parade

Oriental Bay’s great heritage buildings give us joy and delight in our shared townscape .and history. Fine villas, modernist apartment blocks, early transport hubs, and outstanding buildings used for swimming, boating, and spiritual renewal; they are the richly-worked set for our sunny, positive, community life. The following are recognised under the WCC District Plan and/or by Heritage New Zealand (HNZ).

Wellington Central Fire Station, 2-38 Oriental Parade, is a great representative example of inter-war public building architecture. It is notable for its size and scale and has a symmetrical main facade. The building was designed by Mitchell and Mitchell, and built in 1937. The prominent clock tower, originally donated to the town hall, was shifted to the fire station. (Listed by WCC and HNZ.)

St Gerard’s Church and Monastery are two adjoining buildings, each listed by WCC and HNZ as Category One, forming a landmark image of Wellington above Oriental Bay. The church was designed by John Sidney Swan in 19th century gothic revival style, and was constructed in 1906-10 of brick and plaster with a slate roof. It includes two chapels in each transept and a grand altar made of green Devonshire marble, supported by columns of green Galway and white Italian marble. The front altar panel has Italian mosaics depicting the Annunciation. Hardman & Son of Birmingham made the beautiful stained glass windows.
St Gerard’s monastery provides a unified addition designed by Frederick de Jersey Clere and completed in 1932. Built of concrete and steel with a brick facing, its many-arched frontage is of a collegiate gothic style. The Redemptorist brothers were proud to provide construction work for the unemployed during the depression. The International Programme of Evangelisation now owns the property. [see also ‘St Gerard’s Monastry on Mt Victoria’]

Port Nicholson Clubhouse built in 1943, Coene sheds built in 1942, and the slipway between the sheds. (WCC listed.)

Clyde Quay boat harbour heritage area includes boat sheds 2-13 and 38-49, the first buildings constructed on the newly formed harbour in 1905. The concrete sheds were built as workshops and to house small boats and gear. Shed 1 was built in 1909, and a further 14 sheds with the same appearance added in 1922. In WW II they were used as a base for American troops. (The heritage area is designated in WCC’s District Plan.)

Freyberg pool is an outstanding piece of modernist architecture, completed in 1963. It was designed by Jason Smith and named as a memorial to prominent New Zealander Bernard Freyberg (1889-1963). The striking reinforced concrete building has an asymmetrical butterfly roof, curtain glass walls and clean lines. (Listed by both HNZ – Category One, and WCC.)

Apartment building: 154 Oriental Parade has much of its form and structure intact but has lost its decoration from the front facade. The five-storey building was designed by Atkins and Mitchell and built in 1930. (WCC listed.)

Oriental Bay Historic Area (listed by WCC and HNZ) comprises seven two-storied Edwardian houses at 188-200 Oriental Parade. Built in 1906 by Joshua Charlesworth, a prominent Wellington architect, they have great townscape and visual appeal. Charlesworth built further houses at each end, the largest being his own house (later demolished for Clifton Towers) and the yellow house at 186 Oriental Parade. (WCC listed.)

Central bus shelter built in 1940. (WCC listed.)

Anscombe Apartments, 212 Oriental Parade, including the penthouse residence of its architect Edmund Anscombe, was constructed in 1939. It’s a fine example of the moderne style with rounded corners, generous window areas with window hoods, horizontal fluting and use of sculptural effects reflecting a mastery of Art Deco shape and form. (Listed by WCC and HNZ.) [see also ‘Take a moderne walk in Oriental Bay’]

The house at 234 Oriental Parade is a two-storied, late-Victorian, formal symmetrical villa designed by William Penty and built in 1900. It’s a rare survivor of the fine timber houses which once made up the area. (WCC listed.)

The Band Rotunda was constructed in 1917 as a platform for a relocated band structure. It survived as a popular lookout and community rooms with a restaurant added in 1985. Local resident, Maurice Clarke, is earthquake-strengthening this Parade landmark for WCC. (Congratulations for his recent Wellington Civic Trust heritage award for the beautiful Public Trust Hall.) The rotunda is listed by both WCC and HNZ. [see also ‘Where to now for this iconic site?’]

The Wards (earlier Arcus) house at 240 Oriental Bay is a large relatively ornate Edwardian villa built in 1907-08 on the corner of Hay St, designed by Mace and Nicolson. It retains a mainly-authentic exterior. (Listed by WCC and HNZ.)

