Antrim House

Heritage New Zealand have been having a Heritage Week over the last week. As part of this, they were offering guided tours of Antrim House, which is an old house in the centre of Wellington. It was originally a family home, but has since been used as a hotel, a bed and breakfast, a hostel for young men, and is now the headquarters of Heritage New Zealand itself. It is normally open to the public for free, but you can’t see very much of it when it’s being used as offices, so this was an opportunity to see more and learn a little of the history behind the house.

It was built as the family home of the Hannah family in Wellington, on what was then a residential street. Today, it is the only remaining  building of its type – it is surrounded by office blocks and flats. The décor was originally in the Italianate style, but a lot of the interior was lost in a fire during its years as a hotel (there are still some signs of the fire on the original timbers, particularly on the staircase). The most notable original features which remain are the cast iron ceilings, the fireplaces, and the stained glass windows.

New Zealand, by its nature, doesn’t have a lot of historical buildings. One of the issues facing those that remain and have been preserved is the level of compliance with the building code – many were built at a time when earthquake-proofing wasn’t really considered. This building was built by a Scottish-born architect, Thomas Turnbull, who had spent a lot of time working in San Francisco, another earthquake-prone area, so had some good experience when it came to building earthquake-proof structures. He was responsible for many of Wellington’s buildings including two churches on Willis St, and several commercial buildings including the former head office of the Bank of New Zealand, which is now a shopping centre.

Our guide gave us some background information on the Hannah family (including the fun fact that Mrs. Hannah's first name was...Hannah!), and how, during the building's hotel phase, the owner ran a brothel as a sideline from the hotel. Hannah is still a name familiar in New Zealand as a chain of shoe shops. Also the fact that the glass on the two front door does not match as one pane was broken during the second world war, and replaced with an inferior copy as the glass etching wasn't done to the standard of the original - this is clearly evident when comparing the detail of the bees on the top of the thistle.

            

Afterwards we headed down to the General Practitioner for a spot of lunch. They were showing the end of the All Blacks game against the Argentinian Pumas, which the ABs won 34-13, securing the Championship for the year.