Maori History:
Maori had settlements in Central Otago, associated with early occupation. Six were known on Lake Hawea (Te Taweha o Hawea, Mahaea, O tu Purupuru, Turihuka, Te Taumanu o Taki and Pakituhi) and one near Cromwell (Wairere). The moa-rich area was known for camps where moa were butchered and cooked (for example there were large sites in the Hawksburn and Happy Valley areas, as well as the Nevis Valley), and there were quarries used for stone tools in the region of Tiger Hills and Mount Benger. The swampy plains in the Maniototo provided eels and other food resources. Though Maori are known to have joined the goldrushes, little is known about their participation in the rush at Naseby. There are no recorded Maori archaeological sites in Naseby.
Hotels in Goldfield Towns:
The history of gold mining in Central Otago began with Gabriel Read’s discovery of gold in Gabriel’s Gully, near present-day Lawrence, in 1861. The following year Hartley and Reilly left this gully and travelled further into Central Otago. They spent the winter prospecting in the now-flooded Clutha Gorge between present day Clyde and Cromwell, finding enough gold in the area to travel back to Dunedin and lodge 87 pounds with the Gold Receiver. Gold was quickly discovered in other parts of the region, including places such as Arrowtown and Queenstown, and in 1862, in the Maniototo, leading to the birth of the town. First known as Parkers, and later as Hogburn, Naseby grew into a bustling town characteristic of other similar settlements, such as St Bathans.
There were an estimated 78 goldfields in Central Otago, boom towns sprung up to service the gold diggings, and disappeared just as quickly as the gold returns for the itinerant miners. Little remains of these places. Historian John Angus writes ‘[when the miners decamped so too did the commercial section of many of the early towns. This pattern was repeated many times, often at remote locations in Central Otago. But some settlements remained, undergoing a sort of metamorphosis to become service centres for the subsequent stages of more stable mining.’
Publicans were important in these developing communities and were among the earliest residents. Goldfields administrator and politician Vincent Pyke wrote that the storekeeper and publican were the start of the community that only became ‘a proper town’ with the government official and the surveyor. Writer Anthony Trollope, a visitor in 1872, commented that there were three successive styles of architecture: canvas, in which residences, business establishments and government ‘buildings’ alike were tents; a corrugated iron period, for it was portable, very easily shaped, capable of quick construction, and it keeps out the rain’; and finally wood and stone. The last were seldom seen in Central Otago towns at the time of his visit.’
Towns developed haphazardly. Historian John Angus writes that gold mining towns were often an ‘incongruous jumble of handsome stone hotels and public buildings, ornate shop facades often masking bare corrugated iron sides, and ramshackle tin sheds.’ These were often ‘frontier towns’: ‘hotels, illicit sly-grog shops, gambling booths and what Europeans called the ‘opium dens’ of the Chinese. Over the towns there often remained an air of impermanence.’
In 1872 there were 220 licensed hotels on the Otago goldfields, one for every 200 citizens; by 1980 there was one for every 2,500. Hotels were an integral part of goldfields life, David McGill notes that it was said that you needed ‘one drinking hole for every thirty miners.’ There were, for example, 22 hotels between Queenstown and Skippers, St Bathans had 13 hotels for its 2,000 inhabitants, Hills Creek had 13 and far less people. Macraes Flat also had 14 hotels, nearby Nenthorn, 22.
Hotels on the goldfields, like those in Dunedin, were important meeting places, and were social centres. Geographer and historian Ray Hargreaves writes that hotels were used as meeting places for groups such as lodges, sporting and cultural groups, and also for coroner’s inquests.
The Establishment of Naseby:
The site of the Naseby goldfields and township was originally part of a depasturing license Run 204 called the Sowburn. After the discovery of gold the Otago Provincial Council cancelled the license and proclaimed the Mt Ida Goldfield.
In May 1863 prospectors working their way across the Maniototo from the Dunstan found gold in the vicinity of Naseby. More gold was found in the gully near the head of the Hogburn close to the location of the later township. By the beginning of July, five gullies were being mined and by the end of the month a canvas town had sprung up. This town, with a population of around 2,000, had a main street with about eighteen stores, two bakers and a butchery. By August 1863 5,000 men were reported prospecting in the Naseby locality.