The unusual Dutch style house at 294 Oriental Parade was built in 1920. (Listed by WCC and HNZ.)

The house at 298 Oriental Parade is a relatively rare example of English cottage revival style in brick, and is a very distinctive Oriental Bay house. It was built in 1928 for William Kemball, the first owner of the Embassy Theatre. (Listed by WCC.)

The apartment building at 300 Oriental Parade is in Georgian revival style, executed in concrete and red brick, and was built in 1930 for Sir Donald McGavin, one of NZ’s most respected surgeons. (Listed by WCC and HNZ.)

Inverleith Flats, 306 Oriental Parade, is the earliest high-rise luxury apartment block in Oriental Bay, and one of the earliest in the city. It was designed by Frederick de Jersey Clere and Llewellyn E Williams and constructed in 1922. The building’s exterior is plain and was revolutionary for its time, becoming a link to the later Wharenui at 274 Oriental Parade, and the modernist apartment building Jerningham in Oriental Terrace. (Listed by WCC and HNZ.)

The apartment building at 348-352 Oriental Parade is of classical manner integrating provision for motor cars. It was designed by Swan Lawrence Swan and built in 1924-5. (Facade listed by WCC and HNZ.)

The tram shelter near Carlton Gore Rd was built in 1904 at the terminus of the Oriental Bay tram from Courtney Place. By 1911 there were an estimated 22 million passenger tram rides a year in Wellington, and the Oriental Bay tram route provided cheap transport for residents and beach excursionists. (WCC and HNZ listed.)

— Felicity Wong, Bay View Online newsletter, July 2020
(Felicity is Chair of Historic Places Wellington. She drew from David Kernohan’s book Wellington’s Old Buildings and WCC/HNZ sources in preparing this article, and the information may need to be verified.)

Bernie the Second has now arrived

A  large long-haired Bernese Mountain dog – owned by Nick Ryan of Ryan’s Café at the Freyberg Pool – sat outside the pool for many years. He became part of the landscape of Oriental Bay. So after he died three years ago, aged nearly 11, it left a big gap.

Now locals have been delighted to find that void filled by Bernie Two, still a puppy. His official name is El Bernardo. Ryan plans to take him on a trip to Europe, and the itinerary will include a visit to Bern in Switzerland where the breed originated.

Bernese Mountain dogs were bred by crossing mastiffs and guard-type breeds. They were brought to Switzerland by the Romans 2000 years ago to be watchdogs, herd cattle, pull carts and be companions. To judge from the talks and pats he gets from passersby, he is highly suited to the latter.

— Judith Doyle, Bay View Online newsletter, July 2020

Walking the streets of Wellington

Why is Post Office Square called that? Who was Paddy the Wanderer? What lies behind the Pacific Jewellers shop on Lambton Quay? Long-time residents of Wellington may well know the answers to these questions, but many won’t. And visitors to our city certainly do not. There are stories behind every one of these seemingly simple questions, as indeed there are behind many of the sights and buildings in Wellington.

‘Walk Wellington’ is an organisation that takes people, visitors especially, behind the scenes. Walk Wellington was founded nearly twenty years ago and today is a not-for-profit organisation that leads walks through Wellington nearly every day of the year, rain or shine (or gale). Only at Easter and on Christmas Day are no walks offered.

Pacific Jewelers on Lambton Quay

The core offering, “Essential Wellington”, starts at the bottom of Cuba Street at 10am, goes through Civic Square, along the waterfront, doubles back to the Old Bank Arcade and then follows Lambton Quay, up through the Parliament House grounds, ending at Old St Paul’s Cathedral (although that is currently closed for earthquake-strengthening). The walk takes between 2 and 2½ hours, depending on the loquacity of the guide. Over the summer months (December to March) a shorter tour (about 1½ hours) is also offered three times a week, starting at 5.00pm. This starts at the same place, but heads more directly to the Old Bank Arcade, before heading to and along the waterfront, concluding in Courtenay Place, just in time for a pre-dinner drink.

Most of those who come along for the Walk Wellington experience are visitors from overseas, although there on occasion a small number from elsewhere in New Zealand. Most are independent travellers; relatively few cruise ship passengers seem to be attracted by the prospect of a couple of hours’ exercise. These overseas visitors come from a wide variety of countries, although, perhaps not surprisingly, the most numerous source countries are Australia, the US and the UK. Beyond that, Europeans outnumber those from Latin America or Asia.

