The Oldest Building in Canterbury

Richard Pollard's 1840 cottage photographed on its Cathedral Square site in 1862

Built in 1840 of Black Pine and Totara in Hagley Park (the site is indicated below by a yellow square), the Surveyor's cottage was relocated to the vicinity of Press Lane at Cathedral Square in 1852. By 1900 it had been moved again to the southern side of Moorhouse Avenue, near to the eastern corner of Grove Road. The cottage's subsequent fate is yet to be ascertained.


Here follows three articles from The Star newspaper relating to the early history of the cottage.

The Oldest Building in Canterbury - The Star, 12 September 1900

To settle what seems to be a somewhat vexed question, a representative of the Lyttelton Times yesterday made inquiries among a number of the Pilgrims with regard to the authenticity, or otherwise, of the statement that the building now being used as a residence on the South Belt, near the Southern Cross Hotel, was the earliest of the dwellings occupied by the dwellers on the plains.

The representative interviewed many persons, and, towards evening, met Mr Edmund Smart, who resides at 55 Cashel Street, Linwood, and who kindly gave him the particulars he was seeking. Mr Smart is the eldest son of a family of ten, who arrived with their parents (long since dead) in the ship Randolph, on December the 16th, 1850. Their father had been engaged in England as a farm servamt, but on arrival here found that no such employment was available. He and his family therefore entered into what occupations they could find. Edmund became an employee of Mr William Todd, a carrier and contractor, and carted the first half-ton of coal used by the late Mr John Anderson in his smithy in Cashel Street (now well known as the Canterbury Foundry), from the Christchurch Wharf at Woolston, to its destination. It may be mentioned that the half-ton cost Mr Anderson £4 10 shillings, and the carriage 12 shillings.

While engaged by Mr Todd, Mr Smart assisted in the removal of a building from Hagley Park into Christchuroh, and that building, it is claimed, has the honour of being the oldest of the buildings still standing, in the province of Canterbury.

It was a two-roomed dwelling-place, and was built in 1840 for Mr Pollard, who was engaged in surveying under the New Zealand Government, and who had taken up his quarters in Hagley Park on account of its proximity to what everyone then thought must in time become a centre of population.

From this hut, or shanty, all exploring parties started, and to it all returned. The timbers of which it was constructed had been cut from the Riccarton bush, now known as Deans', and consisted of black pine and totara. There was plenty of it available as Bob Kerr and Harry Royal, two runaway sailors, had occupied their spare time in cutting out the best timber they could lay their hands on without much trouble, till it became a drug on the market.

Mr Smart, when he arrived in 1850, and became attached to the contracting staff of Mr Todd, had, in the course of a year or so, to remove this building from its site in Hagley Park, just above the Townsend Falls, to a place where it was of more use.

Dr Chapman had by that time installed himself in practice in Christchurch, and, having purchased this two-roomed building, agreed with Mr Todd to remove it into a central position. This was done, E. Smart, J. Sales and W. Prebble assisting, and for some years it stood at the back of the old Gaiety Theatre, where it was used as a laundry for Warner's Hotel, and it is stated that the timbers in it were in as good, if not a better, condition than that of many buildings of a much more recent date.

It is known that Mr. Pollard was here in 1840, and that, before making a start on his survey, he fixed his headquarters in Hagley Park, and it was in 1852 that Mr Smart, in the employ of Mr Todd, assisted in the removal of the building and saw it re-erected for Dr Chapman, so that fully, ten years must have elapsed between the erection of this building and of the one imported and erected by the late Mr George Gould in Armagh Street.


MORE HISTORICAL RECOLLECTIONS - The Star, 18 September 1900

Mr Edmund Smart, whose remarks have given rise to the discussion, on the question, of which is the oldest building in Canterbury, has been for several days invalided through an attack of blood poisoning. He has read with a good deal of interest the remarks of Mrs Deans and those appearing above the initials of "G. J. B." Neither of these, however, shake his opinion that Mr Pollard's two-roomed shanty, which he and others removad from Hagley Park in 1852, to the order of Dr Chapman, is the very first of all buildings erected in Canterbury now in existence.

It is urged that Mrs Deans herself admits that the first building erected on the Riccarton property was recently demolished, and that she will most be surprised to hear that a Mr Pollard, surveyor, worked on the Canterbury Plains as a surveyor in 1842.

