The Newtown North area lies at the open end of a broad shallow valley formed between the verdant hills of Mount Victoria to the east and Vogeltown to the west. The area has an expansive landscape setting with an open northerly aspect oriented around the major north-south axes of Adelaide Road and Riddiford Street and enjoys good sun and views (and wind exposure). Long flat areas alongside the two main roads run into gentle slopes that rise in to the hills on either side. The heritage area is elevated above Te Aro – Adelaide Road takes a long rise from the Basin Reserve to the intersection – and this relationship creates good views through to the city and places the heritage area in a visually prominent position. The land rises up to the west along John Street towards Hutchison Road and the Town Belt, and through the hospital campus to Alexandra Park and the Town Belt around Mount Victoria and Hataitai.

There is little in the way of mature trees or vegetation within the area itself – this is a predominantly built landscape – however the Town Belt (Alexandra Park in particular) is an important feature of views through the area.

The streetscapes around the northern end of Newtown are architecturally diverse and mixed in visual, architectural and historic quality; long stretches of contemporary commercial buildings bracket each end of the heritage area, the hospital campus occupies the entire eastern side behind the suburban centre buildings (the 1940s Moderne hospital accommodation blocks are highly visible over the top of the suburban centre buildings); the surrounding areas to the west are predominantly residential, and mostly composed of old and interesting buildings.

Most of the visual quality of this wider area relates to the extensive remaining collection of old houses and commercial and other buildings, the majority of which date from the late 19^th to the early 20^th century. Government House, on its elevated site to the north, is prominent in views from John Street and Adelaide Road, and contributes to the visual and historic quality of the area. The old buildings collectively illustrate the establishment and growth of Newtown as a suburb and play an important role in established the distinctive and consistent late Victorian and Edwardian character of the wider Newtown and Mount Cook areas.

The street geometry at the intersection of Adelaide Road and Riddiford Street, combined with the width of the streets and the local topography creates good views through to the city, Newtown and the Town Belt, and the group of buildings that forms the heritage area can be seen and understood together from many different vantage points and against a variety of different backgrounds. The convex sweep of Adelaide Road into Riddiford Street gives additional visual interest.

The historic and architectural character of the heritage area is reinforced by the prevailing character of the surrounding residential areas, and is further enhanced by contrast with the diverse quality of the adjacent commercial areas, which helps draw further attention to the distinctive and interesting group of old buildings contained in the heritage area.

The buildings in the heritage area have strong consistency in their age, scale, proportions, materials and design, and collectively create a visually appealing and relatively authentic early 20^th century streetscape. All of the buildings (bar one) in the heritage area are old, some dating back to the 1870s or earlier; the newest reflect the development of the wider area through the 1920s. The majority of the buildings are of the Edwardian era and reflect the prime period of development in the suburb. The collection of buildings represents a diverse and interesting range of types and uses.

The prevailing building scale is two storeys; the buildings are typically small timber or masonry structures, set closely together on narrow sections, and there is a predominant vertical proportion. The buildings are fairly consistent in height and create a relatively uniform street wall line. Most, but not all, of the commercial buildings are constructed to the street edge and most have verandahs; the houses are set back from the street edge. This harmony of form and spatial relationship further enhances the group of buildings and the visual amenity of the area as a whole.

Nearly all of the buildings have a rear access from a service lane off Hospital Road – part of this lane is a stretch of the former Howell’s Avenue. The rear elevations also make up an interesting streetscape – albeit one less authentic than that created by the main elevations – that adds to the value of the group.

The heritage area is a cluster of buildings set at the intersection of John Street, Riddiford Street and Adelaide Road. This intersection has important physical and historical connections to Mount Cook, Berhampore, Newtown and Wellington city.

The heritage area extends along the east side of Adelaide Road and Riddiford Street from the south side of Hospital Road to the hospital entrance adjoining the John Street Doctors at the south. It also extends across the road to include 2-14 Riddiford Street, which is a very important element in the streetscape of the area. The area contains a continuous group of heritage buildings of consistent age and character.

161 Adelaide Road

This house was probably built between 1891 and 1900 and its appearance in early photographs confirms this. However, there is no building permit or accurate rate book information to offer a firm date. Early owners are not known but an early occupier was Sydney Hoarse, a grocer. The house was leased out for its first 50 or 60 years to a variety of occupants.

The building underwent a dramatic change, and took on much of its present appearance, in 1953 when Cecil Sharpe, who ran a chandlering business – New Market Supplies – from the building, made major changes, “modernising” it by stripping it almost entirely of its previous exterior appearance and character, but adding an interesting layer to its history in the process. Monolithic wall finishes were applied, the front bay window was removed and exterior joinery was changed to the style of the day. After Sharpe’s death the building was bought by the Wellington Hospital Board; more latterly it has been owned by a real estate company. In the 1990s the building was home to a veterinary hospital. Its present occupants and use are not known, although it appears to be in flats.

Originally a characteristic double-storey Victorian house and one of some quality, this building today has seen much change to its appearance over time. It has a plaster exterior (probably on cement board) trimmed with 1950s casement windows. Hints of its origins are seen in its narrow rectangular plan and silhouette, the shallow-pitched hipped corrugated iron roof and bracketed eave detail, a single remaining double-hung window at the east, and the porch facing the street at the ground floor; it also remains set slightly above the level of the street. It is possible that the original weatherboard cladding remains beneath the monolithic finish.

The building has a narrow two-storey lean-to addition at the rear, surmounting a longer single-storey lean-to, both with mono-pitched roofs. The building is set back from Hospital Road, by the width of a small garden and a car park and from Adelaide Road, with a plastered concrete fence at the street edge. There is a large shed at the back corner of the property; the site is bounded at the rear by a rough fence that separates it from the narrow service alley providing access to a number of other buildings in the group. Although the building is substantially altered from its original appearance, the tangible evidence of change adds to its historic interest.  The building retains its original scale and form and provides the original “book-end” to the suburban centre area.