While the walks can be pre-booked, the more usual practice is for prospective walkers simply to turn up at the start of the walk, hopefully having already paid for the walk at the i-Site. Some days there are no walkers, while on other days there can be 25 or even more. Most often, however, the numbers are ten or fewer. A group of that size can usually be kept reasonably together and will be able to hear what the guide has to say.

The walks seem to be very much appreciated. Currently, over 2,200 come along every year, and Walk Wellington has been consistently rated by Trip Advisor as one of the top three things to do or see in Wellington. It is, of course, an affordable activity, costing just $20 for adults (children are free). As a not-for-profit organisation, Walk Wellington donates any financial surpluses to local organisations; the Free Ambulance, the Wellington Sculpture Trust, Old St Paul’s, Friends of the Botanic Gardens and the Mary Potter Hospice have been among the beneficiaries in the past year.

The team

All the guides are volunteers (there are around 25-30 of them), the great majority retired people, and each leads a walk two to three times a month. All have a love for and knowledge of Wellington, and are pleased to be able to have the opportunity to show off our city to visitors. All the guides have their own, individual, approach. While there are of course common elements that are covered in their commentaries, each brings their own experience and knowledge to bear. All have particular stories to tell, sometimes focusing on events in their own histories, and sometimes relating those learnt from others.

None of the guides have any problems filling in the time; all are constantly learning more about Wellington, and the challenge is to know what to leave out. The reality is that most of us, when we have new information pushed at us in situations such as on these walks, remember afterwards no more than three to five facts. Guides have to bear in mind that there is a limit as to how much information people can actually absorb. I can remember going on a city walk in Singapore some years ago, but after nearly four hours in over 30 degrees heat (and no toilet stop!) abandoning the rest of the scheduled walk. I had reached the end of my stamina. It’s important too to bear in mind the needs of those who are not native English speakers, checking from time to time that they are understanding the commentary.

It’s very rare for there to be a “difficult” participant; most appreciate what the guides have to offer. And for the guides’ part, what they perhaps enjoy the most is both to have the opportunity to engage with visitors to our city and country, but also to be able to try to respond to any questions that they might have. The guides know their spiel; it’s much more interesting – and, sometimes, challenging – to provide answers on topics that are perhaps not so immediately related to the immediate sights of the city.

It’s not a bad occasional activity for those among the active-retired.

— John Larkindale, Bay View newsletter 74, November 2019

Famous for hothouse grapes

Half the town went there on Sunday afternoons to take refreshments and buy grapes. It was Wilkinson’s Tea Gardens on what is now the corner of Oriental Parade and Grass Street. Not one, but two David Norman Wilkinsons ran the gardens for 80 years.

The first David Wilkinson arrived in Wellington in 1841. Within a year, he was selling the ‘very showy’ Mimulis Wilkinsonii, a monkey flower. Later came roses, strawberry and cabbage plants, even hives of bees for sale. He had his own method of planting in windy places by pegging down each tree with a crook of tea-tree. The tree righted itself as it grew and as the peg rotted.

Wilkinson’s Tea Gardens were certainly open on Wellington Anniversary Day 1843 because teetotallers had a party there. Wilkinson bought ‘Poverty Hall’, the only house in Oriental Bay in about 1852. It was built of Baltic timber, brought out in sections from England by George Duppa three years earlier. Wilkinson laid out the grounds in arbours with seats. He added half a dozen hothouses to ‘catch all the sun there is going’ and grew grapes in varieties like Black Haniboro, Gros Colman and Muscat.

The Tea Gardens served fancy bread and fruit in season, tea or ginger beer. Men would order milk with a ‘stick’ in it, thought to mean alcohol, and women took home a posy of English flowers. Every school held its annual picnic with games at the gardens, and the Total Abstinence Society had 300 people there on New Year’s Day 1858 to watch the boat race.

The road to Wilkinson’s Tea Gardens was popular, busy with all sorts of people enjoying the walk. There’s an account of a messenger running after a Member of Parliament to come back for an unexpected vote. Another tells of two women, implicated in the death of a baby boy, who had stopped for tea at Wilkinson’s. ‘I keep a refreshment-house,’ said Isabella, David’s wife, at the trial. ‘Many people come to have tea.’