It is further stated that when the Dean Brothers arrived, and made, their home at Riccarton, they saw little or nothing of him, as he was more frequently engaged in his professional work on the Peninsula, but that, all the same, he made his headquarters in Hagley Park, and, having done so, engaged Robert Kerr and Harry Royal to make his home there.

Mr C. Hood-Williams distinctly recollects the building occupied by Mr Pollard, but being then only a lad of seven years of age, he cannot, of course, say what the age of the building might be. He was in the habit of passing backwards am forwards on his way to Christ's College, where Mr. Williams was one of the first four pupils.

Mr Smart, however, contends that from the evidences of the state of the building when he, James Sales and William Prebble removed it to its central position near Cathedral Square, it must have been erected some ten or twelve years previously. It was during the month, of September, 1852, that the building was removed...


HISTORICAL SITES PEGGED IN HAGLEY PARK - The Star, 22 January 1906

Two old pioneers, who have grown grey-haired in the work of colonisation in Canterbury, accompanied Mr H. G. Ell and two reporters through Hagley Park this morning, and located interesting historical sites, and Mr Ell drove pegs into the ground so that the spots might be identified.

The pegs are marked with numbers, which will correspond with records, describing the incidents associated with them. The Hon C. C. Bowen, Speaker of the Legislative Council, and Mr C. Hood Williams, secretary to the Lyttelton Harbour Board, are the gentlemen who accompanied Mr Ell, and as the party strolled over the Park, which was an utter wilderness when they saw it first, over fifty years ago, they talked of times which have gone by.

The first peg was driven in on the site of the first bakery established in Christchurch. It was conducted by Mr Inwood, and the building was erected in January, 1851. The spot is on the bank of the Avon, as it sweeps round and runs close up to the Riccarton Road, which divides the North Park from the South Park, and the second site pegged off is where Mr Pollard's Raupo whare stood, about a hundred and fifty yards northward of the first peg...

Epitaph: John Grubb 1817-1898

As a member of the Canterbury Association's thirty-five strong initial work party, John Grubb, a thirty-two year old Scottish Carpenter arrived at Lyttelton on the 2nd of July, 1849.

His first responsibilty was the erection of the five prefabricated dwellings and Blacksmith's shop, carried from Wellington in the hold of the Fair Tasmanian. Three weeks later John commenced the construction of a 46 metre jetty, at which the first emigrants from the Association's chartered sailing ships would arrive 17 months later. Among those passengers were his wife Mary and their three daughters.


Early in the following year John Grubb built an extension across the front of what the historical record appears to indicate as being the 1849 prefabricated cottage of Joseph Thomas, the Principal Surveyor and Acting Agent of the Canterbury Association.

Initially granted a licence to occupy the site at the time when Captain Thomas relocateded to a more substantial dwelling, Grubb subsequently purchased the property for £23, when the set price for a bare section was £12.

By 1864 Mary and John's family included a further seven Lyttelton born children and an additional floor had been added to the 1851 extension.

Situated at 62 London Street, the house (below) remained in the Grubb family until 1961 and was purchased in 2006 by the Christchurch City Council for $260,000. We look forward to its restoration...


The mismanaged Canterbury Association collapsed in 1852 and John Grubb set himself up as a Shipwright on the foreshore (below foreground), in the vicinity of where the defunct second Railway Station now stands. A builder's model of John Grubb's Caledonia, the first vessel built of New Zealand timber and entirely by local industry, is in the collection of Canterbury Heritage.


Born on the 7th of November 1816, the former Mary Stott married John Grubb on the 26th of January 1842. She died at Lyttelton on the 18th of October 1886. Born on the 1st of May 1817 at Ferryport-on-Craig, Fifeshire, John survived his wife by a further twelve years. Lyttelton's oldest resident died in his 82nd year on Saturday, the 19th of February 1898.


The extensive and somewhat folkloric history of the Grubb family and their endeavours are well documented and thus the pioneering John Grubb can be considered as one of the seminal figures in the foundation of our community. That his final resting place in Lyttelton's Canterbury Street Cemetery lies ruined and forgotten might well seem to be a barometric indicator of our current cultural climate.

Our history may be somewhat closer than many of the more recent generations are aware...

As a child the Ngati Toa tribal chieftain Te Rauparaha (~1760-1849) remembered the visits of James Cook to New Zealand between 1769 and 1777. He also knew Edward Jollie (1825-1894), whose 1861 wedding was attended by this contributing Editor's Great Grandmother. Accordingly, there are no more than three degrees of separation between Captain Cook and living New Zealanders.