 163 Adelaide Road

Built in 1909, this brick industrial building has no architect associated with it but the builder and owner was Frederick Moore who may also have designed it. In all likelihood the building replaced a previous domestic dwelling on this site. Moore on-sold the building immediately. Initially it was used as a factory to make cordial, by Newberry and Co., and then by the Osborne Manufacturing & Pack Co.  C O Products, polish manufacturers, was established in 1923 and it is likely that it took over the lease that year. C O Products was well known in Newtown for its distinctive delivery truck.  The company remains in the building today and that long-standing occupancy adds weight to the building’s heritage values. In more recent decades the building was also the home of Jetway Carpet Cleaners and Jetway Maintenance.

Owners came and went in the building’s early years. It was bought by Crown Laundry Ltd in 1941 (later named NZTS Properties Ltd). The Wellington Hospital Board acquired the building in 1978. In 1994, it was sold into private ownership.

The building is a somewhat utilitarian structure, two storeys high and built in brick and concrete with a corrugated iron roof. Rectangular in plan, the building is separated from 161 by a small single garage and by a side yard to 169.

The main elevation faces Adelaide Road and has a simple and symmetrical composition embellished with a distinctive Queen Anne-style parapet, an attractive feature which conceals the hipped roof beyond. The main entry door is paired with a double-sash casement window (a replacement for original double-hung windows) in the centre of the façade and flanked evenly by double-sash casement windows on either side; at the first floor, three single double-sash casement windows are centred above the lower joinery openings. A small profiled plaster cornice divides the upper façade from the parapet.

The side walls are blind brick with concrete bond beams. At the rear, there is a large and ramshackle single storey lean-to and above this, original windows show on the back wall – these are double hung with each sash quartered – along with an original brick chimney. There is a rear yard reached from the service access behind 161.

169 Adelaide Road

This house was built for M. Read about 1875 as a twin with 171 and more than likely was a speculative building. The house was owned by mariner Joseph Smyth in the early part of the century, when both houses were still in joint ownership. This ownership ended with subdivision in 1923. Smyth lived in the house until the late 1930s. From 1935 to 1970 it was owned by various members of the Drysdale family, Levin farmers. It has been owned by a company since 1970. Over its history, the house’s occupants have included a baker, engineer, labourer and upholsterer.

This pair of houses is a striking element in the streetscape of the heritage area. Originally identical “colonial”-style cottages, the buildings at nos. 169 and 171 have been modified over time, most visibly in the 1920s. Today 169 is the more outwardly authentic of the two; 171 reflects some of the changes that have occurred in the area over time. Both buildings are small – effectively one room wide and two storeys high – with a sharply pitched gabled roof in corrugated iron and both have a lean-to at the rear. The houses are clad on the street front with unusually wide rusticated weatherboards and narrow corner boards and on the side and rear elevations with simple plain lapped boards. Both street fronts are symmetrically composed, and both of the street gable ends are enlivened with scalloped barge boards; at the first floor each house has a 1920s-era 3-part casement window with over-lights.

No. 169 still has its original ground floor windows at the street front – an elegant symmetrical assembly of three tall double-hung windows with a wide central window flanked by a pair of narrow windows, capped with a wide facing board cut as a triangular pediment.

171 Adelaide Road

This house had the same ownership history as 169 until the subdivision of the original property in 1923. Smyth sold the house in 1927 and that year a shop front was added to the building, by new owner John Rae. Leonard and Violet Bell bought the building in 1930 and they occupied it for some decades. Street directories do not often refer to any purpose the shop was put to but in the 1970s it was occupied by Hunters Bargain Centre. The shop has been little used in recent times but the shop windows themselves have been used as an art installation. The house has been owned by a group of individuals since 1981.

At core, the house is essentially identical to 169. The main visual difference between the two buildings is the small single-storey brick and concrete shop added between the house and Adelaide Road. This is a rare and quite charming period piece that remains, outwardly at least, more or less intact from the late 1920s. It has a recessed central entrance door flanked by timber-framed shop windows forming a small porch under the roof; the porch floor has geometric tiles. Brickwork piers rise up either corner of the shop to a horizontal concrete beam and continue above as horns to either end of the plain stepped parapet, which is enlivened with roughcast stucco infill and brick trims and which conceals the shallow flat roof beyond. Other minor differences between the two houses include the bell-cast shingle gable infill panel and the boxed upper window on the street front and a surviving original double-hung window at the upper floor at the rear. Access to the house is a narrow strip along the north side.

Both 169 and 171 are important reminders of Victorian Adelaide Road’s mixture of residential and commercial uses and are the oldest buildings in the heritage area.

175 Adelaide Road

This large two-storey Victorian house was built before WCC permit records began and the precise date of construction is difficult to pinpoint. It was certainly in place by 1891. As a substantial dwelling and one likely to have been owned by a wealthy person, the house is today a unique surviving structure on either Adelaide Road or Riddiford Street.

The house was damaged by fire in 1901 and reinstated. The owner at this point was a Mrs S Cooper. Street directories suggest that the dwelling was used as some sort of boarding house in the early 20^th century until it was purchased by medical practitioner Edward Smyth in the late 1920s. Following his death in 1934 the house was acquired in 1940 by Effie Gilmer, who sold part of the land to form a road (the present access road that links Hospital Road with the cul de sac immediately north of 175). Following a string of transfers, the house was bought by labourer Frederick Adams and it was during his tenure that it became home to a used car business. In 1965 a four-berth carport was built for Bill Adams directly in front of the house as a display for Harris Car Sales. In 1974, the property was acquired by the Wellington Hospital Board, which remains the owner, but the used car business continued in the front until the early 2000s. The car lot is presently vacant. The main house, known as the ‘whitehouse’ is occupied by the Specialist Diabetes Education and Management Nursing service of the CCDHB.

Originally a formal two-storey Victorian villa, this building has been in commercial or institutional use for around 40 years. It is distinctive in the heritage area for its width and the amount of space around the building in an area where narrow residential buildings on small sites are the rule. The house is also distinctive in the pattern of the streetscape for being set well back from the road. The front yard is filled with an unattractive single-storey carport that obscures views of the ground floor of the house. There is a partly enclosed yard to the north behind the carport; at the south a modern single storey annexe fills up the space between the house and the boundary.