While the original canvas town was set up in the Hogburn Gully, when the official town of Naseby was surveyed it was situated at the mouth of the gully, about a kilometre from the original location. The name Naseby was evidently taken from the English town that was the birthplace of John Hyde Harris, Superintendant of Otago in the 1860s. Mt Ida was a term used for the wider area.
While Naseby’s fortunes had declined with the ending of the gold mining era, this was further accentuated when the Central Otago railway line was constructed through Ranfurly in 1879, marginalising Naseby from the main transport route.
The Royal Hotel:
The first Royal Hotel was built in October 1863 for Andrew Morrison and Co., one of three constructed when Hogburn was moved to its current site. As would be expected, the Royal Hotel became a popular venue, with the Jewish New Year commemorated there in September 1863, licensees Morrison and Robinson providing a ‘grand supper’. Local entertainment also included Punch and Judy shows, alongside the miners’ meetings and discussions about new gold rushes. That first structure was wrecked in a storm two years later. The rebuilt structure reopened in 1865. Morrison was known for his catering and reasonable board. In 1869 Cobb and Co began using the Royal Hotel as its Naseby depot for mail and passengers.
In October 1878 a tender of £1,030 was accepted from George Stephens for additions to the Hotel. In April 1879 the Mt Ida Chronicle announced that the new Royal Hotel had opened. This is said to have consisted of accommodation that adjoined the existing bar area. It had two sitting rooms 13ft by 16ft (4 by 5m), the ceilings lined with 12" (30cm) Kauri, with cornice mouldings and ornamental skirtings. There was a spacious lobby and twelve single and double bedrooms as well as two bathrooms. The ceilings were 11ft (3.5) high with tongue and groove Kauri boards. The old frontage of the building was taken down and replaced with rusticated weatherboards, with ornamental pilasters surmounted by entablature. The street frontage was now 75ft (23m) wide. The Royal was the first hotel in Naseby to have a separate entrance for guests, whereas all others had the entrance only through the bar, frequently embarrassing for the ladies’.
In a photograph dated 1901 the façade of both parts of the building can be seen with the original windows in the bar area and the ornamental pilasters and entablature.
The Royal Hotel was a venue for celebrations and for entertaining visiting dignitaries. In March 1905, for example, the Minister of Mines, Hon. J. McGowan, was entertained to a banquet at the Hotel by the Mount Ida Miners’ Association. A month later the Leader of the Opposition W.F. Massey attended a banquet at the Hotel attended by townspeople as well as miners, and farmers from the surrounding. Licensee Mr Ryan’s fare was much vaunted.
Licensees changed regularly through the twentieth century. One of the longer serving publicans was Thomas Hotton who held the lease from the 1920s to the 1940s.
The façade of the Royal Hotel was roughcast in the early 1960s. The roughcast façade had its own significance, often painted bright colours. The façade caught the eye of prominent New Zealand photographer Robin Morrison, who included an image of the green façade in his book From the Road. The Royal Hotel is identified in Brian Frazer’s publication ‘Naseby Notebook’ (a survey of Naseby’s important buildings) as a significant building to Naseby.
In 2003 the Hotel underwent further alterations in consultation with NZHPT. Owners Barbara Chisholm and Christopher Spears rebuilt the kitchen and renovated the bar area. They also removed the Art Deco roughcast façade to expose the original façade, removing the 1970s aluminium windows and replacing them with double-hung sash windows. Where rusticated weatherboards remained, these were retained, and replaced with cladding of a like kind where absent. The detailing of the original façade was reconstructed from historic photographs. The low pitched gable end/pediment was to be reinstated to Earne Street. A removable boardwalk was to be constructed on the Earne Street frontage for outdoor seating.
At the same time the bathroom facilities were altered in the accommodation wing to include 3 showers and 3 toilets, retaining original bath and basins where possible. Recycled double-hung sash windows were installed between the men’s toilets and the main fireplace, replacing the aluminium window. The accommodation upgrade aimed at retaining the ‘essential essence of the historic accommodation, undulating floors and all’ and limit changes to that area. A small addition was made to the rear of the accommodation wing to house a laundry. The refurbished Hotel had nine guest rooms (three with ensuites), a 30 seat Banquet Room as well as a bar and with dining facilities.
In 2010 the Royal Hotel remains a water place for visitors and locals alike, and provides accommodation for the growing number of visitors to Naseby.
