West side of Tinakori Road
296 and 298 Tinakori Road
These two houses were built as an identical pair by and for speculative builder Thomas McCarthy in 1902. Designed by architect Robert McGregor, they are part of a distinctive group of six tall narrow houses – four of which were designed by McGregor, and two by Crichton and McKay – that is a prominent feature on this part of Tinakori Road.
The two houses remained in single ownership until 1925 when they were sold separately by lawyers Brandon and Hislop, by then the owners of the property. The new owner of 296 was Samuel Freister. Like the other properties McCarthy built, the house was divided into a series of flats and has been leased all its life, by the likes of clerks, messengers, labourers and drivers. The last recorded major work to the building was re-piling in 1979.
The new owner of 298 was Henry Fairclough, who also lived in the building. Most of the 20th century occupants were listed as labourers. In 1977 there was a proposal for a motel on the site of 10 houses in the immediate vicinity, including this pair, but it did not proceed. A garage was built beneath the house in 1983. There were considerable alterations made to the house in 1996.16 The present owner is an investment company.
The two houses were designed and originally built as a matched pair and retain much of that commonality today. Each three storeys high (two full storeys and a basement), little more than a single room wide and long in plan, they sit a full storey above Tinakori Road and are set back slightly from the street with a miniscule front yard; they are separated from each other by a narrow pathway that leads to the two front doors.
Each house is a simple and straightforward design with typical late-Victorian cues. Each has a simple gabled roof facing the street (hipped at the western end), with decorative half-timbering in the gable ends, large scrollwork gable brackets and a distinctive two storey bay window – three sided and fitted with large double-hung windows on each side and a pair – at each storey at the street front. The street façades are clad in rusticated weatherboards and the side walls in horizontal corrugated iron. The basements are low structures, both apparently inhabited. There is a small lean-to at the rear of each building.
300 and 302 Tinakori Road
This pair of houses were built by J.W. Fossette for Catherine Blick in 1902.18 Designed as a mirrored pair by well-regarded Wellington architects Crichton and McKay, they are part of the group of narrow multi-storey houses that are a distinctive feature on this part of Tinakori Road.
Blick sold both properties to Hannah Broad and in 1911 Clare Christie, purchased 300. She and her descendants kept the property until 1947. The house was used in the early 1900s partly as a fish and oyster saloon and partly as some sort of boarding house. A long-standing tenant from the 1920s to the 1940s was seaman John McArthur. The property was briefly owned by a developer who wanted to build a motel over this and nine other houses in the vicinity, and who applied for a permit to “demolish two flats” but, fortunately for the historic character of the area, the plan never eventuated. Since then the house has been owned by a variety of people, including garden historian Walter Cook, in the early 1980s. Until that time, most of the occupants were tenants. The house was later converted into flats.
James McIntyre purchased 302 in 1911. Most of the tenants of 302 were working class and short-term but Stanley Kirby notably stayed from the mid 1920s to the early 1960s. Early occupants of the shop on the ground floor are not listed in street directories but Auto Glass Replacements and Three-0-Two Licensed Second Dealers are listed in street directories as occupants from the 1960s to the 1980s. In 1969 the building was converted into two flats.
These two houses are a mirrored pair – built with an access gap between them, they sit hard against their neighbours on either side. Although of the same width and height as 296/298, the street elevation of each house is rather more articulated and detailed and the buildings consequently look larger and more substantial than their northern neighbours. The two houses show a distinct San Francisco influence in their styling and elaborate decoration.
Each house is three storeys high (two full storeys and a basement), topped with a simple gabled roof with shingles in the gable ends, and has a lean-to at the rear, gabled for 302 and a mono-slope for 300. The overall roof form is more complex, with two side gables behind the street front and a long-hipped roof running out to the rear of each building beyond that, all in clad corrugated iron. The top floor has a full-width verandah with stained-glass screens to the sides and fretwork trims to the street front (the complex geometric balustrading on 302 is likely to be original). At the main floor, there is effectively a bay window, with tall double-hung windows, to the outside edge of the building and a semi-enclosed verandah at the inside edge. This has a distinctive arched screen to the street front. The basement floors are clad in timber, although that for 302 has been covered over in a thin sheet material – both basements appear inhabited.