The house itself has a rectangular base plan, with a u-shaped hipped roof wrapped around a box gutter at the back and a two-storey gable projecting at the south-west corner of the building. There is a small single-storey lean-to at the rear. The house is clad in rusticated weatherboards and has timber exterior joinery, principally consisting of double-hung timber windows, and has a corrugated iron roof with prominent paired eave brackets.

Elements of the first floor street façade illustrate the original visual richness of the house. This elevation is carefully composed and decorated; the main gable projects to the right-hand side of the elevation and is trimmed with very delicately fretted bargeboards. The single window in the gable is a segmental-arched double hung assembly with an elaborate and heavily profiled surround featuring a prominent stepped and gabled pediment and carved corbels. To the left of the main gable is an open verandah with a double-hung window and a glazed door visible behind the solid balustrade – this verandah is very plain compared with the gable and a significant amount of ornament is likely to have been removed from this part of the building over time. The rear elevation appears authentic, with three old double-hung windows to both the lean-to and the upper storey. The north side is little visible, and the main feature on the south side is the more recent single-storey annexe.

The carport fronting Adelaide Road is a rudimentary single-storey shelter with a steel structural frame for the mono-slope roof and concrete block walls and is of little architectural merit or interest, and does not contribute to the heritage area.

179-181 Adelaide Road

This mixed-use building appears to have been constructed about 1889 for William James, although no permit information survives. The rate book information is consistent with land information that lists the owners at this time as the Wellington Hospital Contributors, and the lessee as William James. The Wellington Hospital Contributors remained the owner of the land for a considerable period. James transferred his lease to the Wellington City Council in 1902 but two years later the council surrendered its lease.

No other lease is noted on the CT for some years, suggesting that the ‘Contributors’ rented the property out. In 1910, the Wellington Hospital Contributors’ land was vested in the Wellington Hospital and Charitable Aid Board (later, from 1922, the Wellington Hospital Board). In 1927 Annie Dickson took over the lease of Lot 1, which covers this property. Thereafter the Board leased the property to a series of lessees, for a typical term of 14 years.

Most of these lessees sub-let the property.  Twentieth century occupants of the building included a grocery, fruiterers, laundry and newsagents. Nelson Moate and Co. Ltd. occupied the building in the early 1900s. Polly Perkins, a women’s clothes shop, was a long-standing occupant through the 1950s and 60s. It was a TAB agency for much of the 1970s and 80s; the TAB also held the lease. They made considerable changes to the building, in 1957 and 1976. In 1995 the dwelling upstairs was converted into flats. In 1998 a gazette notice revoked the reservation of the property for hospital purposes, and in 2005 the building was transferred to private ownership. The building has not been fully utilised in recent years, although it is presently (2009) occupied by a ragdoll shop.

Although quite modified over time, much of the original form of this two-storey timber building can still be discerned and it retains a sense of character and an interesting and distinctive presence in the streetscape of the heritage area. Both the footprint and silhouette of the building are little altered – it has a roughly rectangular plan form with a single-storey lean-to at the rear – but much of its original Victorian finishing detail has been lost over the decades.

The building has two main elevations, both clad in 1950s-era fibrolite shingles (possibly laid over the original weatherboards) and have old double-hung timber windows that add visual interest (the original thin timber pilasters, and some of the other trims, that ornamented the upper walls are lost).

The upper wall is finished with a heavy profiled timber cornice and plain parapet above; this makes an unusual architectural transition towards the lower rear part of the building with both cornice and parapet run on a rake to join up the two different roof levels. At the north of the upper floor, there is a substantial and obtrusive timber frame for an unused sign. The Adelaide Road elevation has a partial modern verandah joining on to that of 183 and a crude fire-escape gantry runs along this wall, letting on to the verandah. Both the sign frame and fire escape could be removed to enhance the appearance of the building.

A small profiled timber cornice moulding separates the upper façade from the shop fronts. The two shop fronts are disparate in quality; the northern-most has a great deal of old fabric but the southern is mostly boarded over and appears to be entirely modern. The shop fronts are greatly altered from their original configuration.  The northern shop front has a bevelled corner and a shop window on the north wall that records this building’s original siting on the corner of the first Hospital Road. The shop window joinery here is in slender timber and appears to be recycled original material; the entry door is recessed back from Adelaide Road in a shallow porch.

The rear of the building is of interest. Here the original rusticated weatherboards can still be seen, along with a visual record of virtually every era of alteration to the building recorded in a diverse collection of minor additions and alterations and different kinds of window joinery.

183 Adelaide Road

This building had a similar ownership history to 179-181, being located on the same parcel of land until 1975. The building was constructed in 1897 for William James (as 179-181) by J Bell.

The building was occupied by, firstly, Chinese fruiterers (until the late 1920s) and then from 1960s to the 1990s by the Favourite Milk Bar, a well known local business. In 1998 a gazette notice revoked the long-standing reservation of the property for hospital purposes and in 2007 it was bought by private owners.The building’s retail space had been unused in recent years, but is now occupied by a guitar shop.

This is a late Victorian mixed-use building, two storeys high and more or less one room wide. It has an elongated rectangular plan covered with a hipped corrugated iron roof and a small lean-to at the rear (and a small rear yard). A narrow gap at the north side between 181 and 183 gives access to a side door leading to the upper floor accommodation.

The street elevation is formally composed in a spare neo-Classical style and appears today much as it was when the building was first constructed. The ground floor shop-front has been altered from its original asymmetric arrangement and now has a symmetric composition – a recessed central entrance with a wide glazed door is flanked by two large shop windows with slender timber joinery set over rusticated weatherboard spandrels. The verandah is a mono-slope construction with (modern) timber posts in lieu of the original cast-iron posts and fretwork.

Above the verandah, the façade appears entirely original. It is symmetrically composed and ornamented with neo-Classical motifs and details; the two double-hung windows have semi-circular arched heads and the facings are formed as simple Doric pilasters. Decorative keystones emerge from the window head mouldings to engage with the large bracketed cornice that divides the upper wall from the parapet. Above this, the parapet is comparatively modest and has a stepped form with a small semicircular pediment to mask the roof beyond.

