Gilfillan's Store (Former)

95 Queen Street, Exhange Lane and Mills Lane, AUCKLAND

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Dating from 1865 and possibly incorporating earlier building remnants, Gilfillan’s Store (Former) has special historical and architectural significance as a rare, visually well preserved, purpose-built commercial warehouse and store. The place occupies a site on the original foreshore of New Zealand’s largest city. The three-storey brick building with plaster finish was commissioned by politician and business leader John Anderson Gilfillan and is the second oldest known surviving commercial building in Auckland’s Queen Street. Combined with the adjoining thoroughfares Exchange Lane and Mills Lane, the place represents the earliest surviving stages of Auckland’s commercial development and is a remnant of the city’s nineteenth-century landscape and layout in the central business district. The Commercial Bay shoreline was an important area of activity for Maori before colonial arrival, and became a major landing place for people and supplies after founding of the colonial capital in 1840. The site lying within the tidal fringe was part of a Grant purchased by three Scottish carpenters at the Crown’s first land sale. A two-storey warehouse erected in timber soon occupied each of the three lots created in 1845. In the 1850s Gilfillan erected a two-storey bond store in brick in the rear of Marshall’s property, the southernmost of the three holdings. A new three-story store, warehouse and office building designed in a plain Italianate style by early Auckland architect Richard Keals was erected for Gilfillan and Company in 1865. Replacing existing timber buildings, the structure evidently incorporated a circa 1849-54 foundation. Gilfillan’s store offering a wide variety of merchandise was taken over by commission agent and wholesaler Robert Lusk in 1869. A substantial three-storey addition was made to the rear between 1869 and 1877. Collins Brothers, who subsequently became what is believed to be the colony’s first wholesale manufacturing stationery and a forerunner of the influential publisher Harper Collins New Zealand, tenanted the building from 1881 until 1889. Seeds merchant Arthur Yates and Company occupied the address until 1896. The lease was briefly taken up by mining agents, giving rise to the name Mining Chambers retained until the late 1990s. In 1898, the side lane - long an access to the nearby stock exchange - officially became Exchange Lane. The Marshall property was purchased by tailor Hugh Wright in 1922, and remained in the family until 1994. In 1959 a new coffee bar in the building became one of New Zealand’s earliest pavement cafés. Exchange Lane was developed as a pedestrian mall in 1971. The building was upgraded in 1984 after fire and was recently renamed Ranchhod Chambers. The former Gilfillan’s Store has aesthetic value a striking visual reminder of early colonial Auckland. It has aesthetic value as a focal point and visual landmark at the western end of Fort Street, a shared space designed to reflect the cultural and geographical history of Auckland’s original shoreline area. The place has outstanding historical value for reflecting important stages in Auckland’s emergence and development as New Zealand’s pre-eminent commercial and financial centre from the mid-nineteenth century onwards; and has special significance for its close associations with a number of significant individuals and interests that contributed to Auckland’s commercial development. The place has special architectural value as a well preserved simple Italianate commercial building dating from the end of the period when Auckland was colonial capital; and as the earliest known surviving design by noted Auckland architect, Richard Keals.

Gilfillan’s Store (Former) and Exchange Lane looking west | Joan McKenzie | 06/02/2011 | NZ Historic Places Trust

Location

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List Entry Information

Overview

Detailed List Entry

Status

Listed

List Entry Status

Historic Place Category 1

Access

Private/No Public Access

List Number

9581

Date Entered

6th June 2011

Date of Effect

6th June 2011

City/District Council

Auckland Council

Region

Auckland Council

Extent of List Entry

Extent includes the land described as Pt Allot 8 Sec 17 Town of Auckland (RT NA751/49), NZ Gazette 1951, p.1393 and Pt road reserve Mills Lane, North Auckland Land District and the buildings or structures known as Gilfillan's Store (Former) thereon, and their fittings and fixtures, the service lane known as Exchange Lane including the staircase, the former public toilet, retaining wall, and kerb stones and railing adjoining the Mills Lane staircase entrance. (Refer to map in Appendix 1 of the registration report for further information).

Legal description

Pt Allot 8 Sec 17 Town of Auckland (RT NA751/49), NZ Gazette 1951, p.1393 and Pt road reserve Mills Lane, North Auckland Land District

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