Why is this place significant?

Early land history In the Palmerston North area, the Manawatū River, its tributaries and the mauri that flows through them are of immense cultural, spiritual, historical and traditional significance to Rangitāne o Manawatū. The ancestors of the Rangitāne gradually migrated south from the Hawke’s Bay, settling in Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua (around present-day Dannevirke), Manawatū, Wairarapa, Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington), and Wairau in the South Island. These people traced their descent to the Kurahaupō and Aotea waka, and Ngāti Hineaute, Ngāti Te Rangitepaia, Ngāti Mairehau (Ngai Tuahuriri), Ngāti Te Rangiaranaki, Ngāti Te Kapuarangi ki Manawatū, Ngāti Tauira and Ngāti Poutoa became the principal hapū of the Palmerston North district. There were many seasonal and permanent pā and kāinga dotted along the river in the area that became Palmerston North, and the river was the main highway for travel and communication between them. The Turitea (‘bright water’ or ‘clear water’) Stream passes through the Massey campus and alongside the Oval as it flows into the Manawatū River. Another resource-rich feature was the area’s forest and parts of the fertile river flats which were cleared for cultivation. Pā and kāinga close to the Massey Turitea campus included Turitea Pā, Mokomoko, and Te Motu o Poutoa (List No. 9562), which, from the fifteenth century, formed part of a wider settlement known as Te Kuripaka. A feature of Turitea Pā was the nine- to fifteen-metre-tall sentry watchtower called Te Pūhara o Turitea. This was an important lookout point for Rangitāne to defend against incursions from the river, and was part of a network of pūhara placed at strategic locations inland and along the river. The pūhara was last used in the early nineteenth century, during Te Amiowhenua, when a taua (war party) of musket-bearing northern tribes passed through the area – Turitea Pā became a refuge point for those seeking shelter. While many pā were abandoned by the 1820s, such as Te Motu o Poutoa which was destroyed in an attack by Ngāti Apa, it appears other nearby kāinga were occupied by Rangitāne or others until the mid-nineteenth century – including Turitea Pā. The pūhara does not remain but has been reflected in a modern lookout structure built on the location. Within the wider Massey Turitea campus, a karaka grove of significance to Rangitāne, named Te Koha o Te Whenua, was preserved by European settler James Octavius Batchelar amidst his clearance of the native bush for farmland from 1880. The existing trees were once part of a much larger grove of karaka, the seeds of which were brought there by ancestors of the present mana whenua. The negotiation process between iwi and the Crown for purchase of the area was protracted. However, the Turitea site was eventually sold to the Crown in 1864, along with the rest of Te Ahuaturanga block. Soon after in 1866, Palmerston township (later renamed Palmerston North) was surveyed and settlement began. The town of Palmerston North was laid out on a forest clearing which was formerly a Rangitāne pā called Papaioea. Settlement only gained momentum in the 1870s when the government’s immigration and public works scheme enticed greater numbers of people to the area. Palmerston North’s surrounding district, including the land on the south side of the Manawatū River, was soon cleared for farming, by Batchelar and others. From 1871 to 1900 Sir James Prendergast (1826–1921), the Chief Justice of New Zealand who retired in 1899, owned the large ‘Tiritea’ Estate at the locality known as Fitzherbert. It was then bought by Richard Slingsby Abraham, partner in stock and station agents Abraham and Williams, who built the homestead, Tiritea, in 1903. In 1926 the Palmerston North Borough Council purchased it from then-owner Percy McHardy, for the purpose of donating the land to boost the establishment of an agricultural college earmarked for the adjacent Batchelar property. The ratepayers of Palmerston North agreed through a referendum to fund the purchase of the land for the college through an extra levy on their rates over a 20 year period. It was argued that they would experience the economic benefit of having a college on the outskirts of town. Massey Agricultural College Since colonisation, the export of agricultural products has been New Zealand’s main source of income as a nation. The state played an active role in the development of farming from its early days, regulating land management and animal health to ensure the quality of export products, and conducting research on state-owned farms under the Department of Lands and Surveys, formed in 1886, and Department of Agriculture, in 1892. The link between research and higher education was supported by the formation of The University of New Zealand in 1870. This overarching entity administered the examination and degree process, while affiliated colleges were the teaching centres. Otago University