All this time Oriental Bay was being settled. Sections were advertised with ‘A spring of good water in every allotment.’ The Wellington City Reserves Act 1872 allowed a smallpox hospital to be built near the gardens. Wilkinson objected to that, though not to a ‘commodious’ greyhound kennels next door, the dogs bred for coursing.

Son David lost as much as £4,000 on a Rimutaka tunnel contract. That debt may have been why he and his family moved in with his father and carried on the gardens from about 1880. They were all at home on the night of 27 March 1885 when the original Duppa house caught fire and burnt down in thirty minutes. The Fire Brigade had been delayed because they could not harness the horse, frightened by the bells at Manners Street station. Every provincial newspaper ran the story that the Duppa house – a Wellington landmark – had gone.

Yet Wilkinson’s went on serving tea and being the main supplier of grapes to Wellington. They grew nineteen hundredweight (950 kilos) in 1895. Their grapes and hothouse roses ‘find much favour’ as did their mulberry leaves with schoolboys. Pat Lawlor remembered going there in 1903 when there was a craze for keeping silkworms.

After the first David Wilkinson died in 1902, his will was contested by two daughters. David had been surety for his son on the Rimutaka tunnel contract. To avoid bankruptcy, he had transferred his Oriental Bay sections to his daughters. When safe, he asked for the land back, saying that his children would inherit equally. He never wrote his promise down, and son David got almost everything. Soon son David was in court again, suing developers laying roads in Roseneath which had caused slips on his land below.

David died in 1919, and the last mention of Wilkinson’s Tea Gardens is an auction notice in 1923 for the removal of two large vineries built of totara and a plant house with sliding sashes. The gardens ended at 13 Grass Street, telephone number A 2184. But they had been created on a toi-toi foreshore round the rocks by a pioneer horticulturalist, the first David Wilkinson.

This history is based entirely on newspapers, digitised by the National Library of New Zealand and available online as Papers Past.

— Bay View newsletter 74, November 2019

Local fishing – back in the 50s

The late Neville Martin has given us some wonderful glimpses into early Oriental Bay in the excerpts from his memoir, Playing Against the Wind. Here he goes fishing in our boat harbour (abbreviated).

I would make my way from our house in Hay Street to the boat harbour on Saturday mornings, with nylon line, hooks, sinkers, bread for slush (now called burley) and bacon rind for bait. I personified hope – which, as Dr Johnston rightly said, is perhaps the greatest happiness this world affords. It’s that wonderful sense of anticipation – no, expectation – which keeps fishermen coming back for more.

I and my friends had modest aims as fishermen. We were after the grey mullet (we called them herrings) that teemed in the sheltered waters of the boat harbour. Or trevally, which appeared infrequently, or the occasional mackerel lacking the self respect to hunt in deeper waters. It was while fishing in the boat harbour that I entered the food industry.

It happened this way. The most- caught fish were spotties, but for some reason, we disdained them. We took them off our hooks and tossed them onto the wharf to complete their shuddering demise. As I mentioned, slush, made by soaking stale bread, was thrown onto the water to attract the herrings. It was an effective strategy, but they break eventually and inevitably ran out.

The building behind our fishing spot had been left there by the Americans. I believe it housed the officers’ quarters. A pipe emerging from the bowels of this building, spewed out a continuous stream of scalding water.

I hit upon the idea of gathering up the deceased spotties and putting them under the pipe till the hot water cooked them. They were then mashed up and thrown into the water as a high-protein substitue for bread. Cannibalism being firmly established in the world of fish, I felt no moral twinge. Nor, for that matter, did the herrings.

My collection of herrings went home to be offered to our cat, Frankie, who once ate 20 of them at a sitting. Admittedly they were small and Frankie wasn’t. But 20 herrings surely should have short-listed him for the Guinness Book of Records.

— Bay View newsletter 74, November 2019

The boat harbour in the early days

A landmark building with memories

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

Masters Swimming: ‘Fun, Fitness, Friendship’

Margaret Fairhall shares her love of master swimming and tells us how it all came about:

Over thirty years ago I was at a friend’s 40th birthday party and overheard a woman saying how she felt “wonderful and full of energy”. I just had to find out what was causing her state of good health and vitality. Perhaps she had taken up yoga or meditation or even mountain climbing? Whatever it was I had to get some of it too. I asked and the answer was that she had taken up swimming at the Freyberg Pool.

