Tarikaka Street Settlement

Tarikaka, Ngata, Carroll, Pomare and Bombay Streets, Raihania Lane and Khandallah Road, Ngaio
  • Tarikaka Street Heritage Area is composed of 71 houses, of which 64 were constructed by the Railways Department, firstly in 1927-29 and then again between 1938 and 1940, as part of efforts to provide mass, low cost housing for its workers. This kind of settlement was built in many parts of New Zealand but today few survive on this scale and largely intact. The components of the early houses were pre-cut in a factory in Frankton Junction, Hamilton, and brought to Wellington by train to be erected on site. The later houses were built entirely on-site. The houses were rented by Railways’ employees until they were sold off in the late 1980s. Many of the houses were bought by ex-tenants. 

    The housing settlement, which lies at the eastern end of Ngaio, sits between Khandallah Road and Colway Street and incorporates seven streets; Tarikaka, Ngata, Carroll, Pomare and Bombay Streets, Raihania Lane and Khandallah Road. The houses – all simple, single-storey, timber-built structures – are arranged in a formal fashion, with most addressing the street square on. At this stage, only the houses built in 1927-29 are contained within the boundaries of the heritage area.


  • close Physical Description
    • Setting close

      Generally

      The Tarikaka Street Settlement Heritage Area is located in the north-eastern part of Ngaio, bordering on Khandallah to the north, while to the west is the Johnsonville railway line which provides a strong historical link for the railway housing of the heritage area.

      The area is centred on Tarikaka Street, Ngaio, extending from near Khandallah Road to Bombay Street, and including the two small cul-de-sacs of Ngata and Pomare Streets. The area is distinctive for the concentration of houses built by the New Zealand Railways in 1927, using standard plans that had been developed for mass production. These houses have a picturesque quality, since although they were mass produced and many elements were standard, subtle variety was introduced by having alternative roof forms and front porches. Thus the long unbroken line of houses on the southern side of Tarikaka Street in particular forms a distinctive feature in the landscape.

      Ngaio is a well-established residential area, containing mainly low-rise single storey dwellings. The topography of the suburb is generally hilly, although Tarikaka Street, with its long gentle uphill slope to the east, is one of the generally flatter areas. It is contained between sharp hills to both the east and west.

      Although the Tarikaka Street area house sites are uniformly small, the varied terrain, the gardens and pockets of bush create ample visual space between houses. The typical character of the wider suburban area surrounding Tarikaka Street is one of housing set in hilly country, in well established gardens, with wide views to surrounding bush and hills. The most prominent feature in this landscape is the wild and undeveloped ridge line (and Mount Kaukau) to the west.

      Immediate setting

      The principal entry to the heritage area is at the west end of Tarikaka Street, off Khandallah Road. From here, Tarikaka Street sweeps up sharply through a cutting and then rises gently eastward to its intersection with Bombay Street at the far end of the area. There are two cul-de-sac streets – Ngata  Street and Pomare Street – that lead off the north side of Tarikaka Street. Although Carroll Street and Rahania Lane are not currently within the area boundaries, they comprise part of the original development.

      The landscape of the heritage area gently undulates on either side of Tarikaka Street. The land is level, for the most part, where the houses are located, but falls away beyond the south side houses down to the south west. Along the north side of the street, the land rises to about the end of Pomare Street, and then falls down into Khandallah at the north. The area as a whole has an open and sunny north and north-western aspect. Tarikaka Street is incised into the landscape over most of its length, and many of the houses in the area are set above the street, particularly on the south side, some by as much as a storey. At the far eastern end of the area, Bombay Street is cut through a small ridge line on the north side of the street, and the last houses on this side of Tarikaka Street are very high above the road.

    • Streetscape or Landscape close

      Streetscape and buildings

      A defining characteristic of the streetscape in the heritage area is the almost unbroken array of characterful old houses – standard railway houses – lining both sides of each street in the area. The houses are all built to a constant frontage line and establish a very strong street edge throughout the area. The consistent form, scale, and visual quality created by the variations of the standard designs and the regular spacing and orientation of houses establishes a remarkable visual rhythm of buildings in the streetscape.

