Early history of the site: Prior to European colonisation, Maori occupied numerous sites beside the Waitemata Harbour and the Whau and used its associated bays for transport, food-gathering and other purposes. The bay which now borders Auckland’s commercial centre was linked with settlement in the Waihorotiu Valley and its adjoining headlands, which has been traditionally connected with Ngati Huarere, Te Waiohua and Ngati Whatua. Beyond the headlands to the southwest lay Opoutukeha / Opou, the current Cox’s Creek, an ancient boundary of the Ngati Huarere rohe. The catchment drained the southern slopes of the current Ponsonby / Grey Lynn ridge. Gardens were located on the northern slopes above Opou and flax fibre was beaten out at Tukitukimuta near present day upper Pollen Street. Ngati Whatua’s offer to transfer a large area of land to the British Crown for the creation of a colonial capital was formally agreed in September 1840 with Opou forming a defining boundary. Commencing in 1844, land in present-day Grey Lynn and Westmere (well beyond the formal extent of the colonial town) was auctioned. In 1884, the 1845 Crown Grant for Allotments 40 and 41 of Section 8 became subsumed within the Surrey Hills Estate, an extensive low-cost suburban subdivision promoted by the Auckland Agricultural Company a venture linked with large Waikato land interests. A seven-lot parcel was purchased in Richmond Road in 1885 by William Crush Daldy (c.1815-1903), Shirley Whitfield Hill (1849?-1908) and Theodore Minet Haultain (1817-1902) as trustees for the proposed Costley Training Institution. The three trustees were official visitors of the Auckland Industrial School where they had conducted an inquiry in 1883. Construction of the Costley Training Institute (1886): The CostIey Training Institute was purpose-designed as a boys’ home and training institution. Founded under special legislation, the facility was established to train disadvantaged but deserving young people selected from industrial schools in or near Auckland. It reflected a developing institutional approach to welfare in late-nineteenth century New Zealand; a growing focus by voluntary organisations on working with selected clienteles; and the establishment, design and construction of institutions as solid memorials to philanthropy. The two-storey brick building with stone detailing was the first of four substantial structures erected with funds from a large bequest left by an early Auckland resident and businessman, Edward Costley (1796?-1883). Costley had specified that his fortune should be used to benefit charitable institutions in Auckland including the Auckland Hospital, the Parnell Orphan Home, the Auckland Free Public Library, the Sailors’ Home, and the Kohimaramara Naval Training School. The Kohimarama facility opened under the Naval Training Schools Act 1874 catered for boys aged ten to fifteen who were destitute; those charged with a punishable offence; or those whose parents wished to have them committed for training. The school was designed primarily to train boys for the merchant navy, although inmates received a general education and could opt to serve an apprenticeship for a land-based trade. The facility closed in 1882 whereupon the leased premises became the boys’ branch of the Auckland Industrial School, raising doubt as to whether the Costley bequest could be paid to the government-controlled school. The Auckland Industrial School founded in 1869 under the Neglected and Criminal Children Act 1867 was one of ten institutions predominantly run by local or church bodies for children in the colony. The Costley Training Institution Act 1885 provided for the founding of a new facility to cater for suitable children of ‘ages fit to be apprenticed’ who had been committed to local industrial schools by a magistrate due to destitution or parental neglect. The legislation was sponsored by Premier (later Sir) Robert Stout, a strong supporter of technical education and the development of self reliance. The large Richmond Road site selected for the new institution was located near the industries of Grey Lynn and lay within the working-class residential subdivision of Surrey Hills. Rural or semi-rural locations were generally favoured as sites for institutions in order to keep inmates away from what was perceived as the corrupting influences of towns, and to enable development of moral character through physical work such as gardening. Slow land sales during the economic depression of the late 1880s and the early 1890s resulted in much of the Surrey Hills estate being leased for stock grazing, prolonging the area’s semi-rural character. Auckland architect Robert Jones Roberts (c.1832-1911) was commissioned to design the two-storey Costley Training Institute which was to provide living quarters for a custodian and accommodation for twenty five boys of apprenticeship age who would remain under the Trust until capable of earning a living from their trade and controlling their own affairs. Roberts, a preacher in the Congregational Church, may have won the commission through the influence of fellow-Congregationalist William Daldy who was one of the Institute’s trustees. The design of the Institute premises was of a