Upper Hutt Blockhouse

Upper Hutt Blockhouse
Upper Hutt Blockhouse
Former names	Upper Hutt Stockade or Government Stockade
Alternative names	Wallaceville Blockhouse
General information
Type	Blockhouse, fort
Address	Blockhouse Lane, off McHardie Street
Town or city	Upper Hutt
Country	New Zealand
Completed	1860
Renovated	1927-28
Technical details
Structural system	Timber framed, shingle infill
Floor count	2
Design and construction
Architect(s)	Col. Thomas Rawlings Mould
Architecture firm	Royal Engineers
Main contractor	W Taylor
Designations	Category 1 Historic Place

Last updated February 04, 2023

The Upper Hutt Blockhouse also known as the Wallaceville Blockhouse is a 19th-century American-style military blockhouse situated in Upper Hutt, New Zealand. One of very few such blockhouses built in New Zealand, it is preserved as a Category I historic place.^[1] It was built in late 1860 as part of a larger Stockade and was one of two Blockhouses and Stockades built in the Hutt Valley that year. It was occupied by the Hutt Battalion of the Wellington Militia from December 1860 to May 1861 without coming under hostile attack.

Background

In 1860, Māori in the Otaki district were hostile, and there was also fear of raids from Wairarapa Māori, leading settlers to petition for construction of a refuge.^[5] The disputed land sale at Waitara in Taranaki also heightened fear of unrest.^[1]

In July 1860, after tenders had closed for constructing a Stockade and Blockhouse in Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt settlers formed a Volunteer Rifle Corps and petitioned the Wellington Militia for erection of a stockade in Upper Hutt, also.^[6]

Construction

The blockhouse was designed by Col. Thomas Mould and built towards the end of 1860. On 18 August 1860, Major W. Rawson Trafford, commanding Wellington Militia and Volunteers, announced that plans for a Stockade and Blockhouse to be built at the Upper Hutt, on McHardy's Clearing were available from the Royal Engineers office in Lower Hutt and that tenders for either one, or both closed at Noon on 5 September 1860.^[7] The successful tenderer, Mr W. Taylor, had previously constructed the Lower Hutt Blockhouse and Stockade.

The frame of the two-story structure is made from timber and double-skinned with shingle infill, to protect it from rifle fire. Loopholes were also built into the blockhouse so defenders could return fire.

The building was at one corner of a stockade formed by a perimeter earthwork with parapet and trench. A well and magazine were within the stockade.^[5] The stockade earthworks have since been removed and the surrounding land levelled during the construction of Heretaunga College in 1954.^[2]

According to Best the blockhouse was never used as a refuge, but there are anecdotal reports of families retreating there one night in the late 1880s or early 1890s during an undefined emergency.^[8]

The blockhouse has been subject to some modifications over the years. Originally the blockhouse did not have windows. Two upper-level windows that were cut in the western end-wall before 1916 have been replaced by a single window, while on the inward facing walls, one upper-level window has been enlarged and another added since 1916. The windows cut in the lower level of the inward facing walls have instead been covered up.

Electric power, security lights, fire alarm and a sprinkler system are more recent additions, as are the metal gratings over the loopholes. The building has also been restored with a black stain applied to the wood and has red corrugated iron roof, a colour scheme similar to how the building would have looked in the 1860s.

Use

The Hutt Battalion of the Wellington Militia occupied the blockhouse and stockade from December 1860 until May 1861, without hostilities, according to the memorial plaque. By October 1861, the Bishop of Wellington was asking to rent the stockade from the Colonial Government for "a Sunday School and place of Divine Worship".^[9] Instead between 1861 and 1880, it was given over to the Police, for use as a residence, station and circuit courthouse. After the Upper Hutt Police Constable's position was retrenched in 1880, the blockhouse was still used occasionally as a public building. In July 1884, the School Committee asked to lease the stockade reserve from the Commissioner of Crown Lands.^[4] In 1891, the Police opened a new station at the corner of Main Road and Station Street,^[10] leaving the Blockhouse disused for many years.

Twentieth century history

Local people expressed interest in the conservation of the structure, and in 1916 the land was reserved under the Scenery Preservation Act 1908. This was one of the first instances of a historic building being accorded legal protection in New Zealand.^[1] In 1927-28 the building was significantly repaired and windows were added on the inner side of the L-shaped wall. A Committee to Restore the Blockhouse was formed during the 1950s and the building was restored about 1954.^[11] From 1953 to the late 1990s Boy Scouts and Girl Guides used the building. A service club also used the building as a meeting venue.

In 1980 the blockhouse and the neighbouring land was classified as an historic reserve under the Reserves Act 1977. Soon after that, the New Zealand Historic Places Trust (now Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga) took over management of the building.^[1]

The building was further modified around 1989.^[11]

The building is open to visit by request at Upper Hutt Blockhouse booking enquiry.

Related Research Articles

Upper Hutt is a city in the Wellington Region of New Zealand and one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington metropolitan area.