      This regularity accentuates the variations in the underlying landscape as the pattern of houses undulates to follow the terrain; the terrain therefore plays a very important part in defining the visual qualities of the area.

      The houses themselves comprise a remarkably intact and homogeneous group of early 20th century pre-cut standard railway buildings, which collectively have a highly authentic appearance from the street. Although the majority of the houses have been altered over time, very few have been altered significantly in a way that is visible from the street. This absence of obvious change, and visual authenticity of the streetscape, is one of the most important physical heritage values of the area.

    • Contents and Extent close

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    • Buildings close

      AB/296 – the railway house 1927-29

      Plan

      The Tarikaka Railway Settlement was exclusively a workers’ settlement and so the initial batch of houses – typical of the classic railway worker’s house found in many places in the North Island – was made up of four variations on the Standard House, No. 2, Class B design (Plan AB/296). The emphasis was on the basic rather than ostentatious, and every house had three bedrooms, one parlour, one kitchen, and a rear lean-to, over part of the width of the house, containing wash house, bath room and scullery. The toilet and coal/wood shed was separately located to the rear (the toilet was later incorporated into the houses proper). One early plan from 1920 makes provision for the possible addition of another bedroom in the ‘space’ next to the lean-to at the rear of the house. To what extent this was ever done at Ngaio or anywhere else is not certain. The houses at Ngaio had identical interiors and very similar exteriors. They were principally distinguished from each other by their rooflines and porches, which were sufficiently different across the four house variations. The combination of porch and roof type was strictly confined to the four combinations, so no other mixture of roof or porch types was used.

      Style

      The houses are basically Georgian in style, although strictly speaking that term should only be used to describe the hipped roof versions – B/B and C/C. All the cottages shared the same vertical emphasis, formality and multi-pane windows, characteristic of early 20th century interpretations of Georgian architecture in New Zealand. In essence the style was a simple variation on the standard Victorian/Edwardian villa which owed nothing to the freer planning of the bungalow then gathering popularity in New Zealand. Architectural historians regard the houses as quite conservative for the period.

      Construction

      The houses were built of native New Zealand timbers – typically matai and rimu. The framing was 4” x 2” (100mm x 50mm) studs, usually 9’ (2.7m) high, but dwangs were only used where walls were unlined, such as in the coal shed, or where it was necessary to fix vertical match lining in service rooms. Sometime the kitchen was lined with a timber dado and wallpaper above, but generally matchlined tongue and groove boards were used in all the service rooms i.e. kitchen, bathroom, scullery and washhouse. The bedrooms, hall and parlour had wallpaper over scrim over undressed lining boards, and the ceilings were lined with board and batten. The front door had three moulded field panels and a small, multi-light window above. The windows were traditional, double-hung sashes in keeping with the houses’ Georgian influences. All the houses had chimneys, but the design of those used at Tarikaka Street area largely differs from the broad chimney shown on Plan AB/296. Instead they were mainly narrow, painted brick stacks topped with earthenware pots. The roofs were clad in corrugated galvanised steel.

      Fittings

      Most houses were equipped with a range, and a large table in the kitchen. There was little storage space – the two main storage areas were cupboards on either side of the range. There was a picture rail in most rooms. Internal doors were panelled doors. Details on lights, switches, carpet and other furnishings etc. (if any) are not known, although remnant old finishes found in some of the houses offer some clues..

      Appearance

      When first constructed the houses were uniformly painted cream with brown facings, somewhat undoing the architectural variety created by the mix of plans and front elevations. Later, as more colour options became available, the houses were painted with a much wider variety of colours, similar to that used in areas of private dwellings.

      The special five-roomed house

      The classic railway house was not the only railway house built at Tarikaka Street at the end of the 1920s. The ‘Special Five Roomed House’ was designed in the mid-1920s but appears to have been sparingly built. Kellaway suggests it was the last design cut in the factory. Four houses were built side-by-side at 9-15 Tarikaka Street and two more built in Pomare Street (all in 1929) during the major house construction period. This house was notable for its much freer planning and general design, influenced by the then popular bungalow style. There was still a central hallway with rooms arranged on either side but the kitchen and living room were to the rear, either side of a fireplace. To add further informality to the new arrangement, there were two verandahs, at the front and side of the house. The toilet remained outside the house where it was joined by the washhouse. There was no storage shed included in the design. This design also marked the first appearance of casement windows, distinctively divided into one large pane with three slender lights (sometimes a fanlight) above.