Classical-Italianate style. The nineteenth-century Neo-classical architectural form combining symmetry and order was generally preferred for Non-conformist places of worship and civic or public buildings. Elaborate detailing included stone quoins, arched window openings, pediments and corbelled eaves, elements more commonly associated with the commercial premises and grand villas of wealthy professionals and merchants. The visually interesting building echoed Costley’s objective of giving worthy orphan and destitute children advantages which could not reasonably be provided from public funds, and was one of an increasing number of structures erected in brick, a material highlighting Auckland’s transition from a former colonial frontier settlement to an established urban centre. The contract was awarded in December 1885 to builder Thomas Colebrook, the lowest of the twenty two tenderers. The project coincided with the onset of the late-nineteenth century depression in Auckland, saving the trustees an estimated £500 in cost and employing a number of artisans in need of work. The residential institution completed in August 1886 stood behind a low brick wall with decorative cast iron railings similar to those commonly associated with the homes of Auckland’s well-to-do. The privately-funded, non-denominational institution with a relatively small number of residents was a marked contrast to a number of government and Catholic industrial schools which occupied premises of austere design or buildings originally erected for other purposes. The two-storey building of ‘H’ plan layout encouraged fresh air and adequate light. The strictly symmetrical facade terminated in slightly projecting wings and had a centrally-located portico. For economy and convenience the kitchen and storerooms were centrally located in a rear wing. Internally, a dining room; a sitting room with a recess for a library; the manager’s quarters; and service rooms including kitchen, pantry, scullery and storerooms were located on the ground floor. Stairways were located at either end of a hall that ran along the front of the building on both floors. Upstairs were six bedrooms and an infirmary. The facility was said to offer more comforts and conveniences than those enjoyed by the sons of nine out of ten tradesmen in the city. Use as the Costley Institute (1886-1908): In common with many other charities in the 1880s, the Costley Training Institution focused on a specific field of need and ideas of ‘deservedness’, secure in the knowledge that public sector institutions and the charitable aid system provided a safety net for more challenging cases. The Institute took pride in rearing as useful citizens, lads who otherwise might have proved a source of danger and expense to the community. The indenturing of children from orphanages and charitable institutions was a well established practice under the Master and Apprentice Act 1865, one of the first pieces of New Zealand labour legislation, and the apprenticeship system was seen as vital for supplying the skilled labour required to build and service the growing colony. Although economic recession and the growth of the cities made social problems more visible in the 1880s and 1890s, the trustees reiterated that applications from parents and others wishing to place children in training were not granted. The focus of the Costley trustees was on boys whose character and antecedents were good, or those likely to profit by or be a credit to the institution. The boys were maintained, a portion of their earnings being deducted for their keep, until they were capable of controlling of their own affairs. Younger boys attended the nearest school until the end of standard four. In 1886 the Costley Training Institute received a £672 endowment under the will of a Mrs Rebecca Hodge (d.1884), to be invested for the benefit of girls. Although girls were catered for from the outset, they were boarded out with reputable families. The older ones entered domestic service, the single largest employment category for women; or received training for factory work, a growing area of employment less favourably regarded by guardians. The capably managed institution was likened to a Man-of-War. As in similar mid-to-late nineteenth-century institutions, cleanliness and respectability were synonymous; and order, discipline and habit formation were seen as an essential part of training. The boys assisted with housework and the garden, and regularly attended church and daily family worship. They were encouraged to regard the institution as their home and corporal punishment was strictly controlled. In 1902, a welcome home function was held for old boy Captain Wood on his return from the Boer War. Carpentry skills were taught four evenings a week. In 1891, the workshop on the site was relocated and converted into a tool shed. A larger workshop was erected in brick, by contractor J. J. Holland, and housed a wood turning lathe and a blacksmith forge. A gymnasium was constructed at the rear of the property in 1898, a year before the holding was slightly enlarged with the purchase of an adjoining lot. Under Auckland sports trainer Professor Carrollo, gymnastic displays were staged for visitors and