304 and 306 Tinakori Road
This pair of houses was built by and for speculative builder Thomas McCarthy in 1902. Designed as an identical pair by architect Robert McGregor, they are part of the distinctive group of tall narrow houses that is a feature of this part of Tinakori Road.
McCarthy sold 304 to John Rouse in 1905. The property changed hands many times after that; the owners of longest standing were Victoria and Charles Lambert, who bought it in 1925 and it remained in their hands until Victoria Lambert’s death in 1958. The property was owned from 1973 to 1989 by a developer, who wanted to build a motel over the site of this and nine other houses in the vicinity but the plan never eventuated. A fire on the third floor of the house, then unoccupied, in November 1977 raised some press interest. As with its neighbours, 304 has rarely been lived in by its owners. William Day, a labourer, lived in the building for nearly 30 years (from 1929 to the mid-1950s). Early occupants tended to be mechanics, cleaners or carpenters, while in later years civil servants were frequent tenants.The building is now separated into two titles.
McCarthy sold 306 to Elizabeth Ridgeway in 1907 and the following year the shop and flat above were added.
The shop was originally a butchery, and remained that way for most of the century, although a fish and chip shop briefly occupied the building in the 1910s. The building had a flurry of owners until George Nash, butcher acquired the building in 1925. Nash’s butchery was a well-known occupant of the ground floor shop. There was still a butchery in the shop in the late 1980s.
The upstairs flats have been occupied by a variety of workers and government employees over its life. During the 1930s there were four self-contained flats in the building. In more recent decades, the first floor has been used as offices by various businesses.
This pair of houses is rather taller than the two pairs to the north – each house is three full storeys high above a basement, and is an architecturally elaborated version of the 296/298 pair. Of these two houses, 304 is the more original in appearance; 306 differs in having a shop and office built in the front yard space and running out to the street frontage of the property. The houses show a distinct San Francisco influence in their styling and decoration and use of multi-storey verandahs.
No. 304 has a long narrow gabled roof (hipped end at the west) and a small rear lean to. The gable end has decorative half-timbering and scrollwork gable brackets. The most striking feature is the three-storey high verandah with fretwork trims and slender timber balustrading. Behind this, the top two storeys each have a 3-sided bay window, with double hung windows to each side and a pair of double hung windows to the street front at each storey. The lower of these storeys projects somewhat forward of the top storey. The lowest full storey has a verandah and no bay window; the basement is clad in sheet material and reads as a solid plinth to the building.
No. 306 matches 304 in plan form and for the top two storeys. The lower two storeys consist of a small shop at the ground floor, with a central entrance, two display windows and a heavy verandah on timber posts; the office is a single storey above this with a pair of double-hung windows in a weatherboard wall facing the street and a flat roof. The verandah on the next storey of the house has also been built in and has a single double-hung window facing the street.
308-310 Tinakori Road
Constructed in 1998, this is a modern three-storey mixed-use building. It has a plain façade, divided into four bays with shallow mouldings, a heavy square cornice at the top, and a flat balustraded verandah running the length of the building. Set hard to the footpath, it follows the street wall line established by the area’s old buildings. The overall proportions are reflective of the surrounding older buildings. The building is clad with contemporary monolithic materials and finished with pseudo-Italianate details and trims in a quasi-Moderne style. Each of the bays has a shop at the ground floor and apartments above; the four bays are highlighted with prominent scalloped “privacy” walls between the apartments at the first floor, a dissonant feature in the streetscape.
318 Tinakori Road
Built in 2004, this is a modern three-storey mixed use building, with retail tenancies on the ground floor and apartments above. The building’s pseudo-Victorian/ Edwardian style draws on design elements from the surrounding area, but uses them in incongruous ways; its dissimilar height compared with 320 next door and the unusual demarcation between the halves draws attention in the streetscape.
The facade is composed in two main bays of similar proportion to nearby buildings. The bays reflect the primary division of the building; each has a shopfront below the verandah, French doors letting out onto the verandah deck and a pair of 1930s-style casement windows at each level above. A bracketed cornice separates the upper wall from the flat parapet above. The flat verandah deck is supported on timber posts and has a slender timber balustrading, similar to 308-310 next door.