The side elevations are clad in horizontal corrugated iron (probably a fire protection measure). At the rear, and partly visible from the south, the original single-storey lean-to has had another lean-to built on top of it in relatively recent times.

187 Adelaide Road

This building was constructed for coal merchant John Murray and designed by J Hector McKay. The builder was J J Webb. Although he had the building constructed in 1897, Murray did not gain a lease on the land, from the Wellington Hospital Contributors, until 1903. Prior to this the lease was held by William James and then the Wellington City Council. After Murray surrendered his lease, it was transferred in 1917 from the Public Trust to Whilhemena Richardson, and later her husband Arthur. Murray’s business remained in the building until at least the 1940s but it is likely that Richardson was running a similar business and retained Murray’s business name. Richardson’s coal business is listed in its own name in 1950. 

In 1952 it was leased to Wire Goods Manufacturing Co., who also occupied the building, and at the conclusion of their 14 year lease, to Albert Frampton. He renewed his lease in 1968, an again in 1980. In 1998 a gazette notice revoked the reservation of the property for hospital purposes and in 2007 it was bought from Capital and Coast District Health Board by a private trust in 2007. Following the end of Wire Goods Manufacturing’s tenure, it was occupied by a hardware business, dry cleaners (for a considerable period), the Wellington City Mission and, more recently, Stacks Furniture.

As a result of changes over time, this mixed-use building is somewhat utilitarian in style today. Nevertheless, it retains a good measure of visual interest and is a harmonious component of the heritage area, relating well to the other buildings wrapping around the corner just to the south. This building has two main parts – the two-storey section fronting Adelaide Road and a substantial L-shaped rear addition accessed off Hospital Road. A large loading bay separates it from 183 along the north-west side (this creates a prominent gap in the local streetscape) and there is a further narrow gap to 191.

The front section is the original part of the building. This has a rectangular plan and a hipped roof concealed behind parapets. The roof is in two separate hipped sections, the northern section covering two bays and the southern section one bay, and this asymmetry is subtly reflected in the arrangement of windows and features on the street elevation.

The most distinctive features of the building today are the paired segmental-arched double-hung windows at the first floor on the main elevation. These are arranged with a gentle asymmetry that relates to the roof plan (and, presumably, the original internal sub-division of the building). This wall is finished in solid plaster. As this is flush with the facing boards on the windows, the plaster is most likely laid over the original timber cladding – it is also likely that original timber ornament was removed to suit the plaster finish. The wall is trimmed with a plain horizontal parapet that conceals the roof beyond. The verandah is a relatively modern horizontal stayed structure.

At the ground floor, the street front has a small door on the right side which gives access to the accommodation above, to the left of this there is a large display window, a short section of wall, and then the main shop entrance, which has a door recessed centrally between two large display windows. The visible north elevation is clad in vertical corrugated iron, with a mixture of timber windows of different types and eras.

At the rear, the large single storey addition fills up the site; it has a flat roof and is built up to an interesting old brick wall that sits on a rough concrete foundation at the property boundary.

191 Adelaide Road

The date of this building is not precisely known. It may have been constructed about 1889 for Richard Edwards, who was listed in rate books as the owner. It was certainly in place by 1891. The land was leased from the owners of the land, the Wellington Hospital Contributors, but the first listed lessee was Mary Lomax in 1904, by which time both the original building and an addition were constructed (the addition, completed in 1900, was built for Charles Lomax). The Lomax family maintained a connection with the building for many decades. Mary and Agnes Lomax ran a drapery shop from the building until the late 1940s and it remained, in part at least, a drapery until at least 1980, with the business of B A Sanders, a long-standing lessee and occupant from 1950 onwards.

Later occupants have included the Adelaide Junction Antiques and more latterly, Seasonal Stock, a second-hand goods store. The Wellington Hospital Contributors’ land was vested in the Wellington Hospital and Charitable Aid Board (from 1922, the Wellington Hospital Board). Later renamed the Capital and Coast District Health Board, it sold the property to Nicholas and Enid White in 2004, who on-sold it the following year.

This building has a wedge-shaped site, with the thick edge facing Adelaide Road. The building occupies nearly the entire site and has a correspondingly interesting plan form and a complex roof plan including two hipped bays with an internal gutter.

The main visible elevation is to Adelaide Road. This elevation is plain in style – typical of a simple late Victorian mixed-use building – but beneath the various layers of alterations it appears to be largely original, and the changes appear largely superficial. This elevation has a long horizontal proportion emphasised by the long run of the verandah, which is a mono-slope structure supported on (modern) steel posts, and the building stands out somewhat from its neighbours for that proportioning.

Below the verandah, there are two shop fronts, arranged more or less symmetrical on the façade. Each has a central door recessed between flanking display windows (in modern plate glass). Above the verandah are four evenly spaced double-hung windows with decorative shutters. The upper wall has a plastered surface with a distressed paint finish – as the window facings are flush with this surface, it seems likely that the original weatherboard cladding remains beneath. A large horizontal cornice separates the plain parapet from the rest of the upper wall. Each end wall of the building is a masonry fire wall – the projecting ends of this wall have large moulded corbels and bosses meeting in to the cornice line.

The rear elevation tells an interesting story of the building’s change over time. At the north side, a narrow double-storey addition backs on to the rear service lane. At the ground floor, the building has rusticated weatherboards and characteristic late 19^th century joinery; there is an old brick wall to the south side of the property, suggesting it is either original or very old. The upper storey is in a 1930s style with a deck projecting above the ground floor entrance.

1-3 Riddiford Street

 This building was constructed in 1902 for R.C. Howell. The architect is not known. Howell’s Corner (the obtuse-angled Adelaide Road-Riddiford Street corner) and Howell’s Avenue, right alongside, were well known local landmarks. The Howells had a store on the corner for many years, although street directories indicate that by the time this building was constructed, the Howells were not the occupants. Instead, the shop, which had multiple shop spaces and accommodation upstairs, was occupied by Pearmans Bros., coal and wood dealers and Margaret Pearman, presumably a relation, who ran a fruiterers.

