Oamaru’s Criterion Hotel, opened in 1877 and designed in elaborate Italianate style on a prominent corner site by architectural partnership Forrester and Lemon. The building has special architectural, historical and social significance as an ornate reminder of Oamaru’s prosperity.

William Gillespie built the Criterion Hotel. The Criterion was opened at the end of 1877. The North Otago Times described it as ‘the most ornamental of the recent additions to our street architecture.’ Designed by Oamaru architectural partnership Forrester and Lemon and built of Oamaru stone from the Cave Valley quarries, it was built in an elaborate Italianate style. The completed portion had a frontage of 96 feet [29.2 metres] to Tyne Street, and a 90 foot [27.4 metres] frontage to Harbour Street, ‘forming a very handsome corner.’ The façade was 35 feet high [10.7 metres]. The lower storey was ‘ornamented with rusticated pilasters dividing the two facades into eleven bays[,] the spaces being filled in with double circular headed windows, with the exception of the corner and two centre bays which are occupied by doorways of a more or less ornamental character.’ The upper façade was similar, with panelled pilasters, ‘enriched with drop ornaments and carved capitals.’ The windows had a flat arch, ornamented with a shield keystone, and the architraves had a scroll at the base. The whole of the building was surmounted with a balustrade, with the centre bay finished with a sold tympanum, ‘having the name of the hotel highly enriched with shield and scroll ornaments.’ The writer also praised the interior for its ‘well lighted and lofty rooms’ – the ceilings on the lower floor being over 13 foot [13.9 metres], with those on the upper floor being 12 foot [3.6 metres]. On the ground floor was a bar, a smaller bar parlour and a private parlour, a small sitting room and a dining room. The staircase was built of white pine. There were twelve rooms on the first floor – three sitting rooms and nine bedrooms, both single and double.

The Criterion Hotel incorporated rooms above Connell and Clowes premises that were being erected at the same time. A further ten rooms, located over Connell and Clowes offices were to be added in a few days, making a total of 28 rooms. This was Connell and Clowes’ first store and offices with the design forming part of the Criterion’s façade, although the businesses and the buildings were separate, as made clear by the entrance which has ‘Connell and Clowes’ on the pediment on the first floor (See List Entry No. 2283). The offices and wool store have never been part of the hotel operation. In later years the hotel rooms were closed off and were unused.

Gillespie sold the hotel to Peter Alexander. Alexander sold to William Manning around 1888. John Marshall Brown, who had run the nearby Star and Garter Hotel, owned the hotel. There was a steady change of owners throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century. After Oamaru voted for Prohibition in 1906, the Criterion survived as a Temperance Hotel. By the 1930s, it was in a poor state of repair. In the 1940s, Gillies Foundry and Engineering Company bought the building and used it as a store for the material from their Tyne Street foundry until the mid-1990s. In later years the Whitestone Civic Trust took over the building. The Trust has since restored the Hotel, returning the parapet detailing to its original form. The hotel has been refurbished and in 2015, it once again offers accommodation for travellers and hospitality to travellers and locals alike.