Cutting Edge: The Banks Peninsula Timber Industry

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We have often mentioned on the blog how Christchurch was built on a swamp (and the inevitable drainage problems that this caused!), but another big issue for early settlers living in a swamp was the lack of available timber and firewood. There were, of course, the small areas of bush standing at Riccarton and Papanui, but these were not sufficient to sustain a developing township, and it was not long before these sources were felled or reserved. A significant amount of timber was actually imported into Christchurch – from elsewhere in New Zealand, from Australia, or from further afield – but that is a topic for another day (hopefully by our magnificent leader Kirsa Webb who just finished her Masters degree on the topic). By far, the largest wooded area within close proximity to the Christchurch settlement was on Banks Peninsula, and so, for a number of decades, timber milling was the dominant industry on the Peninsula.

Long before the arrival of Europeans, Tangata Whenua had cut timber to build dwellings, forts, canoes, and other structures in native woods, but the level of this felling had little impact on the natural forests. During the 1830s, sailors who came to New Zealand as whalers also began to fell the native bush, often assisted by local Māori, and this began the origins of European timber milling in New Zealand. By the mid-1830s, about a third of the European men in New Zealand worked in the timber industry (Swarbrick, 2007).

On Banks Peninsula, former sailors had begun to settle in the numerous bays by the 1840s and mill the dense bush. Following the arrival of the Canterbury Pilgrims in 1850, other landless drifters and squatters soon joined them (Ogilvie, 2007: 119). By the 1860s, there were numerous timber mills in operation throughout the Peninsula (Ogilvie, 2007: 5).

Map of Banks Peninsula, with the shaded area representing forest cover in c.1860 and the location of sawmills indicated with stars. Image: Wood and Pawson, 2008: 455.

Many of the earlier timber mills were of a more temporary nature than those established at a later date. For example, George Holmes mill in Pigeon Bay that he established in 1862, appears much to be a more haphazard building than William Coop’s second mill and home complex that he established at Little River in 1873, further up the valley than his original 1863 mill. Many of these early millers were contracted by governing bodies to fulfil specific orders. Ebenezer Hay of Pigeon Bay was contracted by Canterbury Association in 1850 to supply timber for the new township of Lyttelton, and George Holmes was constructed to supply timber for the Lyttelton Tunnel in the early 1860s.

George Holmes timber mill at Pigeon Bay in c.1865. Image: William Locke, 1865.

William Coop’s home and timber mill at Little River. Image: Cantage – Canterbury Heritage

The bushmen who worked for the mills were often landless drifters and squatters who built primitive whares adjoining the bush they felled. Ogilvie notes that it wasn’t uncommon for most of their earnings to go on grog and they were an unruly element in the small Peninsula communities (Ogilvie, 2007: 119). A survey plan of Okains Bay in 1860 shows the footprint of numerous buildings located within the vicinity of the modern Okains Bay township, which are believed to be the location of the various whare occupied by early bushman in the area.

Photograph of bushman John Raddings outside his slab and totara bark whare located on the spur above Okains Bay. Image: Ogilvie, 2007: 121.

Detail from Black Map 120 showing Okains Bay in 1860, indicating the location of a number of small buildings believed to be the whare of early timber millers (blue circles). Image: Archives New Zealand, 1860.

Initially, the early sawyers concentrated their operations at the heads of the various bays, where they could more easily ship their cargo to their destinations. From the mid-1850s, as the bushmen moved up the valleys, they began to employ the use of mechanical mills, with the first water-driven mill being established near the head of Akaroa Harbour in 1854, and the first steam-powered mill at Le Bons Bay in 1857 (Wood and Pawson, 2008: 453-454). As techniques improved, more and more timber on Banks Peninsula began to be cut. The two largest mills (in terms of potential output) constructed prior to 1880, were William White’s at Little River and John Thacker’s at Okains Bay, which could produce up to 60,000 and 70,000 super feet per week respectively (Wood and Pawson, 2008: 454). By the 1920s, the vast majority of the timber on the Peninsula had been felled.

Deforestation of Banks Peninsula between 1830 and 1920. Image: Boffa Miskell, 2007: 27.

As milling operations moved further and further inland, the bushmen were required to transport their timber cargo over greater distances. The most common form of bush transport was to ‘skidd’ the logs along the ground using teams of bullocks harnessed together in wooden yokes. Sometimes this method brought bushmen in conflict with their local road boards, as logs skidded over roads often caused significant damage to the road’s surface that the road boards worked hard to maintain. John Thacker, for example, was brought before the Magistrate on a number of occasions by the Okains Bay Road Board for just such an offense (Lyttelton Times, 14/8/1875: 3; Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, 30/1/1877: 2). To speed up the timber delivery system, larger sawmills began to construct wooden tramlines to connect their mills with the bush they were felling and to the jetties from which they dispatched their cargo. John Thacker was again in trouble with the Okains Bay Road Board in 1875, when he constructed a tramline along a public road reserve to his mill in Okains Bay without obtaining permission (Lyttleton Times, 21/8/1875: 3). In some cases, the wooden trams required timber viaducts to traverse streams, rivers or particularly unaccommodating terrain. In Thacker’s case he constructed a timber viaduct over the Opara Stream to reach the jetty.

Photograph of a 16-bullock team pulling a log through bush in Northland. Image: Mahoney, 2007.

Photograph of a three-horse team pulling a trolley with a rimu log along a wooden bush tram, probably in Taranaki. Image: Mahoney, 2007. 

Photograph of a John Thacker’s wooden mill tramway viaduct over the Opara Stream in c.1889. Image: Ogilvie, 2007: 120.

Ship with a consignment of timber on a jetty in the 1910s, probably located in the Nelson district. Image: Frederick Nelson Jones.

