Ngai Tahu History Ancient stories tell the origins of southern Maori, with the waka of Aoraki becoming Te Wai Pounamu (the South Island), and its sternpost, Te Taurapa a Te Waka o Aoraki becoming Bluff Hill (also known as Motupohue). The Maui traditions are also told in the south, with Maui arriving in his waka Maahunui, and throwing out the anchor Te Puka o Te Waka a Maui (Rakiura). Maui’s achievements are recognised in place names in the south, including Omaui near Bluff, and Te Tapuwae o Maui and Te Rereka o Maui in Fiordland (Maui’s footstep and Maui’s leap). Whanau moved throughout the southern area to take advantage of seasonal resources and trade, and also for reasons of intermarriage and war. Kaika were established close to resources. There is no specific traditional information relating to Maori use of the site of the Club Hotel, though there is likely to have been Maori occupation of the land within Bluff. The first European settler at Bluff was James Spencer who in January 1824 landed at Bluff and a small settlement was formed, built around servicing whaling operations. Bluff (first known as Campbelltown) Bluff was declared an official port of entry on 19 January 1856. John Turnbull Thomson surveyed the town later that year, naming it Campbelltown after Governor Gore Browne’s wife. The flood of gold miners of the 1860s boosted the town. Some 1,680 passengers arrived through Bluff. Visitors needed places to stay. Boarding houses and hotels sprung up to cater for the demand. Irish-born Hannah Ward Barron was an early hotel operator. Born Hannah Dorey in Cork, Ireland, where she married William Ward, and sailed to Melbourne in the 1850s. When William Ward died in 1860, she married to John Barron. Mrs Barron left Australia in 1863 with her three (of ten) surviving children. She started a store at the small Southland settlement of Greenhills, and then shifted her family to Campbelltown. There she leased a guesthouse on the waterfront. She took out an order under the Married Woman’s Property Protection Act (1860) and set about establishing her own business. In 1870, she converted the boarding house to a hotel, calling it the Railway Hotel, one of two hotels in Bluff at that time. Mrs Barron’s family lived with her at the hotel. Her youngest son Joseph lived with her until his marriage in 1883. Joseph Ward became an important businessman and politician. Ward was twice mayor of Campbelltown, as Bluff was then called. He was elected to Parliament in 1887, and became Prime Minister in 1906. Ward was a minister of the Crown for over twenty three years. The Railway Hotel burnt down in 1880. Mrs Barron commissioned architect F.W. Burwell to design its replacement, which she called the Terminus Hotel because it was close to the railway station. The new building, the first brick hotel in Campbelltown, was seen to be ‘an ornament to the Bluff, and a decided improvement upon Gore Street architecture.’ The Terminus Hotel in turn was badly damaged in a fire in July 1884, along with other brick buildings on the block owned by Mrs Barron. Ancillary buildings were probably constructed around this time. Mrs Barron commissioned Burwell to design the replacement. This time she named it the Club Hotel. Mrs Barron owned the hotel until her death in 1898. After her death a family trust managed the property, leasing the premises to various licensees. In 1903, another serious fire saw the demolition of the large parts of the Club Hotel. The executors of Mrs Barron’s estate took the opportunity to expand the hotel. The executors bought the western parts of the sections and enlarged the building. Invercargill architect Peter Walker advertised for tenders for the ‘erection of Club Hotel’ in brick and concrete in May 1903. By February 1904 the re-building was just about finished. The ‘handsome and striking’ building included shops on the main street. On the ground floor were a bar, several sitting rooms, kitchen and pantry, and a public dining room. A ‘handsome’ staircase led to the first floor where there were 21 bedrooms, a ladies’ drawing room, smoking room, as well as bathrooms. The ceilings were of pressed steel. A fire escape was attached to the rear of the building and there were fire hydrants and hoses. The Cyclopedia of New Zealand described the building in 1905 as having forty rooms, including thirty bedrooms, four sitting rooms a forty seat dining hall and a large billiard room. Misfortune followed a decade later when fire once again swept through the building. The top floor was badly damaged and three people died in the fire. The ground floor shops were also damaged. By daybreak, the Southland Times reported, all that remained was ‘several chains of burning embers divided only by the bare parched dividing walls which marked the progress of one of the most ravishing conflagrations in the history of the port.’ Frederick Richard Annison (d.1917), Peter Walker’s former partner in the architectural practice Walker and Annison, advertised for tenders for the replacement building: the ‘erection of Club Hotel and Shops at Bluff.’ According to local newspapers Annison was born in England, and immigrated to South Africa, South Australia and then to Gore in the early 1900s. He was apparently trained as a plasterer, and worked later as an architect. He died by his own hand in 1917 in a widely reported shooting incident. Little else is known about his life. In the late 1930s the Club Hotel was modernised. An entrance hall and reception area was built on the ground floor. A large lounge was built and the dining room enlarged. The décor and furnishings of the bar, restaurant and guest rooms were modernised. Additional bathrooms were built, and skylights installed in the upstairs hallways. Four garages were built at the rear of the building. The Club Hotel went through a number of alterations throughout the 1960s. These included modernising bathrooms, re-jigging of the layout of the public areas of the building. A new dining room was built on the north eastern corner of the building in 1960. The Club Hotel’s importance to Bluff has been recognised in recent years. Interest in Bluff’s history saw the establishment of a Bluff history group and research into important sites in Bluff. The Club Hotel is included in the Bluff Heritage Trail, and also in a heritage inventory of the town completed in 2004. The Bluff Heritage Trail pamphlet describes the building as retaining ‘the old world charm’ with notable interior details including a stairway featuring ‘wrought iron filigree and ornate pressed copper wall and ceiling panels, and ornate timber archways.’ The current owners bought the property in 2007. Their development plans included the proposal to demolish the ancillary buildings to the rear of the hotel. The buildings were demolished in June 2013. In 2014, the Club Hotel remains a landmark on Gore Street in Bluff.

Setting The Club Hotel sits on four commercial sections on Gore Street, the main thoroughfare through the Southland town of Bluff. The eastern side of the sections was the site of the Railway Hotel, and later the Terminus Hotel (both destroyed by fire). Gore Street is characterised by the commercial buildings located along the south side. It is close to the railway terminus and to the port on the north side of the street. The Club Hotel is one of the largest surviving commercial buildings on Gore Street, and the largest surviving hotel building in Bluff. Exterior The Club Hotel is a long two-storey building. The ground floor street front provides access to the bar and restaurant. It has several small shop fronts down one end. The window and door openings have been modernised with aluminium frames replacing original timber openings. The ground floor façade has suffered from unsympathetic alterations to the shop fronts. There is a verandah along the length of the street front. The present verandah detracts from the building’s appearance. A steel fire escape runs along the length of the façade below the first floor windows. The first floor is designed in ornate Classical Victorian style. The façade shows that the building was constructed in stages, with the varying roof forms behind the façade. The formal façade is divided into several bays, with a parapet concealing the roof. The west end of the façade has balusters at parapet level and a pair of triangular pediments, with decorative elements emphasised at the skyline. There is an entablature with dentils below the pediments. The first floor detailing has pilasters with Corinthian order capitals. The double hung sash windows have round heads with a keystone detail. The east end of the first floor is less ornately detailed. It has a parapet concealing the roof but without the balusters. Each window is flanked by pilasters with Doric capitals. Like the windows on the west section of the façade, the windows have round heads and a keystone detail. The rear of the Club Hotel is plain and utilitarian. The brick work has been painted. The windows are a mix of round and flat headed double hung sashes. Interior The interior of the Club Hotel was not visited when this List entry report was written.