      Two external treatments were designed – the main one employed a principal gable and porch addressing the front elevation, and the alternative option had a smaller gable (extending off the main gable) and a larger porch. At Ngaio, four houses were built using the former plan, and two using the latter.

      By the time the decision came to build more houses at Ngaio, two things had happened. The factory at Frankton had shut because of the pressure from private industry, so there was no source for cheaply built new houses, and the department had a new basic house design.

      The new houses were built over the period 1939-1940. No record has been found of any new railway houses being built anywhere in Wellington from 1929 until 1938. A later summary of the settlement layout prepared in 1980 by New Zealand Railways showed one house was completed in 1938, 19 in 1939 and three in 1940. They were built on the remaining land fronting Carroll and Raihania Streets and Khandallah Road.

      The Six Roomed House, No.5094

      Known as the ‘Six Roomed House, No. 50974’, this new design was for a house bigger than its predecessors, although not dramatically so. It also represented a considerable advance in terms of spatial arrangements and external appearance, although the toilet was still intended to be located away from the house. (Whether this happened is not known, although eventually all toilets were incorporated in the main house). At least half of these houses have Marseilles or concrete tiled roofs, possibly a response to the shortage of corrugated iron at the outbreak of World War II, although it seems more likely it was done to add visual interest by way of a contrast with the corrugated roofs of the rest of the settlement. The design of this house was much closer to the Public Works Department’s state house designs; in fact this house turned out to the last, independent Railways’ design.

      The design arranged bedrooms along one side of a central hallway, with the living room and sitting room on the other. The bathroom and kitchen were at the rear of the house. There were porches at either end of the house. The houses were timber framed and had lapped weatherboards, with the same casement windows that were used on the ‘Five Roomed House’. Two standard designs for the treatment of the front elevation and roofline – Type ‘A’ and ‘B’ – have been located. Type ‘A’ had the main gabled roof running parallel to the front elevation, while the gabled roof of Type ‘B’ was a parallel with the main axis of the house.  Each of the houses had a projecting ‘wing’ on the front elevation.

      The Tarikaka Street settlement contains even more design variations. There was a hip roofed variation of Type ‘B’, with a Marseille-tiled or corrugated iron roof, hipped gables on the main roof and a lean-to to the rear. Again the windows were divided into casements and fanlights.

    • Structures and Features close

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    • Other Features close

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  • close Historic Context
    • Early railway houses

      The Railways Department had a surprisingly long history of building houses for its workers. It built its first houses in the 1880s, albeit then to designs prepared by the Public Works Department. These buildings had a defined hierarchy of importance, established according to the seniority of employees, and there were a range of ‘classes’ of houses. Houses of relative distinction were built for stationmasters and traffic controllers, but houses for less important staff were often very basic. This established a pattern that the Department clung to for decades.

      The Class A houses were generally elegant, reasonably well-appointed and distinguished houses but some Class B houses were very rudimentary. A drawing survives of the Railway House No.5 Class B, and it is no more than a symmetrical gabled cottage with a front door, a bedroom and a kitchen, with the ‘earth closet’ a considerable distance away.The Railway House No. 3, Class B was an early forerunners of the later examples used for mass production. It was a formal, symmetrical Georgian-style cottage with a lean-to for services to the rear or even separated from the main house.Despite their widespread use, these early houses were not put into mass production, and instead were made using local materials and labour and following an engineer’s pattern book to ensure maximum consistency in construction and appearance.

       A mass housing scheme

      The first examples of the provision of mass workers’ housing in New Zealand to draw on were the state housing settlements built under the Liberal Government’s Worker’s Dwelling Act 1905, the first of which had been begun in Petone in 1906. The exercise was largely unsuccessful in that it met few of its targets, in particular, although the houses were of a high standard, the area was remote from Wellington and the rents, coupled with travelling expenses, ended up unaffordably high for the intended occupants. There is no doubt though that this experience offered much for the Railways to learn from.