dignitaries, and at community events. The boys also undertook drill training, and on the occasion of Governor and Lady Plunket’s 1906 visit formed a guard of honour and performed lancers’ exercises. Boys in Auckland had been instructed in drill since mid-1894 to encourage discipline and abate larrikin nuisance. School Cadets had taken strong root in Australasia by 1902 and became compulsory for male students over the age of twelve under the Defence Act 1909. Around the turn of the century a regime of exercise, cold bathing and strict training was widely promoted in education circles, for buoyant health and purity. Several of those in charge of the Costley Training Institution had military connections, including a former naval petty officer and a manager with seventeen years army service. Upon his retirement as a trustee, Sandhurst-trained Colonel Haultain - a retired regimental commander and a former Minister of Colonial defence (1865-9) - was replaced by Major R. B. Morrow. William Crush Daldy, a sea captain in early life, was replaced in 1900 by George Fowlds (1860-1934) who was later a minister of education in Ward’s Liberal Government and a noted educational administrator associated with tertiary institutions. Like architect Robert J. Roberts, Costley Training Institute trustees William Daldy, George Fowlds and Wesley Spragg (1848-1930) were members of the Congregational Church, a denomination with influence out of proportion to its modest numbers in New Zealand. All three men were actively involved in the temperance and prohibition movement, a strong force for the reform of liquor laws in New Zealand between 1881 and 1911. Entertainments provided for the boys included a visit by the Band of Hope, and speakers including former New Zealand Premier Sir William Fox (1812?-93) who was also a noted social reformer. It was reported in 1890 that all the Costley inmates had joined the temperance movement. Other social reformers associated with the institution included the manager from 1897 until 1905, William Hendre and his wife Sada Russell Hendre. Both were actively involved in trade union matters in the early 1890s. Sada Hendre was an official visitor to the Auckland Hospital and Mental Asylum throughout her period as matron of the Costley Training Institute. She was also said to be a former secretary of the influential Tailoresses’ Union, a body in which Daldy’s wife Amey was also involved. Governor and Lady Ranfurly visited the home in 1900 and 1901. Members of the public were also encouraged to visit as the institution began to experience annual deficits due to low rates of interest on its investments. In 1904 an annual government subsidy was sought and two years later bequests were solicited. Girls, never great in number, were no longer accepted for training. Changes in government policies to favour boarding-out rather than the institutional care of children reduced the number of boys available for apprenticeships. In 1907 respected Auckland businessman and dairy pioneer Wesley Spragg became a trustee but, notwithstanding his business acumen and reputation for efficiency, was unable to rescue the institution. Facing increasing expenditure on repairs and improvements required by the Education Department, the Institute closed in December 1908. Investment returns on the proceeds from the sale of the property continue to contribute to the maintenance of selected young people apprenticed to trades or in higher education. Richmond Road Children’s Home (1909-30): The Richmond Road premises were taken over shortly after for use as an Anglican, children’s home. At a time when the Education Department was closing its institutions in favour of fostering and other forms of community supervision, New Zealand’s Christian denominations were increasing their commitment to orphanage care. Sister Cecil’s Home accommodating 54 children opened in the premises in 1909. Cecil Mary Sophia Beresford Kenyon (?-1912) had arrived in New Zealand a decade before, from Melbourne’s Mission to the Streets and Lanes which was the forerunner of the Order of the Good Shepherd. Sister Cecil became responsible for the Ayr Street Children’s Home in Parnell, an institution founded in 1893 (by Eliza Jane Cowie (1835-1902) the wife of the Anglican Bishop) for the care of young children ineligible for admission to the Parnell Orphanage. The local Order of the Good Shepherd founded in 1905, to provide help for the urban poor in early twentieth-century Auckland and was the first of only two orders of Anglican religious women established in New Zealand. The purchase of the Richmond Road property was finalised in 1910, the year a two-storey addition was built for boys, and enlargement of the kitchen area occurred. Funds raised included a £1000 donation by Sir John Logan Campbell, ‘the Father of Auckland’. Campbell’s gift, one of several benefactions he made in aid of young children from deprived backgrounds, and a further £2000 donated to the Order of the Good Shepherd, greatly enhanced his reputation as Auckland’s greatest philanthropist. During the first year of the Home’s operation the children received schooling within the institution from the sisters who gave lessons in the dining room and play room, there