320 Tinakori Road
Built in 1996 in an imitation late-Victorian style, this modern two-storey mixed use building has apartments above shops. The front façade is symmetrically composed, with two shopfronts below a curved verandah, a central pair of double-hung windows flanked by single windows on either side at the first floor and a plain flat parapet above a prominent bracketed cornice. Apartment balconies project over the accessway along the south side.
The building is finished in rusticated weatherboards and has double-hung window joinery; in combination with its lower scale, it sits well with the area’s old buildings. It is something of a pair with 289 opposite.
322 Tinakori Road
The date of this building is not known but council rate books suggest that it may date back as far as 1870, if not earlier, making it one of the oldest buildings in the heritage area. The building was a fruiterers or greengrocers for almost the entire 20th century, and was famous for its association with owner and occupier Mrs S.Y. Loo. She became a famous Thorndon identity and after her retirement in the mid-1980s continued to be a well-known presence in the street. Since 1999 the building has been occupied by Aubergine Restaurant. The shop underwent considerable alterations in 1987 or 1988.
This small single-storey gable-roofed building has been heavily modified over time and its lineage is today difficult to discern. It has a modern street frontage and verandah and is presently divided into two shops. There is a substantial arrangement of lean-to construction at the rear, running up to the retaining wall built for the Western Park Tavern carpark in the 1970s. At the top of this retaining wall is a flat that sits within the property boundaries.
324, 326 and 328 Tinakori Road
Noted Wellington architect J S Swan designed this group of three terrace shops and flats for Sarah Leadbetter in 1905. All of the buildings in the group were built, one after the other, by Isaac Clark and Son.
324 was purpose-built as a bakery and leased and occupied by Browne Brothers, bakers. The building was fire damaged in 1907 but repaired. After the death of Sarah Leadbetter in 1925 the building was sold by her executors to baker Henry Cox in 1929 who owned the building for nearly 50 years. Street directories make no mention of a bakery from World War II onwards and it may have been used solely as flats.
The ground floor of 326 was occupied by grocers for much of the 20th century. In the late 1980s the store was occupied by Nancy’s Embroidery (who later moved to 273b) and from 2001 by the Tinakori Bistro, a restaurant, which took over the ground floor space of 328 as well – and later took over the first floor of 328, fully occupying both buildings. The bistro remains the sole tenant.
328 was occupied by fruiterers for the much of the first 40 or so years. The property was acquired by Joy Lawler, a confectioner, in 1929, but there is no evidence of her business being an occupant. It was a dairy for the next 30 or more years. In 1975 French restaurateur Celine Charlier founded Le Beauchamp Restaurant.It was one of the early eating houses that established Thorndon’s reputation for restaurant and café dining. In 1978 the business was sold to restaurateurs, who expanded Le Beauchamp upstairs and doubled the restaurant’s capacity. The Tinakori Bistro, which also occupies the space that was formerly 326, has been the occupant since at least 1995. The present owner has owned the building from this time, joined by other owners in 2007.
These three buildings form a terrace of two-storeyed mixed use buildings. Constructed sequentially, the buildings are all of the same scale and essentially the same in form, scale and materials, although there is a minor difference of detail between 324 and the others.
The northernmost building is 324. This is set apart from the other two mainly by the absence of a verandah. The lower façade has a large shop front on the right side (with a door on the far right giving access to the first floor flat) and an open passage running through to a courtyard at the back of the building. The upper façade is clad in broad rusticated weatherboards and has two pairs of double-hung windows with simple horizontal pediments, evenly spaced on the façade. A bracketed cornice separates the upper wall from the low horizontal parapet. A masonry party wall separates this building from the next.
326 and 328 are essentially identical and follow through the principal elevational lines generated by 324. These buildings differ from 324 in having a pair of double-hung windows in the upper façade, shopfronts with a single entrance at the right side of each building and a large mono-slope verandah supported on metal posts (the three posts at 328 are rare original cast-iron verandah posts).
330 Tinakori Road
Built in 1906 this building was constructed by and for Thomas Orr; the architect is not known. Early owners are not known either, but in 1931 the property was bought by Violet Gaskin, who lived in the building for a lengthy period. It is currently owned by an investment company.Through its life, the building has been occupied by a mixture of retail on the ground floor and flats above. Anderson and Co., piano importers was an early ground floor occupant. The Tinakori Gallery has occupied one of the shops since the early 1990s.
