Mount Maunganui Mens' Bowling Club

Mt Maunganui Bowling Club, undated postcard published by Photogen
Image collection of Justine Neal

The club was established in 1925 when the foundation members, a group of Waikato farmers, built the first green where the present hot pools are situated in Adams Avenue. The members used wheelbarrows to push the soil from a barge berthed in Pilot Bay, along Adams Avenue to the green. Unfortunately, the approach of the Great Depression saw the greens abandoned, but on the eve of World War II the club was resumed at a meeting on 29^th June 1939 and the annual subscription was set at two guineas.

Mount Maunganui, Bowling Club at lower left, undated postcard
Image collection of Justine Neal

No. 1 green was built by members in 1946. No. 2 green was later built in the early 50s. A few years later the ladies had their green made, adjacent to the existing greens. The first club house was a small wooden building. On several occasions working bees were held to make additions. The Bay of Plenty Times 6^th May 1949 reports:

Saturday last saw the official closing of the summer season at the Mount Maunganui Bowling Club and was actually the last day on which the Club would be using the old green situated on the Domain at the foot of the mountain. Members can look at this past season with pleasure, for it has been a most successful one in all respects and, at the same time, can anticipate with pleasure the opening of the winter season on the club’s new greens at Coronation Park where steady progress has been made.

Mount Maunganui Township, Tauranga, N.Z. 5666
Undated postcard published by National Publicity Studios, Wellington
Image collection of Justine Neal

In 1985 the Harbour Board approached the club with an offer of resiting the club in an area between Tawa and Totara Streets where the original Mt. Maunganui Primary School was. After several meetings with the Harbour Board, they and the Bowling Club signed an agreement. However, for reasons untold to the Bowling Club the project was abandoned. The Bowling Club then made a decision to rebuild the clubhouse. A building contractor built the new clubhouse over the top of the old building. Several working bees by members demolished the old building.

In 2010 the Mount Maunganui Bowling Club and the Cosmopolitan Bowling Clubs amalgamated forming Bowls Mount Maunganui. In December of that year club members played their final games at their former Nikau Crescent greens, which have now been bulldozed to form part of Coronation Park, and moved to their new clubrooms in Kawaka Street.

A History of Mount Maunganui, by Bruce Cunningham & Ken Musgrave
www.Mountbowls.co.nz
BOP Times Feb. 17. 2011

An 11 Year-old’s Perfect Day

From a contributer who wishes to remain anonymous.

Private collection

When we first moved to Tauranga in 1949, I was lent a pony called ‘Soppy.’ (I thought this was the cruelest name for a beautiful Palamino. Years later I learned it’s real name was Aesop.)

Aerial photo of Waihi Road, Kopurererua, about 1945-47. Judea Road, lower right; Waihi Road through middle; saleyards bottom left, entrance to which became Roberts Road; opposite is space from where Churchill Road was formed; Melrose home in open space on right
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries, Ref. 07-353

On a Saturday morning I would join a group of young riders and we would set off across the Waikareao Estuary from the bottom of Elizabeth Street towards Coach Drive. Once we got across the channel we would veer off towards the track up to Goods Rd where Pony club was held in the big front paddock of the Good’s farm. The two-storey stucco homestead is still there, now with it’s entrance off Milton Rd. I think they were an English couple with a son, and a daughter Mary, who also rode. Mostly we would take a packed lunch and there was always fruit available for us to help ourselves to. My memories are of tearing around for a few hours on our ponies playing games on horseback and it was all lots of fun.

Our route home was dependent on how far in the tide was. If it was full tide we went north along Goods Rd to Pillans Rd, Grange Rd, Otumoetai Rd, down a steep clay track to Brookers Rd, back onto Otumoetai Rd, and along Sutherland Rd , Judea Rd and onto Waihi Rd. If there was enough dry sand we would head across the estuary between the Urupa on Motupae Island, up the track beside the Judea Pa, along Judea Road and turn down Waihi Road opposite the saleyards.

Otuomoetai Road, circa 1950
Image by Alf Rendell. Reproduced with permission

After crossing the Kopurererua Stream bridge I always hoped that the others would not take off too early as they would go tearing along the right hand side of the road, and up the steep stock track to 12th Ave. I never fell off but there were some near misses. Luckily the ponies would be very out of breath at the top and I could collect my wits and check my over-the-shoulder satchel.

We would then ride sedately along Edgecumbe Rd to 6th Ave, go down another steepish track to the ‘back beach’, past Elizabeth Street, up another track onto Hamilton Street. Then a final gallop along past the Domain, turn right at the transit camp entrance and around the corner to the paddock.

Thus would end another perfect day of my favourite pastime — horseriding.

Changing Tauranga CBD – Part 3

I find it hard to believe that it’s been a year since I wrote on the disappearance of older Tauranga city centre buildings. During my break from the subject several more have gone the way of the bulldozer’s bucket. The demise of the Tauranga Electric Power Board building, with its association to a very important aspect of the city’s history, the generation and sale of electrical power, makes it worthy of its own post.