being no school room. The following year the children attended Richmond Road public school which by 1911 was suffering overcrowding and could not take all of the Home’s children. The Auckland Board of Education pressed the play room into service as a class room, although the presence of a number of children not under the control of the Richmond Road Children’s Home posed on-going problems. Following Sister Cecil’s death in 1912, a chapel erected in her memory was consecrated by Bishop Walter Averill (1865-1957) in December 1913. The Arts-and-Crafts-influenced brick building had a tiled roof and shingling in the upper gables and was designed by Auckland architect Arthur Daw (1865-1957). The interior included exposed brick walls, timber beams and sarking. Management of the Home passed out of the hands of the Order of the Good Shepherd after 1912, although it remained an Anglican institution. Church orphanage work reached its zenith in the early-twentieth century. Although the government strengthened financial support for families and women rearing children alone after the First World War (1914-18) and introduced a family allowance for low-income married mothers with three or more children in 1926, it was not until the Social Security Act 1938 that benefits were provided for the unemployed or sick. The informal admission process of church orphanages provided a flexible and possibly less stigmatised form of family relief in times of financial stress, family breakdown and health emergencies. Children living in the Richmond Road Home included those committed by a living parent. While in care the eldest child generally minded siblings. When the Home first opened in 1909, most of the children were under ten years of age. Due to the low number of staff, the children did a great part of the work, ‘at an age when very little should be required of them’. After 1911 some of the teenage girls were employed for household duties to assist the staff. By the mid 1920s over 70 children lived in. The extension of the Child Welfare Act 1927 introduced more stringent controls and contributed to closure of the Richmond Road Children’s Home in 1930. The property was unsuccessfully offered for sale. Following the Hawkes Bay earthquake in 1931, Hukarere Anglican girls’ boarding school for Maori students occupied the building for about a year. New Zealand Church Army (1935-76): In 1935 the property became Carlile House, the New Zealand headquarters of the Church Army, an Anglican evangelical organisation. The chapel was known as St Michael’s and All Angels and served as an Anglican place of worship for the local community. Evangelistic outreaches in large urban centres commenced in the nineteenth century and became an important part of social work during the 1930s depression and its aftermath. The first New Zealand appeal to the Church Army (which had been founded by Londoner Wilson Carlile (1862-1942) in 1882 to undertake social work in slums) had come in 1926, from Bishop Sedgwick of Waiapu who was concerned for the welfare of those in public works camps. An autonomous Church Army was launched in New Zealand in November 1935, with Richmond Road as the headquarters. For many years one wing of Carlile House was the home of Captain S. R. Banyard, the leader of a team who had come from England in 1933 to found the local organisation. Two-year residential training courses were run at Carlile House. During the Second World War (1939-1945) 75 laymen were trained to represent the Anglican Church in spiritual and social welfare matters within the Armed Forces. The first New Zealander to become an officer of the Church Army, Canon Douglas Caswell, later became Auckland City Missioner. Carlile House contained two offices, a dining room, a large living room, a large kitchen, two store rooms, a vestry, a lecture room, and a lounge. Two rooms with four cubicles in each, accommodated students. In addition to two flats (for Church Army captains and their wives) were three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a library and seven lavatories. The Church Army Press operated in the former gymnasium, producing its own literature as well as parish newsletters and church histories. The plastering of some of the exterior walls of the main building may have been undertaken in 1942, the year repairs costing £90 were made. The Church Army headquarters, the chapel, and the Church of England Boy’s Society (CEBS) - a boys’ club which met three nights a week - became a central element in Derek Hansen’s, Remember Me: A Novel, set in the 1950s. For part of his boyhood Hansen lived in residential accommodation attached to the shop on the corner of Chamberlain Street and Richmond Road. His portrayal of Carlile House during that period is as a rabbit warren of long corridors and few people in the big old building. The Church Army lounge was evidently a cavernous room with ill-matched furniture; and the dormitory with its curtained cubicles offered no more privacy than a public hospital. Regular chapel attendance was a prerequisite for membership of the boys’ club which closed down following the arrival of television in New Zealand. After the Church Army moved out in circa 1969, the building was briefly leased