      The first proposal within Railways for a systematic programme of house construction came in 1912 when the Department realised it faced an acute housing shortage for its workers near the country’s bigger cities. The itinerant nature of the railway business, brought about by the process of developing the infrastructure, required the regular relocation of employees and their families; this was often to areas where there was little or no housing available. It placed an imperative on the Department to provide accommodation for its employees quickly and efficiently in many parts of the country. As it had the means to get the houses to where they were needed (via the railway) the Department chose to use its own designed and mass-produced houses to achieve its aims. At this time the Department identified a need for 1,200 new homes around the country.

      The Railways Department, although it had made the decision to provide mass housing, continued to use its 1880s-era designs until 1920. Over time complaints grew about the old-fashioned and dowdy appearance of these houses. By 1920 the Department had largely completed planning the design, manufacture and construction of its new houses. They were to be arranged in large settlements, laid out in the manner of the ‘garden suburb’, a then vogue overseas town planning concept. The project was put under the leadership of the department’s chief draughtsman, architect George (later Sir George) Troup, who was also responsible for many of the department’s standard and special station designs, as well as a plethora of other railway structures.

      Troup travelled overseas to research house design and prefabrication factories. On his return, the new house designs were drawn up; contracts then given to private contractors to build the houses, as they had previously been. However, it was soon realised that the Department could build the houses significantly cheaper itself if it took advantage of prefabrication and mass production and realised the potential economies of scale. It was decided to search for a place to construct a sawmill and factory. Frankton Junction, just south of Hamilton, was chosen and it also became the site of the largest of the railway settlements. Pre-cut houses for staff, manufactured off-site, were built first and then the sawmill and factory followed.

      The sawmill began cutting timber in January 1923 and by mid-1923 Frankton Junction’s factory was up and running. By March 1924, 255 houses had been cut and 61 were completed and occupied. The cost of a typical five-bedroom house dropped dramatically – from £831 in 1923, to £635 by 1926. At its peak the mill produced some 10,000m of timber and cut 400 houses a year. They were only erected in the North Island as it was still too expensive to ship the factory built houses to the South Island, and demand for housing in the south was judged insufficient to warrant establishing another factory. Over a period of six years the department built 1,591 houses, of which 314 were non-railway clients. The latter were built principally in Moera, Hutt Valley, where 306 houses alone were constructed under the auspices of the Hutt Valley Honorary Housing Committee. Backed by the Railways Department it was the only substantial response to attempts to interest local authorities in the cheap house-building venture.

      The prefabrication system was carefully designed and extremely detailed. There was a 30-page instruction book for the system, and each piece of wood in each house was individually numbered. After the timber was railed to a building site a house could be constructed in very short order. Such was the speed and efficiency of the operation, it took significant pressure from private enterprise to have the factory closed down in 1929.

      The new house designs were not a major advance on the previous railway houses, although they were better serviced. Externally they largely retained the formality of their predecessors – although in a forthright Edwardian style – and the internal arrangement was equally conservative, with a central front door letting on to a corridor, with rooms extending off this, and with services contained in a rear lean-to, all very much as the traditional bay villas of the later Victorian era. Their working-class occupants were given a front parlour, not usually a high priority for people in their social situation, who could make better use of the room as a bedroom. Hot and cold water services and baths were installed in every house and many had electric light and off-site sewerage. The Department aimed to install electric lighting in every house.

      Tarikaka Settlement

      By 1925, there was pressure from the New Zealand Locomotive Engineers, Firemen and Cleaners Association on the Railways Department to provide houses for its members in Wellington.Suitable land had to be found. South Karori was investigated but was considered to be too far from a railway station. The rapidly expanding settlements of Ngaio and Khandallah were quickly turning from farms to suburbs and substantial land was available for subdivision. The Aplins, a long standing Ngaio family and the owners of Colway Farm, offered land for sale but the first time its purchase was considered by the Railways Board they rejected the proposal as unsuitable.

      Eventually the Railways Department decided to buy part of the land. Seven hectares was purchased in February 1927 for £10,000, a considerable sum at the time. The site was just a seven-eight minute walk to and from the Ngaio railway station, which was then still on the main trunk line, ideally situated for moving workers both south and north. It was not until 1936 that the Tawa Flat Deviation was completed, relegating the Johnsonville line to commuter duties.

