Northern Districts Combined Headquarters Bunker

74 Epsom Avenue, Epsom, AUCKLAND

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The Northern Districts Combined Headquarters Bunker in Epsom is a rare example of an underground Combined Operations Centre planned and built during the Second World War (1939-45). Erected in 1942-3, it graphically demonstrates the extent to which military authorities were concerned about invasion following Japan’s entry into the conflict. Part of a wider complex forming the Northern Districts Combined Headquarters, it reflects new approaches for dealing with this threat including the adoption of specialised designs. Later used as a major civil defence centre in the 1960s and 1970s, it also reflects post-war concerns about nuclear conflict and other public safety threats. The bunker and other underground parts of the 1940s complex additionally lie within a quarry marking the site of Te Pou Hawaiki, a former volcanic cone and maunga of considerable importance to tangata whenua. Te Pou Hawaiki was a place of sanctity and ritual from an early stage in New Zealand’s history. Soil from the ancestral homeland of Hawaiki was placed on the maunga by early arrivals to Tāmaki, and it also contained a pou or pillar where rituals were reportedly performed. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the maunga was largely destroyed by quarrying, after which the land became part of the grounds of Auckland Teachers’ Training College. During the Second World War, the college was requisitioned as the Northern Districts Combined Headquarters – one of four complexes across the country reflecting a new military system of decentralised tactical command combining Army, Navy and Air Force personnel. Its central focus was a Combined Operations Centre in the main college building. Initial support structures included two emergency telephone exchanges and a small shelter in the quarry. The Northern Districts Combined Headquarters Bunker was erected as an underground facility to house the Combined Operations Centre in the event of direct attack. Due to northern New Zealand’s proximity to the Pacific conflict, it was the first of its type to be started nationally and the only one to be substantially completed. Built in the base of the quarry, the rectangular, two-storey structure had a flat roof, covered by scoria for protection and concealment. Internally, it contained large columns to allow future flexibility of function, a mezzanine to enable information on plotting tables to be viewed from above, and a variety of spaces connected with essential command functions. A highly specialised structure, initial plans were provided by noted engineer, W. L. Newnham – director of fortifications and works, and president of the New Zealand Institute of Engineers in 1945-6. Its design was also influenced by officers who had knowledge of such buildings in Britain, and New Zealand airmen with experience in Malaya. The building was almost entirely completed and fitted out when work stopped towards the end of 1943, directly reflecting improvements in the war situation. It subsequently functioned as the Combined Operations Centre’s telephone exchange, demonstrating the importance of secure communications in military command. Remaining in use as an exchange until the end of the war, it was then employed for storing up to 37,000 gas masks and refurbished for combined services training in the mid-1950s. The building’s use as a major civil defence headquarters in New Zealand’s largest city between 1966 and 1975 similarly demonstrates ongoing concerns about public security during the Cold War, and the development of a ‘bunker’ mentality following the international development of intercontinental ballistic missiles. In the 1980s, its interior was damaged by fire. In early 2019, the bunker and associated underground structures were vacant.

Northern Districts Combined Headquarters Bunker, Auckland | Martin Jones | 24/06/2016 | Heritage New Zealand
Northern Districts Combined Headquarters Bunker, Auckland. Rear entrance to bunker, showing outlines of diagonal board formwork used in construction | Martin Jones | 24/06/2016 | Heritage New Zealand
Northern Districts Combined Headquarters Bunker, Auckland. Entrance to small underground shelter | Martin Jones | 24/06/2016 | Heritage New Zealand

Location

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List Entry Information

Overview

Detailed List Entry

Status

Listed

List Entry Status

Historic Place Category 1

Access

Private/No Public Access

List Number

9747

Date Entered

8th August 2019

Date of Effect

9th September 2019

City/District Council

Auckland Council

Region

Auckland Council

Extent of List Entry

Extent includes part of the land described as Sec 3 SO 490837 (RT 854670), North Auckland Land District, and the buildings known as and associated with Northern Districts Combined Headquarters Bunker thereon. (Refer to map in Appendix 1 of the List entry report for further information).

Legal description

Sec 3 SO 490837 (RT 854670), North Auckland Land District

Location Description

Additional Location Information NZTM Easting: 1757515.0 NZTM Northing: 5916696.5 (approximate centre of bunker)

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