Why is this place significant?

Why is this place Category 1 / Category 2?

Early Timaru Timaru was an integral component of the extensive Ngāi Tahu network of kāinga (settlement) and mahinga kai (food-gathering places) located throughout South Canterbury. Situated south of the prominent Te Waiateruati pā, Hoani Kahu from Arowhenua described Timaru as 'he pā nō mua, he kāinga nohoaka tūturu, he tūahu tapu, he urupā tūpapa, and he tauranga waka’. There was open space and plentiful kai to be found in the area. Building and clothing resources and foods were gathered at Timaru, including manu (birds), tuna (eel), ika (fish), makō (shark), hāpuku (groper), pipi, pāua, kina, and kaeo. Whalers had been attracted to Timaru in the 1830s, and some stayed to settle on the land, providing early colonial presence. The controversial Canterbury Purchase (Kemp’s Deed) land sale took place in the late 1840s but the area remained important to iwi who were able to negotiate a 20 acre reserve to be set aside (Native Reserve 884 at Caroline Bay). Early maps from the 1850s show the area where the Timaru Council building now stands as being open hilly land, less than 300 metres from what was then the foreshore. In 1850, William and George Rhodes took up ‘The Levels run’, a vast tract of land in South Canterbury, and subsequently began to use the shoreline at Timaru to ship goods in and out. The Rhodes brothers were responsible for the initial land purchase and survey of a town in 1853. The government surveyed its own settlement immediately to the south of the Rhodes land in 1856 but it was ‘Rhodes Town’, immediately behind the beach by the established immigrant landing sites, where the commercial centre of Timaru developed and flourished after 1859. Colonial settlers began to arrive in significant numbers from 1859, and over the next decades Timaru’s population and prosperity grew on the back of farming and the port. There was especially high population growth between 1896 until 1911. An important provincial hub, Timaru connected its residents and the South Canterbury region to the rest of New Zealand and beyond physically through road and rail and intangibly via mail, newspapers and other reading material. A building fitting the town’s civic infrastructure was required. In 1904 the Timaru Borough Council purchased a site on George Street from Dr Gabites for £1150 to allow for new corporation buildings to be erected for the Council. Competitive designs for the municipal buildings and library had been called for and that of architect Walter Panton was accepted. Library The first part of the building completed was the public library, as a result of Mayor James Craigie securing a gift of ₤3000 by ‘steel king’, Andrew Carnegie, for such a purpose. Carnegie was a Scots-American philanthropist who donated funds for libraries all over the world, including in New Zealand. The library replaced the Mechanics’ Institute and Library, which had been located in North Street, and which been established as a subscription library in Timaru in the early 1860s. The Carnegie-funded new library was constructed in 1908 and opened in 1909. On the day of the opening, the Timaru Herald’s editorial commented: ‘The possession of a free public library seems to be one of the marks which indicate that a town has reached a certain maturity, as the communal provision and use of such an institution is to some extent a luxury. … All over the civilised world, legislative provision has been made for the equipment of public libraries at the public expense, while here and there this has been done by the generosity of individuals, who thus acknowledged their personal indebtedness to the world of literature. The acquisition of a public library by Timaru, which will shortly be achieved, is a notable mark of the progress of the town …’. When it opened in 1909, it was one of only three libraries in New Zealand offering free access and borrowing rights to all residents. As well as being a key institution for accessing reading material, it was a place where connections were established and extended. Within two years of the library’s opening, 15% of Timaru’s population had become members. By 1934 that figure had increased to almost 30%, a notably high proportion given that the average library membership across New Zealand, Australia and Britain at this time was 10%. In early 1913 the Timaru Borough Council appointed Evelyn Culverwell as chief librarian, the first woman to hold this position in New Zealand. The appointment of a female was considered a bold move by the Council but Culverwell’s professional training and ethos soon proved invaluable. The first action she took as chief librarian was to review and re-order the entire book stock and begin cataloguing using the Dewey System, which she stated would ‘bring the Timaru Library into line with the four leading libraries of the Dominion’. She also set aside a section in the lending library for children and juvenile readers, mirroring a trend in public libraries in the English-speaking world. In 1913-14 the library was extended to the south-west, with the addition of two spacious rooms for reading and circulating. Municipal Chambers The remainder of Panton’s initial design, the Municipal Chambers, was completed in 1912 in the same style as the library. These new buildings were intended to reflect the dignity of the ‘august body’ of the Timaru Borough Council, the local government law makers. They contained rooms for the Town Clerk, Mayor, Council Chambers, general office with a counter and strong room, waiting room, a room to be used to hold booths when elections were held, an engineer’s room (which was also a strong room), toilets and a cellar which housed more toilets, heating plant and storage rooms. The stone balcony above the main entrance, built to accommodate about 20 people, was intended ‘to make public utterances whenever occasion arises’. Additions and Clocktower In 1927 the building was extended further to the east in the same style, accommodating the municipal electricity department showrooms and offices. The architects for the ‘extensive additions to the Municipal Buildings for the Timaru Borough Council’ were again Walter Panton and Son. Early in 1933, the council held a competition for the design of a new town clocktower as a further major addition. The successful entrant was Victor H Panton, son of Walter who had died two years earlier, and the clocktower was built by W J Harding Ltd. Standing tall above the roof line, it houses a clock mechanism with chimes given to the city by former Mayor, James Craigie, in 1913, which was original in the Post Office clocktower (later demolished). Lamp of Remembrance In August 1945, at the instigation of the mayor, A E S Hanan, a temporary lamp burned on top of the flagpole on the clocktower in memory of men who had fallen, so recently, in the Second World War. It was an experiment to trial how a lamp might perform, and the following year it was replaced by a perpetual burning light, paid for by public subscription. Known as the Lamp of Remembrance, the permanent memorial was installed in 1946 at the top of the clocktower’s flagpole, shining for miles to the outer suburbs. In 1962 the building’s parapet, including pediments and finials, was removed during a general facelift of the façade. From 1979 a new library opened in the town and the library part of the municipal building was converted to offices. A major redevelopment programme in circa 2003-2005 involved the demolition and rebuilding of most of the building whilst retaining the north and west facades and the clocktower. In its new interior, the building continues to function as the Timaru District Council offices. The mechanisms for the chimes were repaired in 2023, so that the clock once again rings out on the hour.