to the Department of Social Welfare as a remand home. In 1973 it became the Auckland Alternative School, a secondary school based on the policies of Alexander Sutherland Neill, the 1921 founder of Summerhill School, Suffolk. In May 1975 fire damaged one wall of Carlile House. The Church Army sold the property in 1977, and recently celebrated 75 years of operation in New Zealand. Ownership by the Tongan Community (1976 - ): Reflecting Grey Lynn’s growing Pacific Island population during the 1970s, Carlile House was purchased by the Tonga Development and Agency Company for use as a hostel to assist workers in New Zealand on temporary work schemes and as a place of community gathering. The property was the home of the United Church of Tonga in New Zealand of which Clive Edwards (1934- ) was a founding member and the Chairman of the Board of Trustees. A lawyer, Edwards was closely involved in deportation cases during the era of dawn raids in the 1970s, but returned to Tonga in 1994 where he entered politics. New Zealand’s Pacific Island population had increased rapidly during the 1960s as people came on temporary permits to learn trades, to undertake tertiary education and to gain professional qualifications. In the early 1970s, short-term contractual agreements between New Zealand and Tonga brought an influx of unskilled workers. Following an amnesty in 1976, many Tongan people were granted permanent residence and immigration resumed, by which time church services were being conducted in the Tongan language. Reflecting the importance of the church in Tongan society, in 1978 the former chapel seating 100 people was redeveloped into a church accommodating 300. Lancet windows in the Richmond Road façade were replaced by a full height church window of modern design, and the building was substantially rebuilt in an enlarged form with a basement hall. In 1979 the church was dedicated to the memory of Queen Salote Tapou III (1900-65). Queen Salote’s 47-year reign included transformation of Tonga’s government by means of a modern public service staffed by Tongans, an increasing number of who had received tertiary education overseas. The nineteenth-century main building gradually became run down and vandalised as a lack of finance hampered plans for its full re-use. The property was cross leased and transferred to the United Church of Tonga in New Zealand Trust Board in 1990. Oamaru stone detailing on the northwest pediment of Carlile House was removed in circa 1992. During the 1990s the property was scheduled in the District Plan as a ‘Category A’ heritage place, but the deteriorating state of the main building and its uncertain future remains a matter of ongoing public concern. A conservation plan was prepared in 2003, but deterioration steadily worsened due to broken windows and the inadequate state of the roof. After almost a century, the former chapel - now part of a larger church - remains an important place of worship and gathering for members of Auckland’s Tongan community.

Construction Professionals: Architect: Robert Jones Roberts (c.1832-1911), Costley Training Institute Robert J. Roberts was born in Wales circa 1832 and immigrated to New Zealand in 1859. His best-known work is the Costley Training Institute (1886), Auckland, a residential institution for boys selected from local industrial schools for the purposes of education and apprenticeship to trades. The Lake Hotel, Takapuna (1888), new offices for the New Zealand Shipping offices in Auckland (1890s?), and a Devonport house known as Castlereagh (later the Cheltenham College for Young Ladies, 1909-19) were also to his design but have been demolished. Roberts lived and worked in the Bay of Plenty for some years and returned to Auckland in the late 1890s. One of his later designs was for a factory in Whangarei (1898). He died in Auckland in 1911. Context: The Former Costley Training Institute is located towards the north eastern end of Grey Lynn, an inner suburb of Auckland. Grey Lynn, located to the west of the Auckland city centre, is predominantly a residential area characterised by well-maintained late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century housing, interspersed with relatively few commercial premises and apartment developments. The property lies on the upper, south-facing slopes of the Ponsonby ridge, near the retail and social centre of Ponsonby Road, a thoroughfare known for the character of its built heritage. Historic structures in the broad vicinity include Outreach and Auckland City Cultural Centre (record no. 4583, Category II) formerly the Newton Police Station; the Unitarian Church (record no. 7178, Category I); and Allendale formerly a grand residence (record no. 4581, Category I), all located in Ponsonby Road. Other historic structures in the locality include a former Council Chambers and Fire Station (Former), (record no. 4581, Category II) in nearby Williamson Avenue; the Richmond Road Primary School (not registered); and the Houses known as 350 and 356 Richmond Road (record no. 592, Category II) located approximately 1.3 kilometres to the west by road. General Description and layout: The former Costley Training Institute occupies the outer curve of a pronounced bend