was New Zealand’s first university, opened in 1871, and by 1900 Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch also had university colleges. From the 1880s there was demand for a specialist agricultural college to be established in the North Island to meet the needs of its farming community, which grew massively when Crown acquisition of Māori land between 1892 and 1900 opened up 1.3 million hectares of bushland for new immigrants to convert into pasture. It was also necessary to help New Zealand keep up with agricultural developments taking place in the rest of the world. Farming was transforming from a craft passed on between generations, to a business that required new skills and scientific knowledge. Industrialisation, cheaper refrigeration and transportation costs, and better communication increased competition, and New Zealand’s position in the global network of the British Empire could be capitalised on. As historian Michael Belgrave summarises, ‘science promised to increase yields, reduce costs, eliminate pests and find new ways of producing foods and fibres for an increasingly urbanised population.’ However, it was not until the 1920s that real progress towards a specialist college was made. Geoffrey Sylvester Peren (1892–1980) was appointed to the Chair of Agriculture at Wellington’s Victoria University College in June 1924 and he soon started lobbying for a single North Island agricultural college. The newly appointed Auckland University College equivalent William Riddet (1896–1958) quickly joined Peren in promoting the idea to Prime Minister William Ferguson Massey (1856–1925). Massey had, since taking office in 1912, supported creating a college to function alongside the South Island’s agricultural college at Lincoln in Canterbury (opened in 1880). It was considered important to choose a site for the new college that would be centrally located in the North Island, near to a large town, have suitable land for farming and agricultural experiments and have access to a good water supply. Peren’s first choice was the Batchelar property in Palmerston North because it met his research facility requirements. The Palmerston North Borough Council’s donation of the adjacent ‘Tiritea’ (McHardy) Estate secured Palmerston North as the college’s location. In 1926 the New Zealand Agricultural College Act amalgamated the Wellington and Auckland agricultural schools and the site was acquired. The name was changed to Massey Agricultural College in 1927 to commemorate Massey and his role in the institution’s creation. Both Peren and Riddet were foundation staff. The Oval: centre of the new campus For its first few decades, activities at Massey’s Turitea campus were focused on the Oval and its surrounding buildings, which were located on the former McHardy farm. American architect Roy Lippincott, whose Arts Building had recently been completed at Auckland University, was appointed to design the new campus. Lippincott, who drew aspects of town planning into his work, formed his plan for Massey after studying North American colleges with attributes best suited for adaptation to New Zealand conditions. The Beaux-Arts School is considered to have been particularly influential, characterised by ‘vistas punctuated by symmetry, eye-catching monuments, axial avenues, uniform cornice heights, a harmonious "ensemble," and a somewhat theatrical nobility and accessible charm’. Lippincott’s experience assisting with the design of the new Australian capital, Canberra, was also influential. Lippincott’s vision arranged campus buildings around a central open space, which was rectangular in early versions of the design. However, the economic constraints of the Depression required using the existing drives and roadways as a first stage, until ‘circumstances permit a more formal and suitable entrance and approach.’ These conditions dictated the organic oval shape of the open space, which has endured beyond its original temporary nature. Trees that were already mature in the 1920s helped settle the campus into its new site. A short timeframe to ready the college for its first intake of 85 students in 1928 required temporary conversion of the Batchelar homestead, ‘Willowbank’, but longer-term plans were afoot to also make use of the existing McHardy homestead, Tiritea. Between September 1928-January 1929 the large 24-roomed Tiritea was shifted slightly to the southeast and divided into two parts. The larger portion became the residence (still named Tiritea House) for the principal, Professor Geoffrey Peren, and the smaller part (now known as the Old Registry) was positioned 75 metres away and was the college’s first teaching space and temporary home to the administration. Meanwhile, Lippincott’s designs for the first permanent buildings were underway. The college’s main building was to be the Science Building (now known as the Sir Geoffrey Peren Building): three storeys of offices, lecture rooms, laboratories and a library, located on Tiritea homestead’s original