Herbert Barley, who also owned the property, had his grocery in the building from the late 1910s to 1950. There was also a bakery in the building for a long period; a bake house was added to the building in 1922. Barley had a familial connection with the family of Charles Hornblow, who took over the grocery from the mid-1950s. Charles Hornblow’s Foodmarket (later Dairy) and Hornblow’s Hardware became fixtures of the building until the 1980s. After the death of Herbert Barley in 1972, the building was acquired by Alan Hornblow, but three years later he sold it to the Wellington Hospital Board.

In 1993, the building was sold into private hands and strengthened. In 1998 the owners built no. 5 over Howell’s Avenue. In more recent years No.3 has housed a furniture gallery, and an antiques and collectables. Since 2000 one shop has been occupied by Main Glassworks, which produces leadlight art. The other occupier is presently (2009) World Treasures.

This Edwardian mixed-use building appears little different today from when it was originally constructed; it is a good representative example of a forthright and simple mercantile style in common use in the era. The general arrangement of the building is well grounded in Victorian tradition, shown in the style and detail of the upper façade, which would not look out of place on a building 20 or 30 years older, but the lower façade reflects the prevailing Edwardian style for shop-fronts of the day.

The building is two storeys high, rectangular in plan, and is divided with a central party wall into two separate two-storey units, each with a shop below and flat above, and is covered with a hipped corrugated iron roof. It has a large rear yard, mainly given over to car parking.

The main elevation faces Adelaide Road. Below the verandah, the two shop fronts are similar but are not mirrors of each other; the northern section has a recessed central door with flanking display windows and the southern section has the door to the left and a much larger shop window. These shop fronts are particularly interesting for the surviving original glazed tiles to the spandrels below the windows and around the party and fire walls and for their elegant and slender timber joinery.

The verandah is a basic mono-slope construction that matches in to that of no. 5 (and has a gap to 191-193) and is supported on modern steel posts.

Above the verandah, the upper façade is entirely symmetric, with two double-hung windows to each bay of the building; the walls are clad in rusticated weatherboards. The whole is capped with a heavy timber cornice supported on scrollwork brackets and a high parapet with a central arched pediment caps the building. The party walls project just beyond the wall line and are ornamented with plasterwork bosses to meet in with the cornice and verandah lines.

5 Riddiford Street

Howell Avenue, named for an early proprietor of the store to the immediate north, was a feature of the area for most of the 20^th century. In 1998, consent was granted for the construction of a new building on this road. The road is still marked on survey plans but is now incorporated into the property title at 1-3 Riddiford Street and this building is on the same surveyed lot as 1-3.

Abutting tightly to 1-3, this modern Victorian-style mixed-use building is two storeys high at the street front and three at the rear. It is a small and narrow building, partly constrained by a narrow yard to the south – the remains of Howell’s Avenue – that provides access to the rear of the building.

The street façade of the building is detailed to match in with 1-3 adjacent, including the line of the verandah and the proportions of the shop-front joinery, rusticated weatherboards to the street wall and recycled timber windows at the first floor.

Behind the pediment is a roof deck, part of a three-storey apartment at the rear of the building – fortuitously the apartment is set back far enough not to be obtrusive in the wider streetscape.

The building is detailed and scaled appropriately to its surroundings and, although not historically authentic, relates well to the wider streetscape.

7 Riddiford Street

One of the last buildings to be put up in the heritage area, this shop and dwelling, this building was built in 1924 for F S Cooper and designed by Watson, Gooder and Lee. Constructed by J A Roberts and Co. at a cost of £1,783, the building was apparently originally known as Coopers Building. Frederick Cooper and his wife Gertrude secured the property from the National Hat Mills Co.,which had a hat making factory at the northern end of Adelaide Road. It is not known if the site was occupied by an earlier building, although street directories suggest it was.

The Coopers clearly built the building as an investment because they leased it almost immediately to Young Lim and the building was used as a fruiterers by Young Lim and family. They remained the lessees or tenants until the early 1970s. The present (2009) occupant is a Four Square, which took over from a Five Star Food Market. In 2003 major work was undertaken, with the ground floor shop enlarged and a second flat added above.

Composed in a quite severe Stripped Classical style, this two-storey masonry building appears to have a front and a rear section built around a central light well on the northern elevation. While the lower street façade has been much altered over time and has little visible original fabric remaining, the upper street façade is untouched but for a coat of paint and modern window joinery. The verandah is a mono-slope structure on steel posts.

The upper façade is notable for the unusually large proportion of wall area in relation to the size of the two small windows. The large expanse of wall is lightly modulated in shallow planes by the use of decorative elements; at either side of the building, engaged brick pilasters rise up above the top line of the central parapet as horns and above the two multi-light double hung windows (modern aluminium imitations of original timber joinery) is a moulded plaster meander-pattern cornice and a plain horizontal parapet above that.

9 Riddiford Street – Moore’s Building

Completed in 1922, Moore’s Building was designed by E M Blake and built by Campbell and Burke for storekeeper Albert Moore, as shops and a billiard saloon. The latter was probably on the first floor given the existing spaces in the building.  The site may have been occupied by a house prior to the construction of this building.

Moore sold the property (including both buildings) to Elizabeth McBride the following year and the property remained in private ownership until it was purchased by the Wellington Hospital Board in 1986. It returned to private ownership in 2004, at which time it was subdivided in two and the buildings given separate title for the first time. Since 2007, the building has been owned by a family of investors.

The billiard saloon had mixed fortunes, being replaced by the Newtown Boxing Club in 1940. It reappeared in the late 1970s, before giving way to the Newtown Social Club. In more recent years the first floor has been occupied by The Ballroom Café. Basil Cooper Hardware was an occupier of the shops in the 1930s.

Two storeys high, this inter-war commercial building is a masonry structure with a basic rectangular plan and a small rear yard and car park area. Behind the parapet a Dutch-gabled roof with large clear sections provides light to the upper floor. The main façade of Moore’s Building is the most architecturally refined of the buildings within the heritage area and is a very good example of its kind.

Below the verandah, there is a single door on the left, a pilaster, a shop window, a second pilaster then the main shop front, with a recessed entry door on the right side. The shop front spandrels are panelled with large bolection moulds. The verandah is a horizontal stayed structure with a plain soffit.