A small alleyway separates 330 from its northern neighbours. It is of a similar scale to the Swan group, but somewhat wider and rather more modified over time. The top parapet line and the inter-storey height are close to the lines established by the Swan group, and it reads well in the streetscape next to those buildings. It has an off-centre, entrance flanked by shop windows on the ground floor (one window to the left and a pair of windows to the right), no verandah, and a pair of double-hung windows to the first floor, evenly spaced on the façade. The upper façade has a cornice similar to 328 and a simple flat parapet above. A top-storey addition is visible from the south side; this has a roof line that rises up above the parapet to enclose a third storey.
332 Tinakori Road
Built in 1937/38 by R O’Brien for Leonard McKenzie, described as a gentleman, this building replaced the celebrated Heyden’s Forge, where horses resting at the Shepherd’s Arms stables could be shod. The land was owned for a long period by the Rhodes family (Sarah Anne Rhodes, wife of William Barnard Rhodes, and her descendants) before it was bought by McKenzie. One of McKenzie’s middle names was Wilmor, the name given to the flats he built. Beyond that, the significance of the name is not known.
Set on the corner of Lewisville Terrace Wilmor Flats contains seven individual flats and is built of concrete in a fairly bland and simple Moderne style. It is composed of two main blocks, each rectangular in plan – two storeys on Tinakori Road and three storeys on Lewisville Terrace. The building is trimmed with double-hung windows (many with attendant decorative shutters) and presently has a metal tile roof. It is slightly set back from the street and the main elevations are partly obscured by mature trees planted in the front garden, reducing its presence on Tinakori Road.
“Windsor Court” is an awkward and drab 1960s building complex that is composed of two rectilinear five-storey tower blocks, each set back from the two street edges. The blocks are plain rectangular prisms; the principal architectural features are the cantilevered balconies facing Lewisville Terrace. While the buildings are partly masked by substantial mature trees, the complex is obtrusive in views through the area and is a negative feature in the wider streetscape.
342 Tinakori Road
This building was constructed by J Wood for A.H. Hall in 1894.39 Owner information is scant for early years but the building was owned for over 40 years, from the 1920s onwards, by Blanche Wiffen. An occupant during part of this period was Edward Warne, who ran a laundry. The building has had a variety of uses. After a period as a dry cleaner’s, a store and a dairy, the building was converted into a restaurant in the mid-1970s. Alterations were made to the building in 1976. Pierre’s Restaurant became one of Wellington’s best known and most successful restaurants in the early 1980s. In more recent years the building has housed a variety of different cafés.
This is a simple yet elegantly composed and proportioned two-storey timber building. Rectangular in plan, it is clad in rusticated weatherboards and covered with a gabled corrugated iron roof and has a large extension at the rear. The main elevation to Tinakori Road is symmetrically arranged about the centre; moulded pilasters rise up both external corners of the building in three stages. There is no verandah. At the ground floor, two large and finely proportioned timber shop windows flank the entrance door. A small cornice line delineates the first floor (and may represent the line of an original verandah); this has two double-hung windows set in the rusticated weatherboard wall. A larger cornice separates the small triangular parapet from the upper wall.
344 Tinakori Road
Built in 1903 or 04, this building has no builder or architect recorded. The owner was Mrs E Hall, who also commissioned the nearby 348 Tinakori Road, and it would appear to have been an investment property, with accommodation upstairs and a retail area beneath.
The building’s use began with a dairy in the early 20th century. It became a hairdresser’s c.a. 1928 and remained that way until the early 1950s. The longest occupant was hairdresser Henry Howard. In 1934, it appears that the property was subdivided and the land occupied by the building was purchased by Laura Cole, the wife of farmer Henry Cole. After sales in 1948 and 1954, the building was acquired by a solicitor, in 1957. He built three garages and a workshop in 1964, and also lived in the property. Osborne’s Fine Arts occupied the building for some years. In 1995, a local entrepreneur bought the building and made changes to its interior, and subdivided the property (and surrounding properties) into various parts. The building is currently owned by a property company and is occupied by Maypole.