      The contract for the road construction was let in July 1927. The streets were laid out on the sloping land in an orderly fashion, with a principal street (Tarikaka) running nearly the length of the roughly rectangular site, on a north-west to south-west orientation, with other streets extending off it. Despite the Garden City influences, there was no centrally located park, although one was provided by the WCC some 60 years later. The Director of Town Planning, Ministry of Works, insisted that the houses had to be built 15 feet (4.57 metres) from the road boundary.

      The Wellington City Council’s Engineer’s Department submitted the proposed names of streets –Ngata, Turupa, Pomare and Timi Kare – to the Geographic Board of Lands and Survey.Ngata and Turupa were named for Sir Apirana Turupa Ngata, the famous Maori parliamentarian. Pomare and Timi Kare (James Carroll) also celebrated important Maori politicians. The Surveyor-General agreed with the proposal but suggested the exclusion of Turupa, replacing Timi Kara with Carroll and the inclusion of Tarikaka – literally ‘snare of the kaka’ – an earlier name for Mt Kau Kau, which overlooks Ngaio and Khandallah. It was also decided to extend Bombay Street – named, like many Khandallah Streets, after an Indian locality – to encompass the eastern tip of the settlement. The extension to Bombay Street required a considerable cutting to link up with Swansea Street.

      The Railways Department was told by the council that it would have to take responsibility for the roads but that a cost sharing arrangement would be worked out.

      The houses were essentially four variations on the same design but with different porches and rooflines to offer variation and visual interest in the streetscape. The overall site planning, following the standard practice of the day, had each house facing the street, which meant that most houses did not extract much benefit from the sun, particularly as the living rooms were, in the majority of the house plans, more or less in the middle of the building. With the setback mandated by the Director of Town Planning, the result was a very evenly spaced array of houses following the alignments of the roads over the shape of the land, a characteristic that was also carried through to later state house developments.

      Within one year most of the houses in the area had been built. Each house came, complete in its parts, from the factory on the train and it took on average one week for a gang to erect them, illustrating the considerable on-site advantages of such comprehensive prefabrication.

      Post-construction

      As the houses became available Departmental employees moved in. The occupiers were exactly the kind of railway workers for whom the settlement was envisaged. The 1931 Wises Post Office Directory lists the professions of the male occupants of Tarikaka Street houses as, among others, locomotive driver, guard, porter, fireman, plumber, shunter and car cleaner. They paid one day’s wages per week in rent, or a total on average of £30.6.6 per annum. Unsurprisingly those occupations had changed little by 1957 and even in 1974, not long before Wises stopped recording the occupations of residents, most of the same professions were listed in its streets directories. Some jobs had passed on, such as porter, and new ones appeared, such as examiner.

      Life was not necessarily easy for the house occupants. The houses were little better than basic. They were not insulated – often unbearably hot in summer (exacerbated by hot water, heating and cooking being provided by a coal range), cold in winter, and despite being elevated above the ground and well-provided with windows, somewhat prone to damp. The toilet was separately located and remained that way for decades. Tarikaka Street was a resolutely working class area and many of the early occupants were Maori. Maori still remain an important presence in the area, even after the sale of the houses, and 58 Tarikaka Street is today in use as a kohanga reo.

      Not all the land was used in the first wave of housing. In 1938 work began on building houses on the remaining land. The provision of some of the housing has been linked to the gradual introduction, from 1936 onwards, of the 40-hour week, which steadily led to the need for more workers.Many of the new houses fronted Khandallah Road but in order to provide direct access to the properties Raihania Lane was built at the rear. These houses were distinguished by their tiled roofs, apparently a response to the lack of corrugated steel roofing during World War II.

      Throughout the long period of its ownership New Zealand Railways was responsible for the maintenance of the houses and the upkeep of the area, including the streets and verges. The Wellington City Council assisted in the maintenance, although ultimate responsibility remained with Railways. In the case of the houses, the Department initially maintained them itself, sending travelling painters and paperhangers around the various settlements. Houses were painted and decorated on a roughly five to seven year rotation. Later this work was subcontracted out of the Department.