In the case of Canterbury there are still a few locals who knew the last survivor of the original settlers of 1850. Among them is 93 year-old Austen Deans, last surviving Great Grandson of John Deans who settled at Riccarton in 1843.


Richards Evans aged in 16 in 1864
Richard Evans (1848-1944) arrived aboard the Cressy as a two year old. The second to last survivor of the first four ships and a Patron of the Canterbury Pilgrims Association, he is remembered by Roger Ridley-Smith, who is thereby a remarkable link to the very beginnings of Christchurch.

The Reverend Frederick Brittan (1848-1945), last survivor of our first settlers, delivered a eulogy at Richard Evans' funeral.


Tea drinking 90 year-old Richards Evans seated beside a young Roger Ridley-Smith
Roger Ridley-Smith writes:

My father, E D R Smith, (1901-1975), a lawyer in Rangiora, knew Richard Evans. In 1938, the three of us went to the Bridle Track where there was a ceremony at the memorial there. It may have been the unveiling of it. Evans, who would have been aged ninety, sat in the back of my father's Chevrolet. and I recall him as a small man with a snow white beard. I was aged seven. Memory is fallible, but that is as I recall it.

Dilapidated and forgotten, this is the grave of Georgina Sophia and Richard Evans in St John's cemetery at Rangiora.

---

Canterbury Heritage is gratefully indebted to Sarndra Lees for the 1864 photograph of her Great Great Uncle and his grave. Also to Dr. Ridley-Smith for the 1938 photograph of his father's 90 year old friend.

We would also be very pleased to hear from anyone who can expand upon this interesting aspect of our history.

Edward Jollie Memoir

Edward Jollie was the Surveyor who laid out the township of Lyttelton and the city of Christchurch in 1849.

1 0. Preface

1.00Beginnings

2.00Wellington: 1842-1845

3.00Nelson: 1845-1846

4.00Otago: 1846-1847

5.00Nelson: 1848-1849

6.00Christchurch: 1849-1851

7.00North Canterbury: 1852-1860

8.00South Canterbury 1858-1859

9.00Auckland: 1860-1861

10.0Francis Jollie

11.0Christchurch 1861-1865

12.0Postscript

103 Acknowledgments & Bibliography

103 Appendices103 1

103 103Caroline Orsmond Jollie 1836 -1919

103 103Margaret Jollie 1862-1936

103 103Francis Jollie 1865~1921

103 103Elizabeth Jollie 1866~1928

103 103Mary Jollie 1868-

103 103Edward Jollie Jnr 1871-1925

103 103Jollie’s mother, Margaret 1795-1872

Naming Christchurch Streets

Canterbury Heritage is soon to publish the memoirs of Edward Jollie, the Surveyor who laid out the city of Christchurch in 1849.

Among the appendices to the memoir is this excerpt from the reminisces of his fourth daughter Mary, who was born at Christchurch in 1868.

"The chief was Captain Thomas, who had come out to Wellington about 1841. He had been in a British cavalry regiment. The cadets in Wellington had once saved him from arrest for debt by rolling him up in some big maps in the survey office. He was a man of strong opinions.

When helping to lay out Christchurch my father built himself a Raupo whare, which was the first dwelling in that town. The younger surveyors made plans and submitted them to Captain Thomas for approval. It is to be regretted that he disapproved of the suggestion that the streets should be twice their present width. He was sorry after, when it was too late.

Then came the question of naming the streets. They were to be called after bishoprics of the Anglican Church. They had a sort of informal council, and looking at the plan one would say,

"What about street No. 20: shall we call it after the See of Blank?"

"That will do," would say Captain Thomas, "the Bishop of Blank is a Conservative and a good fellow, so put it down."

"Then how about naming street No. 13 after the See of Dash?"

"I'll be damned if you do, the Bishop is a Radical, quite a low fellow."

So some Sees were left out, because the chief disliked the bishops. He must have had an extensive knowledge of them.

When the ships at last arrived a number of immigrants came straggling over the Port Hills, and the Raupo whare had to accommodate quite a number of future notabilities for the night. But it did not take long to get the new town going..."