Well, I thought, I used to be a swimmer in my school days – not a champion (that was my younger sister) but I wasn’t too bad. So the next morning I got up early and headed to the local pool and swam two lengths. I was exhausted and the chlorine stung my eyes.

I bought goggles and two days later added two more lengths. Two days later, another two lengths. Eventually I got up to forty (1 km) and moved from the slow lane to the medium speed lane; then the fast lane. I was hooked and felt wonderful!

Another swimmer in the fast lane said that I should join a Masters Swim Club. I contacted Harbour Capital Masters based at The Kilbirnie Aquatic Centre and turned up to their Wednesday evening session. Everyone was so friendly and put me in a lane where Jim Drummond (QSM) was giving coaching. Jim is a legend in the swimming scene in Wellington. He is now 95 and still swims regularly. He has taught swimming on Friday evenings at the Freyberg Pool for over 40 years – my daughter used to attend back in the 1980s.

For many years I swam with Harbour Capital on Sunday evenings. But as I am not really an evening-active person, I started to train with another master swimmer early in the morning at the pool in Johnsonville. I then joined up to NZ Masters Swimming and have since competed all around New Zealand and the world.

Margaret is wearing the two bronze medals won at the Pan Pacific Masters Games on The Gold Coast, November 2018, for 1500m and 400m freestyle.

My first overseas event was the World Swimming Masters Championships in Indianapolis in 1992. Since then I’ve competed in World championships in Sheffield, Munich, Perth, San Francisco, Christchurch, Montreal, Auckland and The Gold Coast.

We compete in 5-year age groups from age 25-29 upwards – there have been swimmers aged up to 98. Kath Johnston from Auckland was in Montreal competing, aged 97. She was the oldest there and quite a celebrity! There are qualifying times for both men and women and for each 5-year age group. So far I have always qualified. 

Quite a few of the competitors were either Olympic or Commonwealth Games swimmers, way out of my league. The best placing I have achieved in a World 50 metres freestyle event, aged 60, was 35th out of 73 competitors in my age group.

I mostly train on my own at the Freyberg Pool. I also join a Tri & Swim Fit group (triathletes and ocean swimmers) at 5.30am out at Cannon’s Creek Pool in Porirua East. I actually train much harder when I am pushed by Barb, our rather demanding coach. I have to admit she does get the best out of me and I often go on to do PBs (personal bests) at swim meets after her tough programmes.

Even though I live over the road from Oriental Bay Beach I don’t often swim in the sea. If I do, I usually just swim from the beach by the Band Rotunda once around the raft and back. Last summer the sea was full of creatures, including invisible small jelly-like salps – it felt as if you were swimming through porridge! My TriFit group swims every Sunday all year at 8am from Freyberg Beach to the Point Jerningham lighthouse and back. I watch them from my kitchen whilst having breakfast.

— Margaret Fairhall, Bay View newsletter 73, April 2019

Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club history – up to the present

In 1983 the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club celebrated its centennial. So began another phase of its development, which we describe here in our third and last article on the history of the club (abbreviated from its website).

The Club had no apparent legal title to the Clubhouse despite an alleged “gentleman’s agreement” concluded many years earlier. The Club finally purchased the Clubhouse in 1986 for $21,000 with a 60-year on-site lease.

No sooner had the ink dried on the lease document than plans were drawn up to rebuild the Club’s newly acquired, but ageing, building.

In May 1987 the builders moved in. By September the ground floor wardroom, showers and toilets were ready, and the Club re-opened for business. The official opening by the Governor-General took place on 29 November 1987 when the entire Clubhouse including restaurant, wardroom, offices and conference room were opened to members.

In the space of four years the Club had progressed from being the tenant of a run-down 50-year-old ex-hostel with cash assets of less than $50,000 to the owner of a building valued at $1.3 million. This was due to innovative fundraising, including the introduction of corporate memberships.

In 1991, the Sailing Development Programme was started, followed two years later by the opening of RPNYC Sailing Academy, a full-time sail training amenity for the Wellington region. A recent fruition of the club’s youth sailing scheme was that Josh Junior, who went through the programme, was part of the crew of the 2017 America’s Cup team. He was also nominated for the Wellington Hospitality Group’s Sportsperson of the Year Awards (2018).