site. The building was designed to reflect ‘the thoroughly modern outlook of the institution at the time of its founding. Fletcher Construction started work in October/November 1929, and the building opened on 30 April 1931. The Refectory, however, was completed a year earlier, in May 1930. This Spanish Mission-style building housed a dining hall, kitchen, games and common rooms, and some staff quarters. It also served as temporary teaching space until the Science Building was completed, and a dormitory until its westward neighbour, the College Hostel, was opened in late 1930 or early 1931. The hostel was created from some outbuildings of the Batchelar homestead, with new additions. Away from The Oval, Lippincott’s Dairy Factory (List No. 7180) was completed in 1929. Construction of the Oval itself was underway in 1929, requiring earthworks to level and prepare the ground for the grass lawn. The landscaping also included creation of the building platforms on its perimeter, the sloped bank on its western side, and the terrace and planted slope at the southeast. It is possible that Fletcher Construction did this work as well as the building contract; the Massey project provided employment to many during the Depression. By May 1930 when the Refectory was opened, the Oval was mown and resembled its current form. Student enrolments grew year upon year, attracted by Massey’s programmes of practical training and applied research. From the outset, Massey promoted itself as ‘a temple to science’, with photos of students in white laboratory coats in all publicity material. Many of the college’s research outputs benefited farmers across the country. In the college’s early years, Francis Dry, senior lecturer in zoology, intensively researched wool fibre and developed the Drysdale breed of sheep, popular for carpet manufacture. Geoffrey Peren’s research, begun in the 1930s, would result in the Cheviot/Romney crossbreed long-wool ‘Perendale’ sheep, suited to the hard dry hill country. Innovations in the dairy department included the discovery of what caused failure in cheese starters, and solving problems with ‘openness’ in cheese. Other research included soil science and drainage, nutrient runoff, pasture for dairy and sheep farms, and seed technology, amongst other topics. All resulted in more reliable export product, and increased productivity for farmers. The majority of the college’s agricultural degree graduates went on to have academic or research careers. Māori students were present from the college’s early days, although likely in low numbers at first (for example, one Māori student is on record as attending in 1930). This is due to what historian Michael Belgrave characterised as the college ‘neglecting its relationship with Māori’, despite it having been founded at the same time as Sir Apirana Ngata was driving a movement for Māori to realise better economic returns from their land through the development of farming. Ngata and other Ngāti Porou leaders had long been pushing for a more structured approach to sheep farming on their East Coast stations, recognising the challenges for Māori as their previously communal interests in land became scattered by the individualisation of land titles under the many laws enacted to allow registration – and easy trading – of Māori land. When he was a cabinet minister, Ngata introduced the 1929 ‘Maori Land Development Scheme’ to give government grants for the development of the physical infrastructure of Māori-owned farms. This encouraged Māori to amalgamate fragmented land titles under single administrative structures. Education in contemporary farming methods was also encouraged, building on the leadership of, for example, Te Aute College which had sent five Māori students to study at an Australian agricultural college as early as 1926. Ngata had diversified his own farming operations into dairy in 1923, and he would have seen the benefit of Massey Agricultural College’s cutting-edge dairy programmes. His son Tipene attended Massey from 1932-1934, training in dairy manufacture. Māori returned servicemen who were to be allocated farms after World War Two were also trained in practical farming at Massey Agricultural College. World War Two During World War Two, many staff and students were called away to wartime service. The college responded by directing its research and production activities towards the war effort and hosting an Army Staff College on site from 1941; the Oval was transformed into a camp with military huts. The college hostel was used for quartering Army officers, and they took over operation of the Refectory and added an extension to it, but an additional officer’s mess was required. The next enduring addition to the Oval historic area resulted from this, when Prime Minister Peter Fraser ordered the construction of a building that could serve as a hostel for Massey Agricultural College after the war when no longer needed as the officers’ dining room. McHardy Hall, later known as ‘the Pink