This 1878 ornately detailed two-storey grain store was built for prominent Oamaru businessman George Sumpter.

George Sumpter (1836-1900) was a significant figure in the commercial and political worlds of Victorian Oamaru. He was the first town clerk of Oamaru, later Member for Waitaki on the Otago Provincial Council. He was chair of the Oamaru Harbour Board for fifteen years. He conducted a large business as a grain merchant, land agent and auctioneer.

Sumpter erected a grain store on Harbour Street in February 1876 at a cost of £800. It was around 22ft [7m] high and had a storage capacity of 40,000 to 50,000 bushels of grain. F. Every completed the concrete work, and Mr Thomson the carpentry. He rebuilt it only two years later, replacing it with an ornately detailed two-storey building. The Timaru Herald reported that Sumpter had built a ‘fine Oamaru stone grain store of two flats…in connection with his concrete warehouse on the harbor block.’ The building could store 20,000 sacks of grain.

Art historian Conal McCarthy writes that the design was in a ‘brash, commercial vein’ with a ‘Venetian palazzo theme…with a rusticated ground floor, round-headed windows on the first floor, and Corinthian pilasters marking the end bays.’ McCarthy continues ‘the architect lavished attention on the decorative details, particularly the keystones, three varieties of which were used on the façade.’

In 1895 John Haddin Barr took over the lease of Lot 4. Scottish-born Barr (c.1828-1918) came to Dunedin in 1861 where he was elected to the first City Council. He later became a partner in Oamaru milling firm Hay and Barr. He remained in business there until he retired to Dunedin in 1906.

In 1916 the National Mortgage and Agency Company of New Zealand Ltd and William Darling and Robert McDowell took over the lease. In 1936 Darling and McDowell took over the lease, and remained long term tenants. In 1989 the Oamaru Whitestone Civic Trust acquired the former grain store. Since that time it has housed a furniture manufacturer.

In 2013 Sumpter’s Grain Store (Former) remains a significant building in the Harbour/Tyne Historic Area (Register No. 7064).