Tauranga Electric Power Board building, 21 December 1961. Image courtesy of the Gale Collection 0005/20/680, Tauranga Heritage Collection

Designed by architect Norman Jenkins, it has been described as an early example of modernist architecture in Tauranga.[1] In the 1950s Jenkins was also responsible for the Tauranga Fire Station on Cameron Road (1957) and the Tauranga Co-op Dairy Association milk powder factory on the corner of 11th Avenue and Devonport Road (1958), which was until recently the headquarters of the Hauraki Regiment. Built in 1958 and located at 69 Spring Street the new building was a few doors up from the Power Board’s old premises that had been in use since 1925.[2]

Spring Street late 1958, showing the new Tauranga Electric Power Board building, New Zealand Insurance Company Limited, and the old Power Board building housing Federated Farmers. Image courtesy of Tauranga City Libraries Image 99-369

A few years later the building was extended as this photograph, taken in 1961, shows. Writing on the back of the image reads "Power Board building cnr. Spring and Durham. Tom Humphries, Jim Simpson with boss Warren Trotman."

Image courtesy of Trish Simpson, Tauranga Heritage Collection

A 2008 Tauranga CBD Heritage Study completed by heritage architects Matthews and Matthews  stated that "the former Electric Power Board building was an important public building in Tauranga and contributes to the diversity of the built environment in the CBD … the building forms part of a group of reasonably substantial commercial and public buildings, which have been an enduring part of the streetscape in central Tauranga."

In 2010 the City Council Hearings panel removed the building from the Council’s heritage list allowing the owners to demolish.[3] Heritage New Zealand appealed the decision and recommended the building be given a "C" heritage listing. While this appeal was unsuccessful it has taken a further 10 years and a change of ownership to see the building finally demolished. However, one element of the building has been saved, the clock, but more on that in another post.

69 Spring Street, Tauranga, 22 July 2020. Image courtesy of Fiona Kean, Private Collection

Demolition underway, 14 September 2020. 69 Spring Street, Tauranga, 22 July 2020. Image courtesy of Fiona Kean, Private Collection

References

[1] Tauranga CBD Heritage Study, Matthews & Matthews Architects Ltd.
[2] 3 March 1925, Bay of Plenty Times. According to the paper the Board paid 2,250 pounds and had 100 employees.
[3] 1 July 2012, Sunlive

Topcroft

Topcroft
Image credit Tauranga City Libraries, Ref. 06-456

Samuel Clarke, who arrived in Tauranga in 1860, leased 823 acres of land from the Church Missionary Society to farm. It stretched from what we know today as Eleventh Avenue to Gate Pa. Due to the Land Wars, completion of his house was delayed until 1870 but it remains probably the oldest extant European house in Tauranga. He called it “Topcroft” after the ancestral home of the Clarke family, “Topcroft Hall” in Norfolk, England. Samuel Clarke himself was born in Kemp House, Kerikeri in 1824, where his father George Clarke was Protector of Aborigines. He married Mary Christopher in 1857 when he was farming at Panmure.[1]

Topcroft was built on the farm but a later owner, Josiah Tutchen turned the house 90 degrees to fit the new Edgecumbe Street. In 1987, then owned by local lawyer William Taylor, it was moved to Ranginui Street in Welcome Bay, where Taylor planned a community of renovated old homes. The community did not eventuate but Topcroft is occupied and stands there today.

Samuel Clarke was actively involved in activities in Tauranga having been a member of the Roads Board and several organisations. In January 1878 the Tauranga District School held their “feast” at Topcroft with games in the paddock and meals served in a marquee in the garden. Mr. Clarke read out the list of school prize-winners and presented the prizes.[2]

Part of Clarke’s farm was sold in 1881 to the Reverend R Burrows and John W Duffus and there were several further owners until in 1923 Reginald Shearman bought the house. He was the town clerk of Tauranga Borough and he and his family continued to occupy the house until 1983. During Shearman’s ownership the house was re-piled and re-roofed. This iron roof was the third since the original shingle roof cladding. The Shearmans closed in one end of the verandah and extended the gable, and also replaced the old kitchen at the rear. In 1930 when Shearman married Brenda Mountfort there were only two acres left as he had subdivided and sold the remainder.

Topcroft was built of pit sawn timber by David Lundon and John Conway, two men who built many of the first buildings in Tauranga. There are two stories and the ground floor living rooms have pressed metal ceilings and one of these is lined with wood panelling. The appearance of this house with the verandah and the dormer windows is quite different to other Tauranga carpenter gothic houses of this time but unfortunately the relocation detracts from its significance.

The house is registered as Category 2 registration 4565 with Heritage New Zealand and its importance relates to the ownership by Samuel Clarke and the original proximity to the Battle of Gate Pa (Pukehinahina). Samuel Clarke stated that the gates which gave Gate Pa its name originally came from his farm. He was awarded £9,736 from the Government for damage to his farm during the conflict.

References
[1] Births, Deaths, & Marriages, Department of Internal Affairs.
[2] Bay of Plenty Times, 16 Jan 1878
Heritage NZ. Reg.no.4565 Topcroft.