In 1998 the old Clubhouse at the eastern end of Clyde Quay boat harbour was renovated and the Sailing Academy relocated there. Sir Peter Blake was the guest of honour at the official opening in November 1998. 

Many races were established over these years and many notable wins were achieved, such as in the Auckland-Suva race and the Whangarei-Noumea. Some extraordinary adventures are recorded in the club’s annals, like that of the 45ft Matuku which struck a whale in the Tasman Sea and sank. Its crew drifted in their life raft for five days before being rescued.

At Olympic and national representative level, Hugh Poole and Hal Wagstaff have been members of New Zealand Olympic yachting teams and Hal Wagstaff was elected President of Yachting New Zealand from 1989 to 1991.

In the early 1990s the Club introduced sprint racing, two-handed racing and then the President’s Division. In 1993 the Club became an active participant in the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race for the first time. The launching of Grant Dalton’s New Zealand Endeavour, jointly flagged out of RPNYC and the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, took place on 7 November that year. New Zealand Endeavour was top maxi and fastest yacht overall in the 1993-94 Whitbread.

In 1994 the Club ran the Tasman Triangle yacht race in conjunction with the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia and the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania, with the race incorporating the 50th anniversary Sydney to Hobart Classic Yacht Race. May 2003 saw the biggest Club blue water fleet since the Tasman Triangle leave Wellington for the Auckland to Musket Cove (Fiji) race.

The 3-day LINE 7 Port Nicholson Regatta began in 1999. The 2000 event was Wellington’s first keelboat championship for many years and the first ORC Club National Championship. The 2007 event was changed to be an IRC Club National Championship and timed to fall during the Wellington stopover of the Fully Crewed Round the North Island race.

In 2014 young sailors made first and second in the NZ Youth Match Racing Nationals. 2014 also saw success for the Club’s big boats when Blink took the Elliot Trophy for line honours in the two-handed round the North Island race. Blink competed in the Auckland to Fiji race in 2016 and 2017 and won the Elliot Trophy for overall fastest time.

In 2015 the wardroom was refurbished in partnership with Wellington Hospitality Group. As part of the project the restaurant re-opened as Coene’s Bar & Eatery – named after the Commander of the US forces based at Clyde Quay during WWII.

In 1917, the club embarked on a sailing partnership with the Evans Bay YMBC and Lowry Bay YC. Each club hosts two races which add up to a combined series of six races competing for the inter-club cup. The first series held late 2017 had a great turnout with big fleets. It is planned to make it an annual event.

The club is beginning the process of earthquake strengthening of the club house, which will take some years to complete.

A paper run in Oriental Bay

Below is another chapter from Neville Martin’s Playing Against the Wind  – his memoir of growing up in Oriental Bay in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Long before the newspaper was delivered by the process of being flung, cocooned in plastic, from the window of a moving car, boys or girls undertook the task of distribution on foot. Here I speak of the late lamented Evening Post. The Dominion you had to purchase from a dairy or street vendor.

A paper run meant a steady, if menial, income. I entered the business, as it were, as a sub-contractor. My friend Johnny Edmundson split his run, and his ‘pay’, with me. He, in company with 99 per cent of the human race, had a better head for business than I and handled all financial negotiations with the sub-agent. I collected my pile of papers every afternoon around 4.30 and got on with it.

The best part was Saturday morning, when we went off to collect what was owing from the subscribers, along with any tips they might feel inclined to offer.

We had nicknames for many of our customers; but today I can recall but two. One was a Mrs Schneiderman who lived in the Anscombe flats on Oriental Terrace. We labelled her ‘Mysteries of the East’ because inside her front door was a vase, which might possibly have been oriental in origin, placed on an occasional table. Behind it stood a standard lamp (with a red bulb), which caused the lamp to cast a shadow onto a curtain. This tableau we saw as somehow Eastern and, along with the name Schneiderman, suggested something distinctly mysterious. You couldn’t get much more exotic than that in Wellington in 1952.

Then there was ‘Magic Carpet’. The lady in question lived on the second storey of a house towards the bottom of Hay Street and, apparently, had some trouble with stairs. Collecting the paper money from her required a special routine. You knocked on the downstairs door and waited for her upstairs window to open.