The Hutt Valley campaign was an armed conflict in the lower North Island of New Zealand between indigenous Māori and British settlers and military forces in 1846. The campaign was among the earliest of the 19th century New Zealand Wars that were fought over issues of land and sovereignty. It was preceded by the Wairau affray and followed by the Wanganui campaign and was triggered by much the same pressures—the careless land purchasing practices of the New Zealand Company, armed government support for settler land claims, and complex intertribal tensions between local Māori. The three conflicts also shared many of the same combatants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hutt River (New Zealand)</span> River in New Zealand

The Hutt River flows through the southern North Island of New Zealand. It flows south-west from the southern Tararua Range for 56 kilometres (35 mi), forming a number of fertile floodplains, including Kaitoke, central Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt.

Richard Barton was the first European resident of Trentham, Upper Hutt, in New Zealand. He was born in Newport, Isle of Wight, England.

Fort York is an early 19th-century military fortification in the Fort York neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The fort was used to house members of the British and Canadian militaries, and to defend the entrance of the Toronto Harbour. The fort features stone-lined earthwork walls and eight historical buildings within them, including two blockhouses. The fort forms a part of Fort York National Historic Site, a 16.6 ha (41-acre) site that includes the fort, Garrison Common, military cemeteries, and a visitor centre.

Stockade Hill, Howick was the location of a stockade built by British settlers to defend from indigenous Māori during the British colonisation of New Zealand. It is located on the main road into Howick, New Zealand.

Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga is a Crown entity with a membership of around 20,000 people that advocates for the protection of ancestral sites and heritage buildings in New Zealand. It was set up through the Historic Places Act 1954 with a mission to "...promote the identification, protection, preservation and conservation of the historical and cultural heritage of New Zealand" and is an autonomous Crown entity. Its current enabling legislation is the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014.

Heretaunga College is a state coeducational secondary school located in Upper Hutt, New Zealand. The school has approximately 803 students from Years 9 to 13.

Heretaunga is a suburb of the city of Upper Hutt, located in the lower (southern) North Island of New Zealand. The settlement, one of the older suburbs in the Hutt Valley, dates from the 1840s when European settlers sought country sections. A prime example of a "leafy" suburb, Heretaunga includes quiet tree-lined streets. It is characterised by large houses, often Edwardian or from the mid-20th century.

The Royal Wellington Golf Club, founded in 1895, is one of New Zealand's most beautiful and historic golf courses. The Golf Club is situated in Heretaunga, Upper Hutt, just north of Wellington and alongside the Hutt River between Silverstream and Trentham.

Tōtara Park is a suburb of Upper Hutt, New Zealand, located 2 km northeast of the city centre. It is accessed via the Tōtara Park Bridge which crosses the Hutt River, connecting it to State Highway 2 and the main Upper Hutt urban area. It was popular in the 1970s and 1980s for families moving into the Upper Hutt area.

Wallaceville is a suburb of Upper Hutt. It is named after John Howard Wallace, an early New Zealand settler, council politician, businessman and author of one of the first published histories of New Zealand.

The University of Otago Clocktower complex is a group of architecturally and historically significant buildings in the center of the University of Otago campus. Founded in Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1869, the University of Otago was the expression of the province's Scottish founders' commitment to higher education. They were also the inheritors of a strong architectural tradition and gritty determination. Defending the decision to build inexpensive materials in an elaborate historicizing manner the Chancellor, Dr. D.M. Stuart, said "the Council had some old-world notions and liked to have a university with some architectural style". This attitude persisted for over fifty years and resulted in an impressive group of buildings.

Birchville Dam is believed to be the second unreinforced concrete arch dam built for water supply in New Zealand. It was built in 1930 for the Upper Hutt Borough Council to provide increased water capacity for the borough and replaced a water supply weir built in 1913–1914 at the same location on Clarke's Creek, near Birchville. Decommissioned in 1958, when Upper Hutt joined the Wellington regional water scheme, this dam is now an historic attraction on the Cannon Point Walkway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Rawlings Mould</span>

Major General Thomas Rawlings Mould was an English military engineer of the Corps of Royal Engineers and Colonel of the Auckland Regiment of New Zealand Militia.

Christ Church in Taitā, Lower Hutt is the oldest surviving church in the Wellington region of New Zealand.

St John's Anglican Church in Trentham, Upper Hutt is one of the oldest surviving Anglican churches in the Wellington region of New Zealand.

The Cameron Blockhouse is a timber blockhouse in Wanganui, New Zealand, built during the New Zealand Wars in the mid-19th century. It is a rare surviving example of a privately constructed redoubt from that era.

