Why is this place significant?

Why is this place Category 1 / Category 2?

In Canterbury, the first steps in the public education of girls in domestic science were taken at Christchurch Girls' High School where cooking classes were first offered in 1885. Through the early 1890s several proposals were put forward to establish a school of domestic science in the city. A committee of ladies took the initiative and established the Christchurch School of Domestic Instruction in 1893, the first such institution in New Zealand. Mrs Harman, teacher of cooking at Christchurch Girls' High School, was principal for the first two years. The role was then taken over by Mrs Elizabeth Gard'ner (1861-1926), a talented, capable and gracious woman of high principles with great determination to achieve her goals. She was born in Sweden of British parents and, though she received her early education in England, it was in Sweden and Denmark that she had trained in household arts, providing her with the skills to be a proficient teacher. The school, initially established in a "barren, rat-infested warehouse in Lichfield Street", moved several times over the following decade without finding totally satisfactory accommodation. It nevertheless achieved its purpose and was considered a great success with both the school and its principal acquiring a high reputation. Mrs Gard'ner was influential in introducing the teaching of home science into primary schools and classes of up to 100 girls at a time attended her school to receive instruction. In 1903 she and Mrs Harman published "The New Zealand Domestic Cookery Book", a best seller that had been reprinted seven times by 1921 and achieved similar status to the later Edmonds Cookbook. Mr and Mrs John Studholme, of the Coldstream estate in Mid-Canterbury, were both avid supporters of the Christchurch School of Domestic Instruction, strongly believing in "the use of scientific knowledge to make our homes more beautiful and healthy and to ease the drudgery and burden of everyday life". Knowledge of university courses in home economics in the United States led Mr Studholme to offer to endow a chair at the Canterbury College in 1905. The College had doubts about such a proposal and it was Otago University which took up his offer, establishing the School of Home Science there in 1911. Meantime, when the Christchurch Technical College was established in 1907, Mrs Gard'ner's school was taken under its management but continued to operate from the very crowded and noisy premises at the north-west corner of Manchester and Worcester Street. Mrs Gard'ner was now designated Head of Home Science Department, responsible for instruction in cooking, dressmaking, millinery and needlework. The Ladies' Advisory Committee, chaired by Mrs Heaton Rhodes (wife of the local Member of Parliament) and including Mrs Studholme, played a continuing role. The committee supported Mrs Gard'ner's concerns that there was a greater demand than could be met by the home science programme and that provision of a hostel should be an integral part of the system of instruction. She believed that "...in the rooms of the school, instruction could never be given adequate to meet the demands of the home" and advocated the construction of a home "where girls might receive training in all branches of housecraft amid surroundings in which their taste would be formed of the true and good and beautiful". The Ladies' Advisory Committee began fundraising to achieve this goal. Their cause received publicity and support. Prominent citizens, including the Studholmes, made substantial donations and in 1909 the Antarctic explorer, Lieutenant Ernest Shackleton, gave £83, half the proceeds from the public lecture he delivered on his recent expedition. A 'deputation of ladies' who went to Wellington succeeded in obtaining a government grant of £1,500, providing a substantial boost to the funds. In 1910 twelve acres of land was purchased at Ensors Road, Opawa, for the proposed hostel, agricultural plots and for recreational purposes. The southern boundary of this site was the Christchurch/Lyttelton railway line with a suburban station nearby providing students with ready transport to and from the city centre. A competition held for the building's design was won by Mr Thomas Browning, an unqualified architect who was head of the Building Trades Department of the Technical College. No evidence as to the nature of the competition has been found and Mr Bowring's success suggests it was not widely entered by local architects. However, credit must be given to him for the quality of the building in which the layout and planning were strongly influenced by Mrs Gard'ner's requirements. On 23rd January, 1912, Mrs Studholme laid the foundation stone. The new hostel was completed and formally opened by Hon Robert Heaton Rhodes on 29th April, 1913. The total cost of the completed project was £4,600 and is a testament to the vigorous fundraising activities of the Ladies' Advisory Committee. The two storeyed Arts and Crafts styled hostel was built with the assistance of boys from the Building Trades Department of the Technical College supervised by Mr Bowring. Its design and layout were clearly influenced by Mrs Gard'ner's very practical ideas. The completed building was finished with curtains made by Mrs Gard'ner and cushions that she had embroidered. On the ground floor were the entrance hall/sitting room, the dining room, a large and a smaller, more domestic-scaled kitchen, the laundry separated from the main building by a covered way, a classroom and a laboratory. There was some criticism of the unnecessary extravagance of oak parquet flooring in the sitting room, but the ever thrifty Mrs Gard'ner's response was that use was being made of available off cuts. On the upper floor were the 'pretty little studies that are turned into bedrooms at night, as in the residential colleges in the Old Country, by the conversion of the couch into a bed.' The hostel also contained a model flat of four rooms which was to be managed by a single student as her training neared completion. In the kitchens students were able to learn about the use of coal, gas and kerosene as fuels for cooking and the baths provided were of differing types so that the specific systems of cleaning would be understood. The house was surrounded by lawns, flower beds and kitchen gardens. The early benefactor, now Sir Ernest Shackleton , visited the hostel in 1917 and planted a commemorative oak on the front lawn. Mrs Gard'ner, having resigned as head of the Technical College's Domestic Science Department, became Matron and Principal of the Hostel where she established the fine institution which continued until the 1950s. Although she resigned her position as Principal because of ill health in 1916, she continued as a part-time teacher and her name is indelibly associated with the hostel and its achievements. It was Mrs Gard'ner who set up the courses and effectively established the training systems. Country girls were able to board at the hostel while day pupils at the Technical College would stay there for a period of eight weeks as part of their training, doing all the housework and cooking for the residents. Apart from training in the usual household skills, all students were required to give some time to gardening and they could also learn about keeping cows, poultry and bees. The day's programme involved housework in the mornings with time in the afternoons given to theoretical homecraft, some academic subjects and needlework, followed by opportunities to enjoy tennis or croquet. The training provided at the hostel was appreciated for equipping students with the skills to become model housewives - for 'young ladies with an eye to marriage' - or to gain employment as cooks or housekeepers. It became popular for well-to-do young ladies to take a course for a year of two here in order to learn how to oversee the management of a home and to train servants. When Mrs Gard'ner died in 1926, a memorial tablet in bronze and oak was designed by the noted craftsman Frederick Gurnsey and placed over the fireplace in the hostel's entrance hall. It records her as a ... 'pioneer in housecraft training of rare humanity charm & culture an example of noble womanhood. She laboured incessantly for others.' The domestic training courses continued here in the manner Mrs Gard'ner had established, latterly training high school girls and home science teachers until the early 1954 when changes in teaching methods led to the hostel's closure. The Christchurch Hospital Board then leased the building as a nurses' hostel, the proximity to the suburban rail station allowing for easy commuting to the city hospital. In 1969 Ngai Tahu Kaumatua took up the lease, renaming the hostel Te Aranga (the resurrection or the awakening) and using it to accommodate Maori youths who came to Christchurch to take courses under the Maori Trade Training Scheme. This continued until 1977 when there were changes in the training systems and building was vacated. In c.1985 the Christchurch Technical College's Soccer Club made some relatively minor alterations to the building's interior for its adaption as their club-rooms. At the same time a portion of the property's lawn frontage was sold to the Christchurch City Council to allow for the widening of Ensors Road and a concrete wall was erected on the new boundary. Use as the clubroom for the Soccer team ceased in 2001 after an arson attack destroyed the ablution block at the rear of the property. The building is currently providing space where the college's architectural students can prepare models.