Hostel’ for its original colour, was built by the Public Works Department to R.A. Patterson’s design in 1943. The college took over McHardy Hall in March 1944. Massey University By early 1960 local and international demand for their degree and diploma courses was increasing and Massey had limited capacity to cope. In 1957 there were 410 students either taking degree or diploma courses at Massey College, but even with enrolment restrictions in place the college estimated that number would rise to 600 by 1963. Massey would have to change to grow. In this period the demand for tertiary education from ‘baby boomers’ meant Massey, like others around New Zealand, diversified its curriculum through the creation of its faculties of Veterinary Sciences, Science, Humanities and Social Sciences. For example, there were five courses for the 500 students to pick from in 1960, rising to 28 courses and 2000 students by 1970. For nearly two decades the only change to the Oval was the growth of its trees to partially obscure the buildings surrounding it. However, the mid-twentieth century demand for more tertiary education options and greater capacity motivated a major second phase of construction at the Turitea campus. This was contemporary with the institution becoming a fully autonomous university in 1964, renamed Massey University to reflect its broadened scope. The ‘Phase Two’ developments mostly consisted of Ministry of Works (MoW)-designed buildings positioned around the central open space of the Concourse, but also included Warren and Mahoney’s Student Centre (1966–68), which faces on to the Oval between Tiritea House and the Old Registry. This building presented a strikingly modern addition to the Oval, and, along with the numerous buildings of Phase Two, positioned Massey amongst its peers within a national programme of state-led expansion of universities (Waikato and Ilam being two notable comparators). The Brutalist-style concrete treatment of the Student Centre building, while not one of the standard MoW designs, complemented the Phase Two buildings (such as the Registry, Library/Arts Building, Science Towers, Social Sciences complex, Agricultural Engineering building) in which concrete was also the predominant material. Warren and Mahoney also designed the Student Union Buildings at Canterbury and Auckland Universities between the years 1964 and 1973. The firm also designed the more contemporary Students Centre at Waikato University, completed in 2011. A cricket pitch installed in the centre of the Oval in 1978 proved a popular drawcard, providing decades of social (but highly competitive) games. In the early 1980s the grassed area of the Oval was increased to its present size by reclaiming some of the driveway, particularly in front of McHardy Hall and the Refectory. A few years later, a substantial change to the Oval took place when half of the Old Hostel was removed, to accommodate the construction of two new buildings to house the Business Studies department at the north of the Oval. Structon Group’s Dennis Quinn designed Business Studies West (completed 1986-7) and Business Studies Central (1988) to harmonise with its prestigious flanking neighbours: the rounded windows and towers, cladding and colour schemes echoing the Refectory and Peren building. The remainder of the Old Hostel was removed in 2009. In 2004-2007 the appearance of the Student Centre as viewed from the Oval changed significantly, as the original building was engulfed by a large addition designed by Opus Architecture, replacing smaller extensions to the building’s eastern end. This included a double-height glass-fronted foodcourt/dining area that provided access - and views - between the Concourse and the Oval. The revamped building was reopened by the Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Helen Clark, on 22 February 2007. Chiara Corbelletto’s ‘Binary’ sculpture – representing ‘the fundamental and biological science disciplines promoted and cultivated at the campus’, was unveiled in 2014 at between the Oval’s southwest slope and the Student Centre, to commemorate 50 years since Massey gained university status. In 2015 a major upgrade of the Sir Geoffrey Peren Building was completed, involving seismic strengthening and interior refurbishment, including restoration of heritage features and the extension of teaching facilities with flexible lecture rooms. Between 2020-2022 a large scale refurbishment of the Refectory was also carried out, with fundraising led by the Massey University Foundation. The support from 1472 donors, including alumni, former staff, and Palmerston North City Council, shows the attachment people have for these buildings and the historic heart of the Massey Turitea campus. The Refectory is now a premium venue used by the Massey University Board and Palmerston North City Council, among others, for meetings and functions. It, along with outdoor concerts and film screenings held on The Oval, draws the Palmerston North public into the Turitea campus.