More domestic in appearance than its immediate neighbours at 342 and 346, this two-storeyed building has a gabled corrugated iron roof facing Tinakori Road (with a hipped end at the west) and is clad in rusticated weatherboards; it has a lean-to at the west. There is no verandah. The gable end is ornamented with distinctive scrollwork panelling, shingles and brackets, and contrasts with the otherwise plain appearance of the rest of the building. At the first floor, there is a pair of double-hung windows; at the ground floor, the entry door is to the right with a large shop window in the centre (which appears to have originally been a pair of double-hung windows). There is no sign of the building ever having had a verandah. The outbuildings at the rear, although an important part of the building’s story, are not of particular heritage interest.
346 Tinakori Road
The date of construction of this house is not known. Rate book searches indicate several buildings in the close vicinity of this site by 1865 and in the absence of any subsequent new building, this may currently be the best date available for this house. However, the appearance of the house suggests it was built somewhat later in the 19th century – perhaps the 1880s; it was certainly in place by 1891, when it shows on the Ward Map of that year. Supporting a later date, there are no permits suggesting when the building may have been altered, if it was, to its present appearance.
Ownership information is scant. The building appears to have been rented out for the first part of the 20th century. After being occupied by a succession of workers and their families, the house was taken over for use as a police station for a decade or more in the 1930s. It is not certain if the government owned the building at this time. Following that, the building was owned by private owners. The house is presently owned by property investment company and is in commercial use.
This former house is the most elaborately decorated building in the heritage area. Two storeys high, built in timber with a corrugated iron roof, and set back from the street edge, it is heavily ornamented in an Italianate/neo-Classical style. The street façade is symmetrically composed with quoined corners, double-hung windows framed with moulded pilasters and capped with flat moulded pediments held on carved corbels. The gable end is worked as a broken pediment with short lengths of cornice at the eave line and a pair of double-hung windows occupy the tympanum space at the first floor. The front door is to the left of the façade and has modern sidelights and weather-hood; flanking this is a bay window, with narrow double-hung windows flanking a wider central double-hung window. A paved parking area separates the building from the footpath.
348 Tinakori Road
This shop and flat was built in 1911 for Mrs E Hall, who also commissioned 344 Tinakori Road. The builder was H.E. Manning, but no architect was listed on the permit.The ground floor of this building has always been a grocery or general store, representing nearly 100 years of the same use. It has had numerous occupants over its history, but in more recent times it has been known as the Park Grocery.
From 1930 the property was owned by Frances Andrews, of New Plymouth, presumably as an investment. The building has had some changes over its history, but the most significant of these came in 1998 when a new verandah, deck and roof, attic and parapet, along with four dormers, were constructed. This was followed by a further major alteration in 2006 where the former single shop space was divided in two.
Although old, this building has been extensively altered over the decades and its original form is no longer clear; there is not a lot of original building fabric visible. The building is now three storeys high (including the modern roof-top addition) and has two principal facades, one to St Mary Street and the other to Tinakori Road. The ground floor has two shops with separate entrances and modern shopfronts. It has a two-storey verandah extending out to the street edge, elaborated with stained glass screens at the first floor and a glazed hipped roof. The third storey is contained within a dormered roof that peeps up above the old parapet line.
352 Tinakori Road
This building was constructed in 1971 as a purpose-built dry cleaners for Taylor Brothers. It remains in its original use. The architects were Porter and Martin and the builder J.W. Hand Ltd. The only major change was the conversion of the first floor – presumably used as offices – to apartments, in 1995.
This is the only overtly Modernist building in the heritage area. The building is a two-storey brick and concrete structure with a flat roof. It has a drycleaning premises at the ground floor and flats above. The main elevation has a rhythmic and balanced composition in 5 equal bays, one bay a blind brick wall, and is given interest with a signature first floor verandah suspended on cantilevered timber hangers.
356 Tinakori Road
The age of this building – a dwelling with a shop in front – is not precisely known. The shop itself dates from 1990, when a previous shop, built in 1937, was demolished and rebuilt. The house was constructed prior to 1891 but exactly when is not known. It was mainly let to tenants; in the late 1950s, for example, was occupied by noted composer Douglas Lilburn, who later lived nearby in Ascot Street. Since at least 1975 the shop (both the original and its replacement), has been occupied by various antique shops.
