Heritage et AL

The exhibition  ‘Aotearoa Houses: settlers to hippies’ is currently running in the atrium outside the Central Auckland Research Centre on the  second  floor of the  Auckland  Central Library. On this blog we've previously featured posts on Hippie A rchitecture  and  State  Houses .  Ref: Pegler for Auckland Weekly News, Showing a settler's house at Poro-o-Tarao, with people posed outside, 19 May 1899, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-18990519-6-1.

                     “I was astonished by the inventive beauty of the hippie architecture,” film-maker Dan Salmon said, to the New Zealand herald , after researching New Zealand’s back-to-landers for his documentary Dirty bloody hippies .   “Some of the houses, pulled together from hand-milled timber and demolition materials were absolutely mad, others were sensibly warm and cozy, with steep-pitched roofing and attic bedrooms echoing our early pioneer cottages.” Ref: J. T. Diamond.  Old school, Wairere Road, rear view, shows the  water   tank.1960  J.T. Diamond Collection, , West Auckland Research Centre,  Auckland Libraries.   JTD-01A-01591-2 .

A few months back we took a look at the Victory Estate in Mt Roskill, an area named in commemoration of First World War military men. A few years earlier, just across the way in Point Chevalier, there was an equally interesting parcel of lots known as the Liverpool Estate. This piece of land is bordered at one end by Great North and Point Chevalier Roads. Besides housing, it now contains a supermarket, assorted shops and the Point Chevalier Community Library. Ref: A map of allotments for sale in Point Chevalier, about 1915, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, NZ Map 1298 The estate was created in 1913 by a group known as the Liverpool Estate Syndicate and was marketed as a “last opportunity” to acquire main road frontage close to the city. It was only a fifteen minute walk to the Arch Hill terminus and a significant selling point was that a motorbus passed by. The Point Chevalier Motor Bus Company ran from 1915-1920 and was owned by prominent locals, in...

It is always fascinating to discover why the street you live in is given a particular name, and for residents of a block in Mt Roskill, Auckland, there is a marvellous history behind theirs. It is a group of streets that was known as the Victory Estate – located up at the Mt Roskill end of Dominion Road in Auckland. The subdivision was purchased by a syndicate in 1920, as reported in the NZ Herald newspaper . The land had been held for the past 50 years by the Wesley Training College who had possessed huge amounts of land in the area. It was described as “beautiful high green slopes …. Commanding magnificent views over Mount Eden” ( New Zealand Herald , Vol. LVII, Issue 17412, 6 March 1920, p.9 ). Ref: DP Plan 16857, North Auckland Land District, Plan of Auckland Suburb, IV Titirangi S.D., Mt Roskill Road District, 1923