approximately half a kilometre from the Ponsonby Road / Richmond Road intersection. The position of the corner site and the striking visual character of the two-storey nineteenth-century building make the place a familiar sight for those navigating the winding Richmond Road thoroughfare. The building described in 1973 as having a coarse and unprepossessing exterior and as being a fit setting for a Victorian tale of horror, has long captured the public interest and imagination and is a well-known landmark of the Ponsonby and Grey Lynn communities. Derek Hansen’s, Remember Me: A Novel (2007) drawing on childhood memories of the building and associated activities during the 1950s has strengthened the community’s association with the place. The complex including the conjoined modern church building is a notable visual feature in the landscape in parts of wider Grey Lynn, including the upper slopes west of Great North Road, and from other vantage points including the upper margins of Grey Lynn Park. The large irregularly-shaped site has frontage to Richmond Road, Dickens and Chamberlain Streets. The site is held in two cross-leases. The eastern cross-lease area slopes away moderately to the southeast and the southwest. Near the corner of the front boundary is a large coral tree (or similar specimen) likely to have been planted during the twentieth century. The church building faces Richmond Road and Dickens Street. A small, late twentieth-century shelter structure stands near the church entrance. Off Dickens Street to the south of the church are a modern toilet block and a formed car parking area (not referred to further). Located within the western cross-leased portion of the wider site facing Richmond Road is the two-storey, main building (1886) with two rear additions (1910). Behind are three single-storey buildings: the former workshop (1891); and the gymnasium (1898); and, a mid to late twentieth-century metal clad shed (which is not referred to further). The land slopes gently, dropping away near the rear boundary with Chamberlain Street. An unformed vehicle access from Richmond Road curves around from near the western boundary and terminates between the former workshop and the gymnasium. The rear portion of the site is grassed. The area behind the main building may contain archaeological deposits relating to nineteenth- and early twentieth-century activity linked with the rear service court, the workshop, and gardening. In front of the main building is an old monkey-apple or tree of similar species. Scoria kerb stones and remnants of a low, garden wall constructed in the 1880s survive along the front boundary, adjoining the Richmond Road foot path. Sister Cecil Memorial Chapel / United Church of Tonga: The church building consists of a single-storey component facing Richmond Road containing the remnant 1913 chapel structure; and a two-storey element accommodating a basement (a hall, a committee room, an office and kitchen facilities). The building is of modern appearance and concrete block construction with a metal roof. The Richmond Road façade of the former chapel now has a full-height church window of modern design. The 1913 building has been considerably extended on both sides and to the rear, although the exterior form is evident in the roof line, the scale of the Richmond Road façade and the building footprint for a depth of two bays. The exterior walls are clad in brick veneer, the material used for the 1978 section of the church. The original clay roof tiles have been replaced by a long run metal sheathing with an angular profile. The church building reflects a century of Christian worship on the site, initially as the orphanage chapel (1913-30); as the chapel for Hukarere Anglican girls’ boarding school (1931); as St Michael’s and All Angels Chapel while in use by the Church Army (circa 1936 - 69); and since the late 1970s as the United Church of Tonga in New Zealand. The Former Costley Training Institute: The Former Costley Training Institute (1886) is a two-storey brick structure with limestone and concrete dressings and a slate roof. It incorporates two, century-old, two-storey additions. The original main block is loosely H-shaped in plan with a centrally located rear wing that forms part of the original design. Apart from the two early twentieth-century additions and the removal of roof ventilators and the upper parts of chimneys, there appear to have been few external alterations. The structure is suffering severe deterioration from exposure to the elements. Many of the roof slates have slipped off. The south side of the main block has been re-roofed with corrugated metal. One intact chimney survives towards the front of the building. Most of the window panes and some of the window joinery is broken or missing. Exterior: The façade (north elevation) retains its symmetrical form consisting of two projecting side wings and a central single-storey portico midway along the long north side. The name Carlile House appears above the entrance and is associated with the period of use by the Church Army from circa 1936 until 1969. The red brick façade has been plastered thereby reducing the visual contrast of the original composition. Classical-Italianate-style