The Albert Barracks was a major British military installation that overlooked Auckland, New Zealand, from the mid-1840s to 1870, during the city's early colonial period. The perimeter wall was built between 1846 and the early 1850s, in the area now bounded by Kitchener Street, Waterloo Quadrant, Symonds Street, and Wellesley Street East, according to Colonel Thomas Rawlings Mould's 1860 map of Defensible Works round Auckland. The site is now mostly occupied by Albert Park and the University of Auckland's City Campus, and Princes Street runs through the centre of it. All that remains of the barracks structures is part of the perimeter wall, which is on the university campus.

Oruaiti Chapel is an octagonal shaped non-denominational church made from locally milled kauri timber. It was constructed in 1860/61 by settler Thomas Ball in the small settlement of Oruaiti near the Mangonui Harbour, on his own land, for members of the local community. In 1864 a library was established in the building, and in 1892 the land and buildings were sold to the Foster family who retained ownership until 1936 when the church and the land it was sited on were gifted to the Methodist Church. The building was relocated in 1946 to Whangarei and in 1975, the building was relocated to its present site at the Northland Regional Museum in Maunu, Whangarei. The chapel is on the Heritage New Zealand list of historic places as a Category 2 Reg No:3291 and was registered on 22 August 1991.

References

1 2 3 4 "Upper Hutt Blockhouse". Register of Historic Places. Heritage New Zealand . Retrieved 21 December 2009.
1 2 Hawker, Beryl; Wednesday Writers and Friends (2002). Audrey Harper (ed.). "Fortune Lane". Upper Hutt - More Recollections. Upper Hutt: Upper Hutt City: 68. ISBN 0-473-09120-8.
↑ Kelleher, J A (Jack) (1991). Upper Hutt - the History. Upper Hutt: Upper Hutt City Council. pp. 48–49. ISBN 0-908561-37-7.
1 2 Daley, James M. (1978). Hutt County Council Centenary 1877-1977. Wainuiomata: Hutt County Council. pp. 168 and 172.
1 2 Best, Elsdon (1921). "Old Redoubts, Blockhouses, and Stockades of the Wellington District" (PDF). Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand. New Zealand Institute (now Royal Society of New Zealand). 53: 14–28.
↑ "Upper Hutt". Wellington Independent. Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand. 20 July 1860. p. 3, Volume XIV, Issue 1440. Retrieved 12 January 2013.
↑ "Advertisements". Wellington Independent. Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand. 24 August 1860. p. Page 2, Volume XIV, Issue 1448. Retrieved 11 January 2013.
↑ New Zealand history forum
↑ "Sign of the Times". Wellington Independent. Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand. 29 October 1861. p. 2, Volume XVI, Issue 1680. Retrieved 12 January 2013.
↑ Kelleher, J A (Jack) (1991). Upper Hutt - the History. Upper Hutt: Upper Hutt City Council. p. 257. ISBN 0-908561-37-7.
1 2 McCracken, Helen (2001). "Upper Hutt Blockhouse". The Register. New Zealand Historic Places Trust/Pouhere Taonga. Retrieved 12 January 2013.

Coordinates: 41°7′45.23″S175°3′6.27″E / 41.1292306°S 175.0517417°E / -41.1292306; 175.0517417

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[nzhpt-1] 1 2 3 4 "Upper Hutt Blockhouse". Register of Historic Places. Heritage New Zealand . Retrieved 21 December 2009.

[Hawker-2] 1 2 Hawker, Beryl; Wednesday Writers and Friends (2002). Audrey Harper (ed.). "Fortune Lane". Upper Hutt - More Recollections. Upper Hutt: Upper Hutt City: 68. ISBN 0-473-09120-8.

[Kelleher-3] Kelleher, J A (Jack) (1991). Upper Hutt - the History. Upper Hutt: Upper Hutt City Council. pp. 48–49. ISBN 0-908561-37-7.

[Daley-4] 1 2 Daley, James M. (1978). Hutt County Council Centenary 1877-1977. Wainuiomata: Hutt County Council. pp. 168 and 172.

[Best-5] 1 2 Best, Elsdon (1921). "Old Redoubts, Blockhouses, and Stockades of the Wellington District" (PDF). Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand. New Zealand Institute (now Royal Society of New Zealand). 53: 14–28.

[6] "Upper Hutt". Wellington Independent. Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand. 20 July 1860. p. 3, Volume XIV, Issue 1440. Retrieved 12 January 2013.

[7] "Advertisements". Wellington Independent. Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand. 24 August 1860. p. Page 2, Volume XIV, Issue 1448. Retrieved 11 January 2013.

[8] New Zealand history forum

[9] "Sign of the Times". Wellington Independent. Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand. 29 October 1861. p. 2, Volume XVI, Issue 1680. Retrieved 12 January 2013.

[Kelleher257-10] Kelleher, J A (Jack) (1991). Upper Hutt - the History. Upper Hutt: Upper Hutt City Council. p. 257. ISBN 0-908561-37-7.

[McCracken-11] 1 2 McCracken, Helen (2001). "Upper Hutt Blockhouse". The Register. New Zealand Historic Places Trust/Pouhere Taonga. Retrieved 12 January 2013.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]