Above the verandah, the street façade is designed somewhat in the style of a small temple – it is symmetrically composed and embellished with neo-Classical and Beaux-Arts ornaments. The façade is trabeated in light relief with the “posts” and “beams” clearly delineated. There are two engaged pilasters at either side of the building, each with a prominent medallion and the façade is further divided into three bays between these with two unornamented pilasters. A central tripartite oriel window (in casement joinery with leaded multi-light top sashes) is flanked by a pair of casement windows on either side.

Above all this a modest entablature links the pilasters; a large Doric cornice with prominent square consoles is capped with a triangular pediment spanning across the central part of the elevation. Above this, the central portion of the parapet is elevated to further reinforce the central axis of the building.

The rear of the building, save for a modern rough timber stair and first floor verandah, is much as it was when first built; while it lacks the ornamentation of the street elevation, it is very carefully and symmetrically composed and illustrates the care and attention given to the original design of this building. Both floors have pairs of large windows, balanced on either side of a small two-storey ablutions lean-to structure.

15 Riddiford Street

This shop and residence began as a house, built in 1897 for C F Brockett, although the land was owned at the time by Thomas Howell (and later by his wife). Howell owned much of the land at the eastern side of the northern end of Riddiford Street. The house is clearly shown on the Ward Map (1900) and is one of only two buildings on the eastern side of the street. However, Brockett’s name does not appear as an occupant in street directories and, instead, commercial uses, such John Castle, chemist, are listed. This is almost certainly the result of confusion over the numbering of Revans Street as the addition of a shop to the house did not take place until 1922. The section occupied by the house was subdivided off in 1902 and sold to Henry Christie, described as a ‘Wanganui gentleman’, the same year that part of the property was bought by the WCC for road widening. Christie immediately leased the property to Brockett, which does suggest he had already been leasing the property off the Howell’s.

In 1921 Christie sold the property to Albert Moore who built the building next door at 9 Riddiford Street. It was Moore, through his lessees Wrigley and Kemp, who added the shop front to no.15 in 1922, an indication of the growing importance of the intersection as a retailing centre. Moore sold the property (including both buildings) to Elizabeth McBride the following year. The building remained in private ownership until it was purchased by the Wellington Hospital Board in 1986, subdivided in two and sold to private owners.

Following the addition of the shop it was occupied by a various fruiterers, until becoming the Atlantic Food Store in 1971. For some three decades it has been the home of the Rice Bowl Burger Bar, after it was converted into a takeaway in 1973.

Originally a late-Victorian house, this narrow two-storey building has a small single-storey brick and plaster shop at the street front, partly obscured by a cantilevered verandah. The overall building plan is long and slender and is covered with a gabled corrugated iron roof; there is a small service yard and car park at the rear.

The original house façade is prominent above the verandah. This is a highly decorative Victorian San Francisco-style façade with the elaborate carpentry detail characteristic of that part of the world, and is a rare surviving example of its kind in Wellington. It has two segmental-arched windows spaced evenly along the elevation; the head of these ties in to a cornice line ornamented with complex fretting and scrollwork brackets; above this the gable wall is diagonally shingled. The projecting gable ended roof has a small blind end filled with an elaborate fretwork panel, arched brackets under, and carved lower ends.

The partly visible north elevation has segmental-arched double hung windows at the first floor, and what appear to be original windows are also at the ground floor at the back of the building; there is a contemporary first floor addition that carries the line of the original gable roof to the back of the property.

The shop started as a typical 1920s add-on, with a modest brick and plaster façade and timber shop front joinery similar to that at 171 Adelaide Road, but has been heavily modified over time. Its original segmental-arched parapet and brick pilasters can still be seen above the verandah.

17 Riddiford Street (identified as non-heritage for the purpose of Rule 21B.2.2)

This shop was built by George and John Wood, butchers in 1922, and had a long history in that use. The builder was A Tyler. The Wood brothers had a shop in the building for many decades and during the 1930s made a number of changes to it. The property remained in the Wood family until 1957 when it was bought by the Gear Meat Co. R & W Hellaby bought the property in 1981. Through this period the shop continued as a butchers under various names.

More recently the shop was occupied by Bamba Zonki hairdressing and, since 2003, the Rice Bowl Burger Bar, after it moved from 15 Riddiford Street. In a curious process, Hellabys sold the building in 1985 to private owners, who then sold it to the Wellington Hospital Board in 1987. In 1994, the building was again sold into private ownership. The shop has had a number of minor changes over its life.

This single-storey masonry commercial building is today plain in appearance, a result of decades of alterations. It has a long rectangular plan and a cantilevered verandah matching in to 15 and 19. It occupies an important transitional position in the streetscape of the heritage area, filling the space between the two-storey buildings and the single-storey terrace at 19-23.

19-23 Riddiford Street (19 – 21 Riddiford Street identified as non-heritage for the purpose of Rule 21B.2.2 and demolished c.2011)

This group of three single-storey shops was built by A.W. Paterson in 1925 for Frederick Holloway, described as a motor garage proprietor from Masterton. It was an investment property and Holloway retained ownership of the building until his death in 1949. It was bought by Basil Georgiou, an engineer, who sold it to the Castle family in 1957. John Castle had already had a chemist’s shop in the building for some period (at 21 Riddiford Street) and the business that bore his name continued until recently as John Street Pharmacy. This association elevates the building’s historic interest. The property was bought by the Wellington Hospital Board in 1987 but it was sold seven years later to a private owner.

With the exception of the former chemists, there has been a steady turnover of occupants over the years. A boot makers, fruiterers, a grocery, cake shop, frock shop and fashion store were some of the many occupants of the other shops – at 19 and 23. Today, occupants include Kopi Takeaways and a musical instrument shop.