“Paper money,” you bellowed. “one and three.” Then you waited. A head would appear from the window, followed by an arm, which released the card supplied by the Evening Post to all subscribers for the purpose of keeping track of their transactions. It would flutter gracefully to the ground like something from Ali Baba (on still days) or head further afield if the wind was in capricious mood. Once the card had been retrieved and initialled, the correct coinage was dropped from the window – sometimes accompanied by a tip. You then slipped the card under the old dear’s door and the job was done.

And then there was Paul (surname withheld to protect his relatives), who lived in a large house further up the street and of whom the neighbours lived in constant dread. Paul, it seems, had been a noted civil servant, till the bottle got the better of him. He was not only a spectacular alcoholic but a practicing fire bug to boot. A number of minor blazes were ascribed to his enthusiasm for conflagrations. None, I think, caused major damage. On one locally famous occasion he wrote in to the 2ZB request session and asked the station to play ‘I want to set the world on fire’. The adults of the neighbourhood were horrified. The young thought it hilarious. 

Collecting Paul’s paper money was generally the highlight of the morning. He usually did something outrageous. On one magnificent occasion his door opened in response to our knock and there was Paul, resplendent in blue and white striped pyjamas, admiring a blaze he had just ignited in a wastepaper basket. He gazed approvingly at his handiwork for a moment or two, then opened his fly and piddled the blaze into submission.

We elected to retreat, rather than complicate matters with high finance. There was always next week.

Neville Martin

In Memoriam: Neville Martin died in October last year. By an extraordinary coincidence, David Barber, who wrote Martin’s obituary in the DominionPost from which this tribute is taken, flatted at 20 Hay Street when he first came to New Zealand. This was Neville Martin’s old home which had been converted into flats.

“One of the best PR jobs in the country” said Neville Martin of his job with the NZ Dairy Board where he worked for 30 years. In 2002, he won the title of Communicator of the Year from the NZ Guild of Agricultural Journalists and Communicators – he was a life member and president in 2006-07.

Martin began his working life as a cadet reporter on Wellington’s Evening Post in 1959, leaving in 1965 to join the government’s Tourism and Publicity Department. He was press secretary to Agriculture Minister Brian Talboys and Deputy Prime Minister Sir John Marshall before joining the Dairy Board.

He is remembered for his expertise, integrity and honesty as well as his legendary irreverence and self-deprecating sense of humour. The latter comes out in his books: By the Seat of My Pants, Till the Cows Come Home and his memoir Playing Against the Wind which we enjoy in Bay View.

Birth of a hippopotamus

The original of the giant hippopotamus that looms splendidly over the entrance of what was called the Museum Art Hotel (now QT Wellington Hotel) was born in my garage. I wave at it every time I walk by.

Our apartment block in Oriental Terrace was built 15 years ago by Chris Parkin (then-owner of the Museum Hotel). His ex-wife and their teenage son and daughter lived in the top apartment, just above ours, for several years. Parkin had bought the Michael Fowler Hotel on the waterfront (wanted for the site of Te Papa) and famously rolled it 120 metres across Cable Street, on rails and bogie trolleys, to its present location. After its eccentric beginnings, he wanted some equally eccentric decorations for his new hotel – preferably weird … zany… quirky.

His delightful daughter, Meredith, art/design student back then, decided to rise to the challenge and make the first zany contribution to her father’s new hotel. She started putting strange wire shapes up in the communal garage beneath our apartments. I was mystified when a long wire skeleton appeared. Then she added some legs and a giant snout. She started covering the wires – a fiddly long-winded process. Little eyes … little ears appeared. This shape was starting to look decidedly like a very large animal!

Meredith spent hours and hours down in the garage. She had to restrict her efforts to her free time away from design school, so it took many months. But, at last, a hippopotamus, large as life, stood in our garage, taking up almost a whole car space.

One day I went out and when I drove home – no Hippo. How it got transported to the Museum Art Hotel I have no idea. But finally it was positioned upstairs, just outside the Hippopotamus Restaurant. It stood guard outside the restaurant for many months before a patron who had over-imbibed, decided to have a ride on it. Hippo did not survive this undignified treatment and crumpled. 

By this time the hippopotamus was the permanent name and motif of the restaurant, so a successor had to be made. But Hippo’s spirit lives on in the magnificent golden hippopotamus that bellows forth above the entrance to the QT Wellington Hotel.Whenever I go past I’m reminded that his forerunner was born in my garage.

— Judith Doyle, Bay View newsletter 73, April 2019