      The area was, from the first – and by design, regarded as working class but over time the appearance of the area slowly declined. In 1966 the WCC and Railways Department renewed discussions that the former take over the settlement’s streets, but the council insisted that they first be brought up to general standards in terms of formation, water services and stormwater drainage. The terms were agreed to but never formalised.

      The deterioration in the general appearance of the area became more pronounced during the 1970s as New Zealand Railways took increasingly less interest in its housing settlements. The costs of maintaining the now older houses had gone up and, in an inevitable downward spiral mirrored throughout all settlements, both manager and tenant took less interest in the appearance of the area. By 1980 a council memo made some uncomplimentary observations.

      The area as a whole is very untidy and in need of an uplift and comprehensive clean up. Street litter includes such things as beer bottles, clothing, shoes, paper and other such articles and, on the whole, does not reflect very well on the Railways Department. Fences are in need of repair and the grass verges need mowing. Many of the sections are untidy and unmown. Garages, which have been built by residents, are situated at the western end of the Tarikaka Street. These are unsightly in appearance…

      New Zealand Railways’ long standing policy of painting the houses every five years and redecorating interiors on a similar time span was not borne out by the experience of tenants. However, by 1980 it had managed to incorporate all but five of the detached toilets inside the houses.The age of the houses was also an issue. In 1980, a number of houses were repiled and their internal linings replaced.

      Private ownership

      By the early 1980s changing work-force requirements meant that New Zealand Railways came to regard its stock of railway houses as surplus to requirements, but it took a long time for it to dispose of the properties. In 1983 it was ready to start the process and again asked the Council to take over the streets. For its part the Council again identified the upgrading required before it would agree.

      By 1985 New Zealand Railways had hired Truebridge Callender Beach to prepare a scheme for the subdivision of the land, including the required reserves contribution. The land was subdivided along the informal divisions established in 1928 but dispensations were sought because the lot widths did not meet council requirements. Dispensation was also sought for off street parking requirements, with particular reference to the houses in Tarikaka Street that were a considerable distance above the road. The town planning approval was granted and over the next two years roads, water services and drainage were fixed, individual title obtained for each section, and a reserve created by the removal of five houses on the corner of Ngata and Tarikaka Streets (rather altering the appearance of the area). Garages at the end of Tarikaka Street were also removed.

      It was intended that the houses would first be offered to existing tenants, then to Railway staff, and only later be put on the open market. In March 1988, with sale of the houses imminent, the tenants formed the Ngaio Residents’ Housing Committee to deal with the Railways Department. Sale of the houses began late in 1988 and many were bought by existing tenants.

      As the sales proceeded concern was expressed about the need to retain the settlement’s character and heritage value. It was recommended that design controls be instituted to ensure that future redevelopment would be sympathetic with the scale and design of existing buildings. This was never done. What did happen was that in March 1989 Council designated the area as a Community Improvement Area. Homeowners were encouraged to maintain and renovate their homes through the provision of a subsidised renovation advice service and general guidance for improving the general appearance of the area and the resolution of specific neighbourhood problems. The Community Improvement Area status was not in place for long and since then the only recognition the area has been given is its inclusion as an Historic Area in Wellington City District Plan, 2000.


  • close Cultural Value
    • Significance Summary close

      Tarikaka Street Heritage Area contains one of the country’s most complete and authentic collection of 1920s and 30s railway houses. It is an important representative of the first successful mass housing scheme undertaken in New Zealand. The houses are a distinctive and well regarded part of the suburban streetscape of Ngaio.