Construction Professionals Mr M. Bedford (Architect: Tiritea House, Old Registry); Roy Alstan Lippincott (Architect: Sir Geoffrey Peren Building, Refectory); R.A. (Robert Adams) Patterson, Government Architect (Architect: McHardy Hall); Warren & Mahoney (Architects: Student Centre); Dennis Quinn, Structon Group (Architect: Business Studies Central and Business Studies West); Opus Architecture (Architect: Student Centre 2007 addition); Fletcher Construction (Builders: Sir Geoffrey Peren Building, Refectory); Public Works Department (Builders: McHardy Hall); Jacques Brothers (Builders: Student Centre) Current Description Massey University Turitea campus sits to the south of Palmerston North city, across the Manawatū River. Approached from the Main Entrance off Tennant Drive, visitors turn off the highway into immediately leafy surrounds. The campus’ tree-lined Main Drive leads to Tiritea Road, which curves uphill to a plateau on which sits the Sir Geoffrey Peren Building, Old Registry, Student Centre and Tiritea House. The Oval and remainder of the Historic Area’s buildings sit below this level on a lower terrace that faces towards the Turitea Stream. University Avenue, which encircles the majority of the Turitea Campus, sits below the terrace at its the north, and across the stream the forested banks of an escarpment rise steeply up to Atawhai Road. Bill Alington’s distinctive Standard Reinforced Concrete Water Tower (one of only four built; the example at Bulls being the most well-known) adds a futuristic element to the skyline. The campus’s other historic buildings (historic homesteads Wharerata, List No. 1188 and Craiglochart, List No. 1185; Massey Agricultural College’s first purpose-built building, the Lippincott-designed Old Dairy Factory, List No. 7180), and the 1960s Colombo Hall hostel, List No. 9726) are all some distance away from the Turitea Historic Area and can’t be seen from there. From Tiritea Road’s vehicle driveway, the Sir Geoffrey Peren Building is the first of the historic area’s buildings encountered. Although it can no longer be seen from all around the campus as in earlier decades, the building’s height, monumentality and the vertical emphasis of its fenestration still create an imposing presence, holding its own amongst the larger buildings of the 1960s campus development that now neighbour it to the southwest. Its brick and plaster exterior and terracotta roof add contrasting colour to the more muted concrete tones of the nearby (1960s) Registry building. The northern and southern elevations are particularly ornate, featuring entrances highly ornamented with stylised, sculptural relief of Māori designs and native flora and fauna, accented by decorative metalwork. Further along Tiritea Road the northeastern elevation of the modest form of the Old Registry can be seen among the trees. The Old Registry, a two-storeyed timber villa, presents a plain stuccoed exterior punctuated regularly by windows: the upper storey has retained its sash joinery. It has been extended by a small, single-storey annexe to its south. Inside, although much altered in its conversion to office space, the timber panelled stairwell reveals a hint of its past as part of a larger homestead, although this was clearly the servants or secondary stairwell, compared to the staircase retained in Tiritea House. Between the Peren building and the Old Registry, a grove of established trees screens views of the Oval. These trees, which include copper beech, New Zealand red beech, karaka, Holm oak and an understorey of shrubs, ferns, grasses and groundcovers, were planted following the removal of large pine trees from this spot, after they were damaged by a storm in 1933. It is part of the original botanical plantings within the college grounds, established for educational purposes and still used by the University in ecology and plant science programmes. Moving to the south of the Old Registry, the Student Centre’s 2007 postmodern addition along its northeastern facade obscures the jutting concrete cradles of its 1960s form. The distinctive pre-cast concrete structural skeleton of Warren & Mahoney’s 1967-1968 design, with its cantilevered columns cradling the overhanging upper storey, is best viewed from the Concourse at the Student Centre’s western corner. The bulk of the 2007 addition is at the southeastern end of the building with a portion extending along the north elevation, and the north and south glass walls of the main dining hall/foodcourt provide both passage and views through to the Oval. Exiting the Student Centre’s food hall through the north of the pavilion, the open green space of the Oval is a striking contrast to the hard concrete surfaces of the Concourse and 1960s buildings. Viewed from here and looking north, perhaps the most defining vista of the Oval – certainly an iconic aspect – is encountered: down and across the wide expanse of the Oval’s green lawn, towards the Refectory and its backdrop of the vegetated Atawhai Road escarpment. Trees, especially