Heritage et AL

Partington’s Windmill was one of Tāmaki Makaurau's early lost landmarks, demolished in April 1950. One hundred years before, in 1850, the miller, engineer and entrepreneur Charles Frederick Partington commissioned millwright Henry White to build him a six-storeyed brick windmill on the high ridge above the town, near the intersection of the walking tracks along the Karangahape Road and Symonds Street ridges. Partington started grinding flour and grain there in late 1851. Image: John Coomer. Partington’s Mill, Mill Lane, Auckland Central, 1890s. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 1729-156. The windmill soon became a well-known navigational landmark for seafarers and a favoured feature for local artists. You can see it on the top-left on the distant ridge beyond Queen Street in Patrick Joseph Hogan’s 1852 lithograph shown below. Image: Patrick Joseph Hogan. Auckland in 1852, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, NZG-18920521-0518-01. Partington’s Windmill was also a good va...

Currently on show, till Saturday 15 July, in the Special Collections gallery space at Tāmaki Pātaka Kōrero | Central City Library is the exhibition 'Tara McLeod: About type' . This exhibition shows a selection of beautiful hand-printed books, broadsheets, posters, and ephemera from Tara McLeod’s exceptional career as one of Australasia’s master letterpress printers. Image: Tara McLeod. Hot acrobats perform cheese fog polka. Auckland: Pear Tree Press, 1994. Image: A view of items in an exhibition case, including the 'N' page and the wood type letter 'N' from: 16 inch grotesque: a specimen alphabet of wood type. Auckland: Pear Tree Press, 1998. Librarians Jane Wild and Zoë Colling co-curated the exhibition. Zoë sent Tara some questions, about his life in print, which he has kindly answered below. Zoë Colling: You became an apprentice compositor in the 1960s, working with an Auckland printing company. Tell us about your time working there. Tara McLeod: The suburb...

At the start of Mr. William Shakespeares comedies, histories & tragedies , otherwise known as the ‘First Folio’, there’s a note from Shakespeare’s former colleagues to the book’s potential consumers. “To the great Variety of Readers”, it begins, before outlining the reasons people might want to buy – and read – this unprecedented collection of plays. Image: Detail from Mr. William Shakespeares comedies, histories & tragedies . Isaac Iaggard and Ed. Blount, 1623. Kura image 15. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections .  The First Folio was published in 1623; its surviving copies are now four hundred years old. As a consequence, they have indeed encountered a “great Variety of Readers”, and the copy of the First Folio held in the Sir George Grey Special Collections at Auckland Libraries is no exception.  Traces left by this copy’s early owners and readers testify not just to the multiple hands through which the book has passed, but also to the great variety of readings t...

The Auckland Folk Festival celebrated its 50th year on Anniversary weekend, January 2023. A huge line-up was planned with numerous New Zealand and international acts, decorations and bunting throughout the venue at the Kumeu Showgrounds, a 50th Anniversary display under a marquee and 250 nostalgia-inducing photos on show in the hall. The Festival committee had everything in place after a couple of years of planning – and a cancelled festival due to Covid in 2022. Ticket sales were tracking well and the festival looked like it was going to be bigger and better than anything held before… and then the rain came… with more than a month’s rain in 2 days. With the ground flooded, restrictions on people camping and most of the marquees out of action due to the danger of water and electrical equipment mixing, the committee went into overdrive to resurrect a limited festival using only the Kumeu hall, the barn and later in the weekend a marquee when the water levels weren’t as high. Although th...