Pioneer Cemetery

A southerly view of Christchurch's first cemetery in Barbadoes Street at Cambridge Terrace. Here lie the pioneer settlers from the early 1840s. The chapel was demolished in 1955 and the old cemetery has become neglected and vandalised.

In the foreground is the grave of Johannes Georg Ruddenklau (1829-1891), City Councilor from 1866 and Mayor of Christchurch 1882-1891. A German Baker and Confectioner, Ruddenklau had a Pie shop at "The Triangle" (junction of High and Colombo Streets) by 1857, subsequently granted a Beer License, he built the City Hotel on the same site. The much photographed hotel was demolished in the early 1930s to make way for the current building.

Photographed by Andy Wragg, a recent Canterbury settler from the United Kingdom.

Where Canterbury Began

41 Charing Cross, subsequently known as 16 Whitehall, occupies part of the site of London's Whitehall Palace, which burnt down in 1698. Already a centre of London book publishing before it was built in 1765, the ground floor of the three-storey plastered brick building was a Coffee House by 1810.

The inaugural meeting of the Canterbury Association was held in the upper floor rooms on the 27th of March, 1848, where a resolution was passed: "that the name of the proposed settlement be "Canterbury" and the name of the chief town be "Christchurch."

Next door were the banking offices of Thomas Somers Cocks (1815-1899), an original member of the Canterbury Association. Cocks, Biddulph and Company became the Association's bankers. Thomas's cousin the Reverend Henry Bromley Cocks, (1832-1894), first Vicar of Sydenham, emigrated to Christchurch in 1861. Mount Somers in the foothills of mid-Canterbury is named after the banker to the Canterbury Association.

The 165 year-old building was demolished in 1930, to be replaced by the neo-Georgian offices of the Glyn Mills Bank. Known as Kirkland House, it now forms part of the British government's Cabinet Office. The commemorative plaque was unveiled on the 16th December 2003.

Lyttelton's Grubb Cottage Reëvaluated

By means of the digital interpolation of the first image of the nascent settlement, with the earliest known topographical survey map and recent aerial images of the township, it is possible to indicate an earlier and historically more significant origin to Lyttelton's Grubb cottage.

Joseph Thomas, Principal Surveyor and Acting Agent of the Canterbury Association, arrived at Lyttelton, with a working party of thirty five, on the 2nd of July, 1849. In the hold of the Fair Tasmanian were five prefabricated dwellings, a Blacksmith's shop and four horses.

After initially living in tents, erection of the prefabricated buildings was completed nineteen days later. That day Walter Mantell sketched the results from the vicinity of where the Time Ball Station now stands.

Reflecting the prevailing social values of the time, the settlement was spread over three separate locations. The Blacksmith's shop and tradesmen's accommodation were situated to the near northeast of where the proposed wharf was to be built. The three houses for the middle management staff were erected 256 metres to the West on what would become Norwich Quay, next to what is now the Mitre Hotel site.

But more importantly the house of the Acting Agent was situated on a promontory 87 metres to the North-by-northwest of the middle management's cottages. This simple two roomed dwelling was erected on a north-south axis overlooking a small stream, which then dropped 5.2 metres in what would become its front garden when the town survey was completed.

In April, 1850 Thomas moved to a larger cottage in the precinct of the Emigration Barracks and John Grubb, a Carpenter in the Canterbury Association's employ, was subsequently granted formal permission to squat on the section where Joseph Thomas' first home stood. On the 1st of July 1851 the Association held the first ballot for the sale of sections and John Grubb purchased his section for £23. As the set price for a Lyttelton section was £12, this amount would appear to indicate pre-existing improvements.As indicated in an April, 1852 sketch by William Holmes (above), Grubb had extended the cottage to a "T" shape, with a single storey extension on the southern end of the earlier two-roomed cottage. On an east-west axis the extension featured a simple, south facing, veranda overlooking London Street. The subsequent photographic record indicates that the bedrooms in the higher gabled roof line and the bull nosed veranda of this extension were added about 1865. This is the building as it now appears.

The rear portion of the house is accordingly believed to be the original home of the actual founder of Canterbury and the oldest surviving dwelling of the provincial settlement.

The house remained in the Grubb family until 1961 and was subsequently purchased in 2006 by the Christchurch City Council for $260,000. At the end of May, 2008 the Council announced plans for spending a further $250,000 to fund necessary conservation and stabilisation work.

Satellite view of the building's location
geo:lat= -43.601916
geo:lon= 172.719294