This is a modern commercial building set in front of an old house and as the southern-most commercial building in the Thorndon heritage area it is included in the heritage area for completeness. It has a simple form, with a gabled corrugated steel roof, high-level glazing in the gable, a large mono-slope verandah on timber posts, and a symmetrical timber shop-front with large display windows.
East side of Tinakori Road
273 Tinakori Road (Manchester House)
This building was probably constructed as a shop for J. Myers and Co. Ltd., sometime in the 1880s. It was certainly in place by 1891.
What is known is that the building and land was acquired in the 1890s by John Hutchinson, who arrived from England in 1892. He called the building Manchester House and offered a variety of goods and services from the building, including ‘fancy goods and haberdashery, a small lending library and a men’s hairdressing saloon.’
The building became best known for the post office Hutchinson ran; in 1899 he was appointed postmaster and his store became Tinakori Road Post Office. It remained that way until a new post office opened on the corner of Park Street in the 1920s. Hutchinson retired from his shop about 1930. Its history of occupation thereafter was a strange one. Mervyn Clark ran an electrical business from the building for some decades, while the rooms upstairs were let as accommodation. Fashion store Memsahib was an occupant during the 1970s. More recently it has been occupied by So You Hairdressing.
The former Manchester House (and post office) is a two storey timber building with a hipped corrugated iron roof and a shallow timber verandah on timber posts. The lower façade is very much as it originally was, with a door on the left side giving access to the first floor, and the main door in the centre of the façade, with a timber shop window to the right-hand side.
The verandah is largely original and still has cast iron posts (albeit not the original ones), and much of the supporting structure.
Above the verandah, the paired segmental-arched double hung windows and pilasters in the centre remain from the original building; the two formerly open bays to either side have been filled in with exterior wall and now have a single double-hung window each, trimmed with a simple facing. Behind the façade and front roof, the building has a complex flat roof covering the balance of the upper storey.
273B Tinakori Road
Built in 1955 and renovated in the late 1980s, this is one of the few single-storey buildings in the heritage area. Of concrete construction, the building has s a rectangular shoebox proportion and is covered with a gabled roof. The main elevation is heavily glazed in the centre, with solid flanking walls to the sides. The roof line is emphasised with a bracketed eave. Unlike its neighbours, and incongruously in the heritage area, the building is set back from the street and has no verandah.
277-279 Tinakori Road
Built in 1996, this is a modern commercial building that occupies part of the Shepherd’s Arms’ former main car park. Two storeys high, it is composed in two bays to make it read more like two individual buildings; it is divided into two commercial tenancies and accommodation.
Styled, in a pseudo-Victorian idiom, to match the adjacent pub, the building has a substantial mono-slope verandah on timber posts, timber shop front joinery below the verandah, and each bay has two double-hung windows above the verandah. The parapet conceals a mono-pitched roof, and is separated from the upper façade by a broad cornice on brackets, broken between the two halves. The building is given prominence in the streetscape by the wide access ways that give views of both sides.
281-285 Tinakori Road (Shepherd’s Arms)
The Shepherd’s Arms Hotel was established in 1870 on part of Town Acres 516 and 517 by the first proprietor, Charles Gillespie, who had arrived in Wellington in 1842. His father and brother (both named Andrew) were killed, apparently by local Maori, when felling bush in 1846. Charles was late to meet them, and so avoided their fate. By trade a carpenter, he spent time on the goldfields of Victoria, but after returning to New Zealand, gained hotel experience as proprietor of the Karori Hotel, also in Tinakori Road. Gillespie was a proud mason and a member of the Foresters Order. The Gillespie family lived in a cottage behind the hotel and this house still survives today. The hotel was named the Shepherd’s Arms from the first, and the title is indicative of some of the rural clientele that passed by, especially those from the Karori/Makara area. The hotel was reputed to have 17 horse stalls and these were regularly used by local coaching businesses. Both father and son acted as ‘bankers’ to their patrons, who would hand over their cheques for safe-keeping – for a fee of course.
Charles Gillespie died in 1897 and the property passed to his wife Helen and son Andrew.62 In 1903 it was transferred to the Public Trustee and over the next decade various portions of the land were leased out.63 Staples and Co purchased the property in 191564, and in 1916, then proprietor Jack Marriott, changed the name of the hotel to the Western Park,65 although just why remains a mystery. During World War II the hotel was a Mecca for US Marines and, later RNZAF personnel, who were both encamped at nearby Anderson Park.