stonework or concrete plaster detailing includes consoles, window surrounds, quoins, and the capitals of the portico which have a finely worked acanthus motif. The pedimented gable of the west wing has been removed. The balustraded parapet of the portico balcony has been replaced by metal pipe railings. The front doors have been boarded up. Overall the well-balanced composition of the façade remains, illustrating a formality and orderly design that was considered appropriate for a late-Victorian institution for the training of promising young men. The brickwork of the west elevation has also been plastered over. The central doorway and the Italianate windows have stone or concrete dressings and keystones. The centrally-located doorway, evidently used as the girls’ entrance at the Richmond Road Children’s Home in the 1920s, reflects the strict management of the institution on the basis gender during that period. Above the doorway is an arched window which lights one of the staircases at either end of the building. Apart from a few coloured margin panes, most of the glass is missing. A filled-in former verandah on the upper floor of the central rear wing has weatherboard timber cladding, and pairs of sash windows with missing panes. The utilitarian design of the south elevation corresponds with the service area of the former institution. Most of the brickwork is visible and is plain red or plain yellow depending on the date of construction. The window openings have rectangular heads with concrete lintels. Apart from the rear central wing which has a hipped roof, the roofs have gable ends. The upper floor of the east elevation is partially visible behind the conjoined church structure. It retains the original red brick exterior walls with cream coloured contrasting banding and window surrounds, reflecting the original 1880s appearance of the building. The two-storey east wing added at the rear of the main building has a centrally-located Dutch gable with cement plaster lettering, ‘Deo Juvante’ (With God’s Help). Lettering above the centrally-located door of the lower storey of what was the boy’s wing reads, ‘Children’s Home 1910’. The red brickwork with cement plaster detailing depicting banding and quoins is confined to the east elevation. The south and west elevations of the addition are constructed of yellow brick. Interior: The current internal layout of the building is not known. The building exterior is undisturbed by new window and door openings, suggesting that the interior layout may survive in a comparatively little-altered state. A 1987 photograph of the interior of the upstairs hall suggests the building retains timber dados, board and batten timber ceilings, timber floors and timber balustrades. Sash windows on the inner wall of the hall allow light and ventilation into internal rooms and illustrate nineteenth-century thinking regarding the health benefits of natural light and fresh air. The internal windows would also have facilitated surveillance of the boys’ activities. Workshop: The single-storey workshop building is orientated east-west and appears to be connected to the main building by a lean-to. Constructed in yellow brick, it has a corrugated iron roof, and gable ends with pronounced parapets and plaster copings. An internal chimney exits from the apex of the gable at either end of the building. The west elevation has a pair of rectangular window openings with concrete lintels, sash windows and brick window sills. The design and workmanship of the simple workshop structure is neatly carried out. As an institution originally designed to cater for young men aiming to undertake - or engaged in - apprenticeships, the workshop is a significant surviving component of the former Costley Training Institution. The internal layout of the former workshop building is not known. Gymnasium: The gymnasium is a long and narrow, single-storey building with a corrugated iron, gable roof. Due to the slope of the site and the building’s location on the boundary, the south wall with its high, end gable is a dominant feature in Chamberlain Street. The structure appears to incorporate a comparatively modern lean-to that extends out from near the centre of the west elevation. The building of yellow brick with contrasting orange brick in the upper arches of the window openings appears to be in comparatively good condition, and is a significant component of the nineteenth-century institutional complex. A photograph taken in 1987 suggests that the interior may retain timber floors, plastered walls and a cove ceiling. Comparisons: The former Costley Training Institute is a rare example of a combined boys’ home and training institution that was purpose-designed and illustrates late-nineteenth century philosophies relating to the health, development and management of boys and youth from disadvantaged backgrounds. It is also a rare example of a residential training facility financed by a private bequest, specifically for the purpose of instructing and improving young people, including through provision of tuition in technical knowledge in trades or handcraft. The design of the Classical-Italianate style façade is a notable contrast to the Gothic or Tudor Gothic architectural