Built in 1923 for Invercargill’s Craig Printing Company Limited, this two-storey brick commercial building has historic and architectural significance.

In the 1870s, a four-room cottage and garden occupied Section 4 Block XII on Tay Street, on the fringes of Invercargill’s business district. The land was owned by William Sloan and leased, at least in part, to William Craig. Dublin-born William Craig learned his trade as a compositor before following the call of gold to Victoria Australia, and then to Otago and the West Coast before settling in Invercargill where he became proprietor of the Southland News. One of the 4 shops on the section was a small timber building that housed Willam Craig’s printing company from 1876. Around 1880, Craig replaced his original building on the same site. In 1901, the land was sold to Invercargill bootmaker David Fairweather, who continued leasing the land to Craig. William died in 1903, with son Samuel taking over the business and presumably the lease. Samuel Craig sold the business in 1920, moving to the North Island. The company continued under new ownership.

In 1918, after David Fairweather’s death, his estate was sold, the sale notice advertising that there were three shops on Section 4. Invercargill builder Thomas Metcalfe bought the land in 1923, in turn selling it to Craig’s Printing Company Limited in the same year, who constructed the current building on the site.

The shop and factory are brick. The shop front is two-storey with paired pediments with ornate detailing. The first floor windows have ornamented lintels with scrollwork. Below the veranda, the shopfront has been modified. The stationery shop occupied the front of the building and the printing factory in the rear.

It is reported that in 1925 Craig Printing Company Limited were the first in New Zealand to purchase a Heidelberg letterpress , and advertised for a letterpress machinist that March. The premises were altered and added to in the 1960s. Craig’s Printing Company occupied the site until 2001, when it purchased Atlas Print, and the factory moved to Atlas Print’s factory in Yarrow Street. In 2018, the building is home to the retail premises of Smiths City.