This is a terrace of three interwar-era single-storey shops; presumably identical when they were first built, the shop fronts have evolved over time and today differ markedly from each other, illustrating an interesting history of incremental change. The three tenancies are separated by masonry party walls – these walls extend as horns above the plain horizontal parapet and contribute a simple rhythm to the building. Each shop has its own mono-slope roof. The verandah is a simple cantilevered arrangement that more or less meets in with 17 adjacent. A narrow driveway separates the buildings from 27; this gives views through to the hospital complex and town belt beyond, and enables the south wall of 23 to be seen. There is a miscellany of additions at the rear of the buildings that adds some visual interest; a long masonry wall to 23 masks a jumble of lean-tos and outbuildings, 21 has two distinct lean-tos and 19 has an open verandah offering a partial view of the original rear wall (and multi-light window joinery).

The buildings were demolished in c.2011 and replaced by a three storey building for the Riddiford Medical Specialists.

27 Riddiford Street (former John St Doctors)

This house has been used for a medical practice since 1894, but the house itself dates back to at least the 1860s and possibly earlier. No direct evidence exists to accurately date it, but the style of its earliest part indicates considerable age; in 1908 it was suggested that part of the house was at least 50 years old.

The house seems likely to have been built by 1877, when the property was owned by Herbert Gaby, who had run a soap factory on the site for over five years. Gaby sold the house and his business to soap and candle manufacturer Joseph Kitchens. Under Kitchen’s management the business expanded rapidly and he added a large northern wing to the colonial-style house. The general footprint of the house can be clearly identified in the ‘Ward Map’ of 1891. In 1894, a new company forced Kitchens out of business in Wellington. The house and a small area of land was sold to a Scottish-born doctor, William Alexander (1854-1907).

During Alexander’s tenure he made small changes, adding a small office at the rear of the house and a portion of the upstairs verandah. Dr Alexander died in 1907 and the house was sold to Dr Fred Bowerbank. He spent £200 on internal changes including a waiting room with a side entrance and a consulting room. He served overseas during World War I and was forced to close the surgery during this time. In the end he served in both wars and was knighted after World War II.

Dr William Shirer, a house surgeon at Wellington Hospital, bought the practice in 1924. In 1935 he built an extra surgery and enclosed the verandah on the old part of the house. Dr Shirer served overseas during World War II and the practice had to close in 1942. However, he was called back because of the shortage of doctors in the area. In 1946 Dr Shirer, who had by then as many as 10,000 patients on his books, expanded the surgery into a group practice (Wellington’s first). The Shirers moved to a new family home but Dr Shirer did not retire until 1969.

By 1954 the house had largely taken on its present form and the practice became known as John Street Doctors. Some notable practitioners joined the practice and stayed for an extraordinarily long time, among them James McDonald, Ian Campbell, Donald Farquhar and Diana Mason, wife of playwright Bruce Mason (and a significant public figure in her own right).

In 2001 the building was sold to the Children’s Cancer Foundation and in 2003 the organisation made major changes to the house, including internal changes and a refit, and the construction of a large addition to the rear (east) elevation. However, a number of features of the historic interest in the house were left intact. The Foundation received a grant from the Environment and Heritage committee of the Lottery Grants Board to undertake the restoration work. More recently, the building was added to the Wellington City Council’s District Plan heritage list (2007).

The John Street Doctors is a complex building, a reflection of the many different additions and alterations made in the service of changing residential and commercial requirements over its life.

At the core, it is a small two-storey Colonial-style house with a large late-Victorian two-storey timber-framed single bay villa appended to its north and, formerly, a large double-storey lean-to at the east side, now supplanted by a modern addition. It has a corrugated iron roof, wide rusticated timber weatherboards, and mostly timber joinery. The remains of a brick chimney can be seen at the north side.

At the street front, the building retains a fair amount of its original form; the most prominent feature is the large gabled two-storey Victorian box with its large three-sided bay window at the ground floor. The bay window is fitted with double-hung windows with elegantly segmental-arched heads and a heavy moulded facing, and is surmounted by a paired double-hung window at the first floor. The eave is decorated with large and prominent paired brackets. The two-storey wing of the earlier house extends to the right of this box with two gabled dormer windows facing the street. A modern roof deck extends to the right (south side) of the two dormer windows. At the ground floor, an L-shaped lean-to roof appears to be an enclosed verandah and is glazed with more modern casement windows.

At the rear (east) end of the building, a modern addition has obliterated the former two-storey lean-to and significantly altered the overall form of the building. Fortuitously for the streetscape character of the building this is not easily visible from Riddiford Street.

2-14 Riddiford Street

This two storey wedge-shaped building was constructed for
Dr E C Peers in 1903 to a design by Farr and Bennie. An investment property described as seven shops and dwellings, it occupied a previously unbuilt site on the southern corner of Riddiford Street and Adelaide Road. At some point after its completion Peers sold the building to a Walter Nops and about 1923 Nops sold it on to James Foster. Two years later, after Foster’s death, the property was transferred to the Public Trustee, who kept the property until 1964 when it was finally inherited by private owners.

Finally, in 1982, the property was sold, subdivided into unit titles and on-sold. The addresses became No. 2 - Unit 1, No. 4 - Unit 2, No. 6 - Unit 3, No. 6A - Unit 8, No. 8 - Unit 4 and Accessory Unit 1, No. 10 - Unit 5 and Accessory Unit 2, No. 12 - Unit 6 and Accessory Unit 3. Occupants of the shops have been many and varied. Early occupants were generally typical of the time. In 1903 for instance, the occupants were as follows:

(2) Lee Shang, fruiterer, (4) John Murphy, (6) Miss Ellen Hurrocks, fancy goods, (8) Henry Dobson, store & upholsterer, (10) William Osborn, draper, (12) John Launder, boot maker, (14) not listed.

By 1915 the occupants had changed completely, establishing a pattern that would – by and large – be repeated through the century. Exceptions to this were Frederick Butler who had a saddlery in 10 for some years. No. 10 was later occupied by tearooms and later a restaurant (and remained that way until the early 2000s). For the first half of the 20^th century the building was occupied most frequently by the likes of hairdressers, confectioners, milliners, stationers and newsagents. Some of these occupants lingered on and were joined by the likes of a drapery, shoe shop, dentist, florists, fashion wear and second hand shops. The fluid nature of the occupancy continues to this day. Likewise, the many different uses and, now, different owners, has inevitably led to a number of changes to the interiors of the shops. The majority of these have come since the change to unit title ownership. Recently (in 2007), the building was added to the Wellington City Council’s District Plan heritage list.

