New Zealand Odyssey: Buckingham Street, Arrowtown, Central Otago

'New Zealand Odyssey', published in 1989 by Heinemann, was authored by me, Don Donovan (who did the text and illustrations) and Euan Sarginson, who did the photography and design. In this series of blog posts, I will publish some of my drawings.

These houses in Buckingham Street, Arrowtown are mainly workers' huts from goldmining days, the Arrow river and its surrounding area having been among the richest fields in New Zealand. They could have been demolished years ago had somebody not realized their historical value and now, despite occupying real estate that is worth small fortunes, they remain, photographic subjects for the increasingly large numbers of tourists that have turned the rest of the town into something approaching a Disneyland replica.

I did this painting in 1988. I am fortunate to have first visited Arrowtown in the 1960s before it had been 'discovered'.

No. 55 Buckingham Street.

© DON DONOVAN

donovan@ihug.co.nz

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New Zealand Odyssey: The Postmaster's House, St. Bathans, Central Otago

'New Zealand Odyssey', published in 1989 by Heinemann, was authored by me, Don Donovan (who did the text and illustrations) and Euan Sarginson, who did the photography and design. In this series of blog posts, I will publish some of my drawings.

As it was in 1988 and probably still is, this imposing house was provided for the local postmaster in the heady days when St. Bathans was one of the richest gold mining areas in New Zealand. The NZ Post of the new millenium would do no such thing; these days they'd be reluctant to provide posties with a bicycle and high-viz vests let alone a house! 

St. Bathans was saved from oblivion by people who were quick enough to realize that preservation of nineteenth century history pays dividends. St. Bathans is now a tourist destination and repays a long trek through Central Otago.

© DON DONOVAN

donovan@ihug.co.nz

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Bank of New South Wales, St. Bathans, Central Otago

This is the well maintained (for historical reasons) Bank of New South Wales in St. Bathans, the old gold town in Central Otago. It was built in 1864. I wonder how much gold was checked in there from the wonderfully rich deposits mined just across the road?

My first bank in New Zealand was the Bank of NSW, I became a customer in 1962. The bank changed its name to Westpac Bank some years later (I think but am not sure that it was a neologism created out of Western Pacific Bank).

I expect all of the customers of the BNSW in St.Bathans were known personally and by name to the manager. I have never met my bank manager in 48 years, none of the faces I see in the bank recognize me, the staff changes with reckless speed. Despite assurances in their advertisements banks no longer offer true, personal service preferring customers to indulge in the faceless practice of going ‘on line’.

Not everything changes for the better.

© DON DONOVAN

donovan@ihug.co.nz
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Vulcan Hotel, St. Bathans, Central Otago

Autumn 2010; a revisit to St. Bathans and the Vulcan Hotel, a pub that I’ve illustrated twice before in my books. Somebody is looking after it!
 

St Bathans was born of a gold boom in 1863. A year later it had ten hotels, forty businesses and a population of up to 2000 in the surrounding hills and gullies. Across the road from the pub you can look down into ‘The Glory Hole’, a blue lake that was once a hill 120 metres high! Gold fever hit St Bathans in a big way and, blinded by the urge to win metal above everything else, the early citizens tolerated a mushroom shanty-town of ‘corrugated iron, red iron, tin, gin cases, staves and canvas’. But there seems to have been born into gold miners a need for dignity and a prayer for permanence and so, as the town survived into and beyond the 1870s, more substantial buildings appeared, some of them with sufficient stamina to have lasted into modern times.

St Bathans today is like a time capsule from which it’s possible, in just a couple of hours, to get an appreciation of the composition of a goldfields town: a public hall that was the miners’ billiards saloon, the Bank of New South Wales Gold Office of the late 1860s, the stately old Post Office and postmaster’s residence, the ruins of the 1866 public school, damaged irreparably by earthquake in 1948, the church of St Alban the Martyr given to the town by Captain Dalgety and shipped out, pre-fabricated from England in 1883, and the stone cottage, one of the earliest permanent buildings in the town, first occupied by Sam Hanger who owned the first Vulcan Hotel.

There’s been a Vulcan in St Bathans since 1869. Sam Hanger’s first one was a little farther north than is today’s, an impermanent affair thrown up to cater for thirsts rather than architectural appreciation. Twelve years later, they replaced corrugated iron with a structure of sun-dried bricks that became the new Vulcan: it stood until early 1914 when it was burned down. In its turn it was replaced by red brick which was also destroyed by fire. The Vulcan’s licence was transferred at this time to the Ballarat Hotel, which was not in use. It had been built in 1882 and is the uniquely handsome little Vulcan Hotel in my illustration, below, and the new photograph above.

© DON DONOVAN

donovan@ihug.co.nz
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