new zealand

History The Wallaceville Animal Research Centre, located in Wellington, New Zealand, was a Government-owned veterinary and animal research centre. Following the establishment of the New Zealand Department of Agriculture in 1892, a new facility was commissioned to undertake research on...

History Lower Hutt Central Fire Station is a Category I Historic Place located in a large suburban area of Wellington, New Zealand. It was constructed in 1955 using concrete, and its design, which is indicative of a post-war utopian vision, was heavily influenced by the American architect...

History Holcim, originally named Aargauische Portlandcementfabrik Holderbank-Wildegg, is a Swiss-based building materials and aggregates company that was founded in 1912. The company expanded across Europe in the 1920s, then the Middle East and Americas between the 1930s and 50s. By the 1970s...

History The old Chrome Platers Ltd. building in Timaru, which is a Category II historic place, was constructed in 1883. It is not known who owned the site originally, but the company, Chrome Platers Ltd., which now trades as Concours Electroplating Ltd., purchased the site in 1961 and...

History St. James Hall, which is Presbyterian (reformed Protestantism), was built in 1885.The church next door was built five years later, in 1900. Both are good examples of early roughcast church building, but the hall is a Gothic style structure while the church is said to be neoclassical...

History Bastion Point, also known as Kohimarama, is an area of land that overlooks Waitemata Harbour, in Auckland. Originally, the land was occupied by Ngāti Whātua, a large Māori tribe consisting of four sub-tribes that settled in Tāmaki. However, when Western colonisation of New Zealand...

History “Originally the station [Otahuhu A] was designed to be maintenance free but this proved to be a fallacy early on. Although we all knew very little about gas turbines, we learnt quickly that there was a great team environment” (Allen Morrison, former generation technician).  Otahuhu...

History Kingseat Psychiatric Hospital is located in Karaka, a small rural area south of the city of Auckland. The construction of the hospital, which derives its name from a hospital in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, began in 1929, when twenty patients from a nearby mental health institution were...

History “The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions.” (Hunter S. Thompson). As far as we are aware, the history of this location remains mostly unknown. In terms of the architecture, the building is similar...

History This report is based on a ‘Californian’ bungalow – a style that is popular in New Zealand – that was built in the 1930s. It lies in the heart of the city of Wellington and as an ‘untouched’, ‘fully furnished property’ has been valued as being worth half a million dollars ($540,000)...

History Unlike the railways in Europe or northern America, New Zealand tracks were rudimentary. They were built cheaply and hastily using light iron rails that had a narrow 3ft 6in gauge. Even the tunnels and bridges were minimalistic and usually made as small as possible to get the railways...

History ‘Legend has it that McLean, then aged nearly eighty, walked in to the offices of England Brothers Architects and told the clerk he wanted the plan of a house. He was offered the blueprint of a conventional four-roomed cottage popular at the time. McLean retorted abruptly – “Not four...

History The foundation stone for Oamaru’s former hospital (known locally as ‘the hospital on the hill’) was laid by Deborah Shrimski (the wife of Samuel Shrimski, who was himself a reputable businessman) on 2nd April 1872. All of the shops in the town were closed for the entire day to...

History Even though the small town of Milton was connected with the goldrush years in the 1860s, it was actually founded as a milling town at the beginning of the 1850s. It is rumoured that this is how the town received its name – Milltown is said to have been shortened to Milton. The Bruce...

History Clinton, which was originally named Popotunoa (after the nearby bush-clad hills), is a very small town in New Zealand. It was named after the 5th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne, Henry Pelham-Clinton, the former British Secretary of State for the Colonies. It is located along State...

History Believe it or not, bacon has been an important part of human history since at least the twelfth century, when it was offered as a reward to married men who could go a year and a day without arguing with their wives. The term originally derived from the Middle English word ‘bacoun’...

History The Miramar Peninsula, which is located on the south-eastern side of Wellington, has a rich and especially fascinating underground history. The area is perforated with many coves and caves, and even more interestingly old military bunkers that date back to the late 1800s. However...

History Following the Second World War, sixty huts were moved from a United States Marine camp at Paekakariki to the small town of Otaki. This was part of an initiative that was started by the Wellington City Mission. The buildings were moved to establish a haven/holiday lodge for widows and...

History Barrett Street Nurses’ Home, which is a two-storey roughcast building, was designed in 1918 by the firm Messenger and Griffths. At the cost of £16,089, it was constructed between 1921 and 1922. It was officially opened on 14th March 1922 by the Minister of Health at the time, Mr. C. J...

History The year is 1918 and the cold, motionless, body of Michael Dravitzki is being moved into the New Plymouth hospital morgue. His small frame is covered with a white sheet. It is believed the young boy has fallen victim to a very potent strain of the Spanish influenza virus. The medical...