This building is at core a typical late-Victorian commercial terrace, but has considerable interest inherent in its prominent siting, careful design and proportions and interesting history. It is a forthright and interesting building and is a very distinctive and well-known landmark, both within the heritage area and in the wider context of Newtown.

The original drawing shows six shops (one double the size of the others) on the ground floor facing Riddiford Street – the largest shop was presumably subdivided at the time of construction (given the permit records). The deeper shops, back from the intersection corner, had rooms behind them, while all shops had stairs to the residential accommodation at the first floor. Two of these units were too small to include kitchens and bedrooms. The building as it exists today is divided into seven bays along its length with projecting double brick party walls, with each bay containing a shop-front to Riddiford Street, and, above the verandah, a pair of double-hung timber windows to the accommodation beyond. Six of the shops are equal in size, with the shop in the “nose” of the building longer than the others.

There is an interesting variety of shop-fronts below the verandah, all old, some original and others with substantial amounts of original fabric, including areas of original glazed and mosaic tiles, fine timber and lead-light shop fronts and original doors, all serving to enliven the main street façade and to emphasise the long commercial history and continuity of use of the building.

The building is covered with mono-pitched corrugated iron roofs between each of the party walls, clad in rusticated weatherboards and trimmed with double hung timber windows; the lean-to verandah has a corrugated iron roof on timber framing, supported with modern steel posts. At the top of the building a heavy cornice surmounted by a low timber parapet creates a horizontal reference line to visually tie the building together, assisted by the strong horizontal line of the verandah. The parapet conceals the roof beyond and gives the building a very angular appearance in keeping with the nature of its site. Early photos show two Beaux-Arts style ornamental pediments along the Riddiford Street side of the building, complemented by a large sign board above the corner, these have long since been lost.

Along the return to Adelaide Road, the building line follows the site boundary for the first three bays with a blank weather-boarded façade. Beyond this, the building line is progressively set back from the timber fence at the street line. The site is retained below the level of Adelaide Road so the building maintains two full stories along its length. The brick party walls between the tenancies are off-square with Adelaide Road and this arrangement helps create an interesting staggered arrangement on this elevation, which effectively keeps the residential tenancies to much the same plan areas and, perhaps more by opportune orientation than original design intent, also creates some privacy between the flats. The chimneys from each flat, set against the party walls, add an interesting rhythm to the silhouette of the building.

At the lower level, the courtyard space between the building and Adelaide Road is largely paved; there is a garden area running along the street at pavement level. At the upper levels, each flat has a small timber balcony with a stair which lets down to street level.

The building contrasts interestingly with the other contemporaneous wedge-shaped building in Newtown - the former Ashleigh Court Private Hotel at Rintoul Street – and clearly illustrates some of the differing commercial imperatives driving the early development of the suburb.

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The John Street Intersection Shopping Centre Heritage Area has high architectural and streetscape value. Although the majority of the buildings are unpretentious in their aspirations and design, they share a general high quality of design, detail and materials and a consistency of scale and form that links them into a harmonious and cohesive collection. While several individual buildings stand out for their quality of design, the collection of the buildings as a whole has architectural interest. The variety of building types included in the area – residential, industrial, commercial and mixed-use – is important as together they comprise a rare and authentic collection in a key location close to the city. The area has buildings of individual heritage value. The former John Street Doctors at 27 Riddiford Street (c.1870s and registered Category I by the Historic Places Trust) was the premises of one of New Zealand’s earliest group medical practices; the snub-nosed 2-14 Riddiford Street (1903) has both an interesting building form and a rich history; CO Products factory (1909) has been making polish in its building since 1924; the Victorian house at 175 Adelaide Road is a grand reminder of the kind of house that once graced the city’s main boulevards; and the houses at 169-171 Adelaide Road recall a most significant event – the widening of the road in 1902, which left many houses hard on the roadside – these houses stand as the oldest buildings at the northern end of Adelaide Road. The area and its collection of buildings constitute a distinctive landmark feature in the wider northern Newtown area. This is due to its landscape setting, the prominent location at one of Wellington’s major street intersections, the quality of the group of buildings and the visual contrast with the flanking commercial and hospital areas. The collection of buildings has high group value for its architectural and streetscape values, for the enduring mixture of residential and commercial uses and for its historic values. These attributes are enriched by the historic qualities of the surrounding residential areas which contain many buildings of similar era, scale and quality.

The area is of considerable historic value. It has considerable local importance, being the first suburban centre on the Adelaide Road-Riddiford Street axis. There has been commercial activity of one form or another here since at least the 1880s and the area reached its heyday from the 1920s onwards, when there was more housing in the vicinity and more pedestrian traffic. Of particular importance is the role of the Wellington Hospital Board (and its predecessors and successors) in the history of the area. It has been an owner of many of the buildings, and played a role in their history, but in holding on to the properties well into the 20th century and through a period when so much of the city and its environs was being redeveloped and modernised, it, perhaps inadvertently, preserved this streetscape for future appreciation.

The area has potentially high archaeological values associated for its use since the 1870s or earlier. It has educational value for its representation of an authentic and nearly intact Edwardian commercial area and for its illustration of the establishment and development of this part of Newtown – and for the historical and physical links from this area to the wider Newtown and Berhampore areas. The buildings, particularly the earlier ones, have some technological value and interest embedded in their construction and materials.

The suburban shopping centre heritage area has ongoing social value; the various retail outlets, and particularly the cafes and restaurants, provide places where locals and visitors can interact and have done so for 100 or more years.

The Adelaide-Riddiford intersection, passed daily by thousands of people, is a particularly prominent and well known one in Wellington. The existence of this group of Victorian and Edwardian buildings in this area and in relatively unaltered form gives it considerable rarity value. The heritage area is of both local and city-wide importance. Little changed from the 1920s, the area has a strong sense of visual authenticity and historical continuity. The area illustrates the appearance of this important intersection from its establishment, and clearly shows the original character of development of this part of Newtown. It has very high representative value for that.

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