styles traditionally adopted for purpose-designed nineteenth- and early-twentieth century educational and religious institutions for young people. The formality and control expressed in the façade is also evident in the survival of significant elements of the original interior layout. Corridors extending across the front of the building on both floors provided natural light, ventilation and facilitated surveillance of activities in rooms. The corridors also prevented the residents from directly overlooking or communicating with the street from rooms within the building. The rarity of the place is enhanced by the survival of the workshop and the gymnasium considered central to training regimes designed to develop self-reliant physically fit young men of strong character. The Costley Training Institute is a rare example of a residential training facility financed by a private bequest, specifically for the purpose of instructing and improving young people, including through provision of tuition in technical knowledge in trades or handcraft. It is a rare example of a private residential training institution that took only children committed into its care by a magistrate on the basis of poverty or neglect. Under a highly selective admission policy candidates were required to be deserving poor, specifically boys of good character considered likely to profit by, or be a credit to, the institution. Applications from parents and others seeking to place children were not acceded to. Residents too young to be apprenticed attended the local state school, unlike children in state and private religious industrial schools. The non-denominational Costley Training Institution emphasised development of the full character and the training of future citizens as productive members of society. The small facility designed to cater for 25 residents in a reasonable degree of comfort was not a reformatory; nor was it a formal technical school for trades training. Evening tuition in the carpenter’s and blacksmith’s workshop was in elementary principles and the use of tools - notwithstanding that a boy might not eventually follow either craft.. Industrial Schools and Residential Training Institutions: The earliest-known surviving building designed as a residential training institution in New Zealand appears to be the Whiteley Mission House, New Plymouth (record no. 145, Category I). The facility built in 1854 primarily as a school for the teaching of Pakeha domestic skills to Maori girls operated for less than a year. From 1940 until 1960 it was a hostel for Rangiatea College, a school of domestic science and hygiene for Maori girls. The Melanesian Mission Building, Mission Bay, Auckland (record no. 111, Category I) erected in 1859 housed two nineteenth-century residential training institutions: the Kohimarama Naval Training School (1874-82); and, the boys’ branch of the government-run Auckland Industrial School (1882-94). Weraroa Boys’ Training Centre commenced operation in 1929 in farm buildings erected as early as 1918 as part of Weraroa State Farm, Levin (record no. 9494, Category I). The state-run child welfare centre became the Kohitere Boys’ Training Centre (1939-89). Flock House, Parewanui, (record no. 7576, Category I) opened in 1924 in a former homestead (1908) as a training farm for the sons of British seamen. After 1930, it provided similar education to the sons of New Zealand servicemen. Flock House was later operated by the Department of Agriculture and remained an Agricultural Training Centre until the 1980s. Telford Farm Training Institute, Balclutha (record no. 2127, Category I) formally opened in 1965 in the former Telford homestead (1869) and provides basic training in farming. Technical Colleges and Technical Schools: The pre-industrial apprenticeship system underlying the philosophies of the Kohimarama Naval Training School (1876-82) and the Costley Training Institute (1885-1908) was increasingly outmoded by the turn of the century. Technical colleges founded by voluntary groups in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin and Wanganui by 1895 ran courses modelled on those of the Department of Science and Art at South Kensington, London. The first technical schools established in the colony a decade later in 1905 offered practical courses to students who had left day school. Examples include Auckland Technical Institute, 1909 (record 2614 Category II); Westport’s Technical College, 1910 (record no. 3040, Category II); King Edward Technical College, Dunedin, 1914 (record 4712, Category I); and technical schools at Feilding, 1907 (record no. 7437, Category II), and at Waihi, 1911 (record no. 4661, Category II). The Christchurch Girls’ Training Hostel, Opawa, (record no. 7636, Category I) was purpose-built by the Christchurch Technical College’s Domestic Science Department in 1913 to provide accommodation and teaching facilities for young women. The hostel Pearson House (record no. 4580, Category I) and the associated Royal New Zealand Foundation for the Blind Workshop Building (record no. 4353, Category II), Parnell, were constructed in 1926 for the rehabilitation of blinded war veterans, some of whom may have been in their teenage years at the time of injury.