The building has always been a rectangular two-storied structure, with accommodation upstairs, and bars and eating areas downstairs. Early photographs suggest that the principal facade was on Ascot Terrace, as this was then the only route to Lambton Quay in the general vicinity. There was an adjoining two-storey cottage, which contained a kitchen, sitting room and accommodation. It was later either removed or incorporated in the main building.
The building has been significantly altered over time. Probably the biggest single change came in 1910 when the stables at the rear of the building were removed and the building was extended to the general footprint it occupies today. In 1967 stucco was applied to the outside walls, and the first floor was converted from accommodation into a private bar. In 1983 work by architect Ian Athfield saw the walls completely covered in corrugated iron, a conservatory built upstairs and major changes made to the interior. In more recent years significant changes have been made throughout the building, which has re-established something of the appearance of a Victorian pub. In 1997 the upstairs accommodation was reinstated and a restaurant incorporated. The name reverted to the Shepherd’s Arms at this time. Further extensive changes were made to the interior and exterior in 2001 and 2002, and the bar area is now open plan.The property has been sold a number of times, and was acquired by the present owners in 2005. It remains a hotel, now branded as a “Speights Ale House”.
The Shepherd’s Arms is the largest single building in the heritage area and has a dominant presence in the heritage area. It is two storeys high and extends over a substantial plan footprint. Its exterior has been heavily altered in recent history, and now has an exterior appearance reasonably consistent with early photos.
Perhaps the clearest evidence of its age can be seen in looking down on the building from above, where the roof shapes clearly recorded in early photographs can be identified today. The original wall cladding was weatherboards, later covered over with stucco and, later still, with corrugated iron, now reinstated to rusticated weatherboards. The joinery is predominantly in single double-hung windows, generally modern in construction but matching the original pattern. The main entrance is in its historical position at the centre of the main façade on Tinakori Road. The 1983 conservatory remains, but has been altered in appearance to stand out less from the rest of the building.
At the right-hand (south) side of the building, Ascot Terrace rises sharply up from Tinakori Road, offering some views of the side and rear of the building.
287 Tinakori Road
This two-storey building sits at the south corner of Ascot Street. At heart a small and characterless 1961 commercial concrete box, it has recently been re-clad with a timber façade and verandah which were added to help it better fit with its neighbours. Although it still has a band of aluminium windows at the upper façade, the building now stands out rather less in the streetscape than previously. The building, long with its neighbour at 289 is set back from the footpath edge, out of line with the general street wall line that runs through this side of the road.
289 Tinakori Road
Constructed in 1996 this twostorey timber building is more or less a pair to 318/320 opposite. It shares many of the pseudo-Victorian style cues and details of the other building, including a generous curved verandah, a bracketed timber cornice, joinery styles and profiles, and rusticated weatherboard cladding. It is symmetrically arranged with four individual double-hung windows in the upper façade under a plain rectangular parapet and has a pair of shopfronts below the verandah. As with 287, the building is set back from the footpath edge.
291-291B Tinakori Road
Built in 1927, this two-storey masonry structure replaced a previous two-storey timber building. It was built by and for the Wellington Building and Construction Company. No architect is listed on the plans.
The building was inherited by Rawdon St John Beere in 1929, and in 1940 solicitor Norman Armstrong joined Beere as co-owner of the building. In 1947 the property was bought by Samuel Vella who divided the property into two titles the following year.
In 1951 the north side (291B) was sold to a fishmonger, who had a shop in the building for some years. The two shops and flats above have had numerous occupiers over the building’s history. A hairdresser’s (Margaret Stoddart, Maretta Beauty Salon and others) and a fishmongers (Ruby McKenzie, then Mate Maich) for many years.Their long tenures ended in the late 1970s and the Millwood Gallery, established by Jim and Judy Siers, has occupied 291B since 1981. The Siers also established Millwood Press and the name Millwood was taken from a property established by John and Esther Chew in Ngaio in 1858, later bought by the Siers. Judy Siers was a long-standing Wellington city councillor. Millwood Gallery remains an occupant of the building. 291A was a fine food kitchen and is now the home of Tinakori Antiques.