    • Aesthetic Valueclose
      The area has architectural value – inherent in the quality and arrangement of the standard house designs (that reflects a conservative view of architecture of the day); in the consistent form, scale, and visual quality created by the variations of the standard house designs and the regular spacing and orientation of houses; in the remarkable visual rhythm of the buildings in the wider streetscape. The principal aesthetic value of the Tarikaka Street Railway Settlement is associated with the repetitive pattern of the houses in the landscape. The houses are instantly identifiable and clearly related to each other both stylistically and in age. They sit well in their environment and in relation to each other, a quality enhanced by their close proximity and repetitive arrangement. The pattern of houses undulates, following and accentuating the variations in the underlying landscape. Visual interest is also provided by the settlement’s fine sloping site, with its backdrop of Mt Kau Kau, as well as the paths, trees, banks and white painted fences. The area is remarkably cohesive; an intact and homogenous collection of interesting early 20th century houses of the same kind, situated in a purpose-designed area. The houses, although all intrinsically quite similar, have enough variations to provide a high level of visual interest. Their consistent scale, and regimented relationship to each other, enhances both their individual character and overall sense of cohesion.
    • Historic Valueclose
      The provision of the houses was entirely the work of the Railways Department, a hugely influential government agency when rail transport was pre-eminent in the country. The designs of the earliest houses were done under the direction of the Railways’ chief draughtsman George Troup, who, through his prolific work for the department, was one of the country’s most significant architects in the first half of the 20th century. He later went on to become Mayor of Wellington. The houses are a visible expression of the role of the Railways Department in the provision of housing for its staff, as part of early 20th century state intervention in housing. In the case of the Railways, the decision was based largely on its own needs, but was still represents the greatest housing scheme instituted by a New Zealand government before the Labour Government’s state housing scheme in 1935. The settlement has regional significance for its role in providing low-cost housing for generations of Wellington’s railway workers. Some families lived in the area for a long time and at the conclusion of government ownership of the houses, some of those long-standing tenants took up the option of buying their house, thereby extending the area’s association with its railway heritage.
    • Scientific Valueclose
      Mass housing schemes by government departments other than Housing New Zealand are very much in the past. The intervention by the Railways Department to provide housing for its staff is a remarkable illustration of how the power of the government was once used to shape its citizens’ lives – and shows how the demands of shaping a nationwide railway infrastructure reflected back into urban settlements. There is also considerable educational value inherent in the study of the prefabricated construction of the houses, from the method of design, to documentation, to the Frankton Junction factory and associated infrastructure and the construction on site. The Tarikaka Street Heritage Area has significant technological value deriving from the mass-produced prefabricated houses. Although the designs are conservative and the nature of the houses is typical of the period, the carefully considered standardised designs, factory pre-cutting and prefabrication, and the infrastructure that produced them, sets them well apart from any other large groups of houses built in New Zealand prior to World War II.
    • Social Valueclose
      The houses have gone through periods of high and low public esteem and today they are held in very high regard. The appreciation of the settlement and the individual houses is exemplified by the market value of these houses, which has climbed an extraordinary amount in recent years, reflecting the desirability of the settlement and the area as a whole. The settlement is a mixture of older and newer residents and for some of the older house owners the sale of the railway houses gave them their first opportunity to own a house. The layout of the area – with the houses facing each other in a large self-contained neighbourhood – fosters a particular sense of place. The settlement is well appreciated for its heritage value by both local residents and the city as a whole. Its long-term preservation is generally regarded as desirable, by residents, heritage professionals and councils alike. The care with which many of the houses have been restored and the landscaping and beautifying of many of the sections is evidence of the pride that many local residents have for the area.
    • Level Of Cultural Heritage Significanceclose
      There are many railway houses of various kinds throughout New Zealand including whole settlements constructed from houses made at the Frankton Mill and Factory. The best known of these are Frankton Junction itself and Tarikaka Street. However, few of the surviving settlements are in anything like their original state with the exception of these two (and to some extent Moera), and their authenticity gives them extra significance. The houses have considerable representative significance as examples of a range of worker’s housing provided by New Zealand Railways for its staff. Although many of these houses were built throughout the country from the early 1920s onwards, a number have since been demolished and as more are altered or adapted their representative value increases. The representative significance of the settlement is enhanced by the largely authentic appearance of the houses and surrounding features. The area remains highly authentic, even with some infill housing and the changes made to many of the houses. Most of the houses retain their principal and side facades intact; many still have the original sheds. This absence of obvious change, and visual authenticity of the streetscape, is one of the most important physical heritage values of the area.
    • New Zealand Heritage Listclose
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  • close New Zealand Heritage List
  • close Additional Information

Last updated: 1/12/2020 8:08:36 PM