The two storeyed red brick hostel is an excellent example of the popular Arts and Crafts style. The domestic scaled building, featuring asymmetrical massing with tall tapered chimneys, construction materials of brick and tiles and high quality craftsmanship, is representative of this architectural style. The principal façade facing Ensors Road has a wide, shallow porch opening into the entrance hall/sitting room. The gable is half timbered, its black and white colouring providing a strong contrast with the warm red brickwork and giving emphasis to this feature. Around the building casement windows vary in height and groupings to provide a lively articulation of the façades. The windows are all finely detailed, with crowning brick voussoirs and ornamental sills. Further decorative effects are provided by the terracotta shingles which form the bases for two north facing oriel windows and the use of a contrasting clinker brick for the stringcourse. The dominating chimneys are a significant element on the north façade which originally featured another wide, open (now enclosed) porch giving access to the garden. The quality of craftsmanship in the building is of a very high standard in keeping with Arts and Crafts principles. The interior features extensive use of oak panelling and an oak parquet floor in the entrance hall/sitting room. The handcrafted appearance and quality of the internal fittings is consistent throughout the building, with Art Nouveau styled window latches and, in the entrance hall, attractive curvilinear stained leadlight windows. Squared leaded windows enhance the top panes of each window on both floors. The large entrance hall/sitting room, offices, kitchens and classrooms were located on the ground floor with the laundry as a separate unit at the rear. On the upper floor where the boarders were accommodated were the bedroom/studies and bathroom facilities. Despite adaptive changes being made over the last 50 years the building's original layout remains discernable. CURRENT PHYSICAL CONDITION: Only minimal maintenance has been carried out over recent years.

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Other Information

A fully referenced version of this report is available from the NZHPT Southern Region Office. NZ Gazette 1981 p.1574 Local Purpose Reserve (General Education). Note: The building fronts onto Ensors Road but is part of the Sullivan Avenue campus of the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, 40 Sullivan Avenue, Christchurch. Please note that entry on the New Zealand Heritage List/Rarangi Korero 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.