A terrace of two commercial buildings two storeys high, this masonry structure has a simple symmetrical composition: below the verandah, two mirrored shop fronts with recessed doors are arranged about the centre of the façade and above the verandah, two distinctive five-light oriel windows with bow fronts are centred above each of the shopfronts. Above this, the parapet has an arched central section concealing the party wall beyond, and the two exterior corners are emphasised to add further interest. No. 291 has an open passageway to a two-storey masonry outbuilding at the rear of the site, 291B also has an outbuilding.
293 and 295 Tinakori Road
These two houses were built as a matched pair around 1894 for Margaret Plunket. She owned three houses on the land just before the corner of Tinakori Road and what was then Glenbervie Road (now Bowen Street). One of the three houses (297) on the site was built prior to 1891, possibly when the property was owned by Daniel Plunket, and would appear to have been moved slightly south to make way for the two new houses. There is no permit existing for 293 or 295, so dating the houses is difficult.
The larger property was subdivided in 1927 and no. 293 was acquired by Sarah Ferguson, who lived in the house. She died in 1934 and it has been owned by a succession of private owners ever since.
By 1927, no. 295 was owned by Isabella Reid. Members of the Reid family had occupied the house from 1915 or earlier and were still occupants in 1950, although the house had been sold to Violet Gastein, a widow, in 1941. It has been owned by a succession of private owners ever since. The house appears to have been rented since at least the 1960s onwards.
The two small two-storey timber houses retain much of their original appearance today and it remains clear that they were a matched pair. Both are asymmetrically composed, and are unusual for that quality in the streetscape of the heritage area. Both houses have hipped corrugated iron roofs, are clad in rusticated timber weatherboards (save for the north wall of 293, in corrugated iron) and have timber joinery – principally double-hung windows.
Of the two, 293 has been “modernised”, perhaps ca. 1940s, with a small timber porch and a picture window added to the street elevation. 295 more closely reflects the original appearance of the pair. It has the main entrance at the right side of the elevation, and a triple double-hung window assembly on the left, both with heavy shaped facings. Centred above each of these elements are double-hung windows with delicate window hoods on brackets. The façade is embellished with lightly panelled pilasters at each corner which run full height, pausing at a flat string course between the floors, to the bracketed eave above.
297 Tinakori Road
This house was built at least as early as the mid-1870s as city council ratebooks show this as one of three houses owned by fireman Daniel Plunket on the corner of Tinakori Road and what was Glenbervie Road (now Bowen Street).81 Plunket and his wife Margaret bought the property in 1874 but lived in Hill Street. In the mid-1890s this house was moved slightly south to make way for two identical houses built for Margaret Plunket (at 293 and 295). It is likely that the other two houses recorded on the site were demolished at this time, because they do not appear in the update Ward Map of 1900. Following the death of Daniel Plunket, the property was sold to William Eggers, land agent. He sold 297 to Mary Traynor in 1922 and then three years later it was conveyed to F.N. Knocks.
Later land information is not known but the occupants of the house were, for most of the 20th century, Wilsons. Agnes Wilson lived in the house in the 1910s and 20s, and with the exception of Albert Mills, an insurance inspector in the mid-1920s, the house was the occupied by, successively, Mrs E.C. Wilson (1930s), William Wilson, labourer (1940-55), Stuart Wilson, barman / storeman (1959-69) and Mrs Eileen Wilson (1970s).
By ca.1984 the house had been purchased by the National Roads Board and was threatened with demolition to make a wider corner into Bowen Street. The Thorndon Society objected and in 1985 Society member Tony Burton and others purchased the house from the NRB for a nominal sum, and set about renovating it. It is now owned by a group of investors.
Located on the very busy Bowen Street corner, this small and interesting house is two storeys high with a gabled roof and with much of the second storey set within the slope of the roof. The gable is ornamented with gracefully carved brackets closely spaced at the eave. There is a double-hung window centred at the first floor; at the ground floor, a small porch shelters the entry door on the left and the right side has a triple double-hung window assembly, with narrow side windows and a wider central window. The building is clad in rusticated weatherboards. The visible architectural detail suggests a date for the building somewhere from the mid 1870s to the early 1880s.