Current Description Located in an elevated location in King George Place in Timaru’s central business district, the Timaru Council Offices and Former Public Library (Façade) is a prominent building seen from many vantage points. When viewed from the street, the building retains much the same appearance as it did through most of the twentieth century. Designed by Walter Panton and Son, it is a two storeyed classically designed building, in a Renaissance palazzo style, with pilasters and Corinthian capitals, keystones and medallions. The foundations are grey Timaru ‘bluestone’, while the main part of west and north façades are Ōamaru stone. It has rusticated detailing on the ground floor, decorative rounded headed windows and entrances, colonnades, decorative brackets supporting a parapet and central clocktower. The main entrance, on the north elevation, is accessed by seven bluestone steps and a vestibule leading to a pair of doors. Above the main entrance is a balcony and the plain pediment contains the Council’s coat of arms. Inscribed in the stonework of the frieze, are the words ‘Municipal’, ‘Offices’, ‘Public’ and ‘Library’. The concrete clocktower rises centrally from the roof line, around 27 metres in height above the footpath. As well having glazed clock faces, the tower also contains bells behind louvres, and is surmounted by a 7.6 metre flagpole and topped with a perpetually lit lamp. Major works to the building in the first decade of the twenty first century resulted in the street-fronting facades, the basement space and the clocktower being retained, while the rest was demolished and rebuilt. The building fabric behind the north and west façades is modern, the south façade containing rows of fenestration and a light grey coloured cladding. The roof is corrugated steel. Below is a basement which has been relined as part of the early twenty first century redevelopment. Comparative information: historic places as façades A small number of historic places were already only historic façades when first entered on the List, such as Waitaki Boys’ High School Façades (Category 1 historic place, List No. 358) and Kirkcaldie and Stains Department Store Façade, Wellington (Category 2 historic place, List No. 1402). Even when the Timaru City Council Offices and Former Public Library was first assessed for Listing in 1983, it was the exterior that the Buildings Classification Committee were primarily interested in. Most Listed places that are façades were originally entered on the List as a whole building but later development has resulted in façade-only retention. Where those places remain on the List following formal review, they tend to be in prominent locations within towns and cities and, from the outside at least, are recognisably the buildings that were identified for their heritage values. Examples of places on the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero (the List) which were previously a whole building and reviewed as a ‘Façade’ include: Commercial Building Façade, 181 High Street and Tuam Street, Christchurch (Category 2 historic place, List No. 1909), which is a three-storeyed stone-faced building providing a noteworthy streetscape presence as a post-Canterbury Earthquakes (2010-11) survivor from what was previously a prominent 1910 Edwardian building on the site. The façade is a tangible reminder of the building’s long and respected history as a city furniture and furnishings store, first as A J White’s and later as McKenzie and Willis. Junction Hotel (Former) Façade, 112 High Street, Rangiora (Category 2 historic place, List No. 3783, which provides a noteworthy streetscape presence as a post-Canterbury Earthquakes (2010 and 2011) survivor from what was previously a prominent Victorian building on the site. When viewed from the street, the Hotel Façade retains much the same classical appearance as it did for nearly 90 years before the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes. It is two storeys in height, with rusticated detailing on the ground floor, decorative rounded headed windows and entrances, colonnades, decorative brackets supporting a simple balcony with metal railing and dentils supporting a plain parapet. The façade is a tangible reminder of the building’s long and prominent history as a hotel. Oxley’s Hotel Façade, Picton (Category 2 historic place, List No. 5108) which retains architectural significance as a very good example of the public architecture of a quality hotel from the 1890s. Much of the aesthetic value of the original Oxley's Hotel façade remains in place and is enhanced by the refurbishment and reinstatement of the colonial verandah, which contributes a significant three-dimensional aspect to this façade. As one of the most important remaining fragments of built heritage in the town, Oxley's Hotel Façade's prominence and location in an area highly visible from the foreshore and harbour approach provides an excellent opportunity for utilising interpretation to tell the story of the history of Picton.

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A fully referenced copy of the review report is available from the Southern Regional Office of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Please note that entry on the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero identifies only the heritage values of the property concerned, and should not be construed as advice on the state of the property, or as a comment of its soundness or safety, including in regard to earthquake risk, safety in the event of fire, or insanitary conditions. A fully referenced upgrade report is available on request from the Southern Regional Office of Heritage New Zealand