a ring of copper beeches, are interspersed around the Oval’s edges between the buildings, and the Binary sculpture sits on the terrace edge. The Refectory is more or less on the same axis as the Student Centre and its prominent, symmetrical form of two lower-level wings on either side of a taller ‘tower-like’ section is enhanced by the two copper beech trees that flank its central entrance. Back on the upper-level terrace, Tiritea House sits to the east of the Student Centre. The two-storey villa is set within its own established garden, carving out private space when it was the residence of the Principal/Vice-Chancellor, and only the northwest elevation is visible from Tiritea Road. The main entrance, now at the northwestern corner, leads directly into the timber-panelled double-height grand staircase hall. A ground-floor lounge also retains the fireplace and panelled ceiling reminiscent of its origins as a grand country house. A curved driveway, following the form of the Oval, leads north and down from the upper platform to the lower terrace, passing through another stand of established trees, some of which were present in 1935. Conifers are predominant here; a notable specimen is a Blue Cedar (Cedrus atlantica). The two-storeyed McHardy Hall is aligned north-south but facing onto the Oval, its two hipped-roof wings extending either side of a central block to echo the curve of the Oval. A single-storey entrance foyer projects from the centre, and a small addition extends east from the building’s rear. Interior finishes are of hardwearing materials lending it an institutional character. Although on par with the Old Registry for its somewhat utilitarian appearance (revealing its wartime origins), McHardy Hall remains stylistically linked with the Oval’s predominant heritage character, through arched doorways, terracotta Marseille roof tiles and touches of Art Deco relief decoration. The driveway next curves around to the Refectory, which has another vehicle accessway (Refectory Road) at its northwest. The building’s previously symmetrical form of wings flanking a central, taller block, has recently been altered by a new two-storey addition containing access stairs and lift, at the building’s northeast corner – this replaced the annexe added by the Public Works Department during World War Two. Although modern in style, the dark timber cladding tinted glass, and its position tucked behind the east wing, render the new addition unobtrusive and sympathetic to the original building. The Refectory’s main entrance faces on to the Oval, the entrance doors below a prominent arched window. The scheme of arched windows is carried through to the wings, and the colour scheme uses light and darker shades to pick out the wealth of decorative detail. The ornamentation is most impressive inside, with door lintels, column capitals inserted between windows, and the balcony and ceiling of the great hall all decorated with relief-moulded patterns influenced by Toi Māori. Business Studies Central and its neighbour Business Studies West complete the ellipse of buildings and are nestled among established trees to their north and west. Business Studies West is fully surrounded by trees. From inside, the height of the buildings give impressive views north across the treetops, and south across the expanse of the Oval. These two buildings are clearly related though oriented differently, and are roughly T-shaped in form (Business Studies Central is more symmetrical than Business Studies West with its projecting wing positioned further north). An overbridge connects the two, and a bridge leads from Business Studies West to the plateau near the Sir Geoffrey Peren Building. Pathways through the bush also lead up from here through the northwestern grove. All the Oval’s buildings, apart from the Student Centre, are linked not only by their positioning around the lawn but also by the stylistic cross-references of their architecture, colour palette and materials. An especially strong defining feature, especially when viewed from a high vantage point, is their orange-coloured Marseille tiled roofs. The Student Centre is an outlier on these terms.

Information Sources

Other Information

A fully referenced copy of the Listing Report is available upon request from the Central Regional Office of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Disclaimer 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. Archaeological sites are protected by the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014, regardless of whether they are entered on the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero or not. Archaeological sites include ‘places associated with pre-1900 human activity, where there may be evidence relating to the history of New Zealand’. This List entry report should not be read as a statement on whether or not the archaeological provisions of the Act apply to the property (s) concerned. Please contact your local Heritage New Zealand office for archaeological advice.