From Banks Peninsula timber could be shipped around New Zealand or further abroad. Significant consignments of the Banks Peninsula timber were shipped to Lyttelton and then transported via train into the Christchurch township where it was offered for sale at various timber yards in the city.

Front cover of the Kauri Timber Company’s catalogue for their Auckland factory in 1906. Image: Swarbrick, 2007. 

The development of steam powered timber mills was an important advancement for the New Zealand timber industry from the 1860s. During the first decades of settlement in Canterbury, the majority of timber used in the interior of houses was still being imported from overseas. This was because it was cheaper to import foreign finished timber than it was to prepare domestic timber by hand. The development of machine timber processing in New Zealand meant that not only was the cost of domestic timber lowered, but it also materially increased the consumption of timber grown in New Zealand, lowered imports, and provided local employment. The first large scale use of steam power for timber sawing in Christchurch was by Mr F. Jenkins in the early 1860s. Jenkins later extended his business to use machinery to also prepare the timber. But it was not until the early 1870s that this industry really took off in Christchurch, with about five companies branching into the steam timber milling industry during this period (Lyttelton Times, 15/2/1875: 2).

One such Christchurch yard that converted into steam powered milling was the Victorian Sawmills and Timber Yard located on Lichfield Street between Durham and Colombo Streets. Established by James Booth in c.1863, these yards covered half an acre of land. By 1872 Booth had converted his sawmill into steam power and offered a wide range of timber products that could be planed, grooved, beaded, and bevelled to the purchasers needs (Star, 15/2/1875: 2). The business continued to run on the site under various management until 1895. In June 2014 we excavated the site of the former mill and uncovered a large complex of paved brick that is believed to be the main working floor of the sawmill buildings. In addition, we found other paved brick surfaces outside the building, stone and brick footings onto which we suspect the sawmill’s machinery was once fixed, as well as the foundations of the sawmill’s chimney and the likely location of the timber storage yard. You can read more about our excavation of Booth’s sawmill on our blog here.

Photograph showing part of the paved brick floor complex of the Victorian Steam Sawmills and Timber Yard in 2014. Image: Hamish Williams.

Another timber yard that harnessed the power of steam for its sawmill was William Montgomery’s yard located on the southeast corner of Colombo and Tuam Streets. Established in 1873, Montgomery’s business is an example of a successful timber import business from 1862 adapting into a domestic timber milling business in 1873. Montgomery’s business was very successful and in 1876 he constructed a handsome stone office building on his mill premises at the corner of Colombo and Tuam Street. The business continued to run on the site under various management until the 1930s. Between November 2020 and March 2021 UOA excavated part of the former sawmill and timberyard premises and encountered a number of features associated with the old mill, including a brick floor associated with one of the factory buildings, part of the tramline used for transporting timber around the site, and other brick and concrete foundations associated with the various machinery that were used on the site.

Photograph looking southeast towards W. Montgomery and Co.’s brick office building on the corner of Colombo and Tuam Streets in c.1876, not the stacks of timber on the right-hand-side. Image: Early Canterbury Photography, 2009. 

Detail from Strouts’ 1877 map of Christchurch, showing the footprints of the buildings present on W. Montgomery’s premises (outlined in red). Image: Strouts, 1877. 

Photograph showing part of the paved brick floor associated with Montgomery’s steam sawmills and timber yard. Image: Michael Healey.

Photograph of part of the tramline used to transport timber around the timber yard. Image: Michael Healey.

The Banks Peninsula timber milling industry impacted the way in which the City of Christchurch was constructed. Although the timber industry pre-dates the settlement of Christchurch, the arrival of the Canterbury colonists in 1850 led to an increase demand for timber and provided the manpower needed to fell it. For decades timber milling was the dominant industry on the peninsula. It resulted in technological developments, provided cheaper materials with which to construct Christchurch, and ultimately changed the environment and landscape of the peninsula. Today we encounter the remains of the 19th century timber mills right in the heart of the city. These mills not only show a direct link between the city and peninsula, but they also provide a sense of the scale of the industry which was so crucial to the development of Christchurch in the 19th century.

Lydia Mearns

References

Boffa Miskell, 2007. Banks Peninsula Landscape Study: Final Report. Prepared for Christchurch City Council by Boffa Miskell Ltd.

Ogilvie, G., 2007. Banks Peninsula Cradle of Canterbury. Christchurch: Phillips & King.

Swarbrick, N., 2007. ‘Logging native forests’. Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, [online] Available at: <http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/logging-native-forests>

Wood, V., and Pawson, E., 2008. The Banks Peninsula Forests and Akaroa Cocksfoot: Explains a New Zealand Forest Transition. Journal of Environment and History. Vol. 14, No. 4, pp. 449-468.

 

We’re Feeling 2022

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And just like that, it’s Christmas time again. 2022 has been a really great year for archaeology in Christchurch. We’ve worked on some big projects this year, and we’ve had some super interesting finds.

Jumping back to the start of this year, we spent most of January and February on the site of the new Court Theatre. This section of Colombo Street was a strip of retail stores, and a lot of what we found were features that related to these stores. We also found some pretty amazing artefacts, which generated a lot of media attention with Alana giving an interview to the Press and Clara appearing on the news talking about the site.

Neda and Alana excavating the remains of a fireplace. Unfortunately, the site had asbestos contamination so the field team were kitted out in full PPE at the height of summer.

A rubbish pit full of crystal tumblers, dishes and wine glasses that never made it out the shop door.

Once this brick well was abandoned, the occupants of the site made use of the space by throwing their rubbish into it.

Alana confirming that the well was dug into the water table by testing the waters for herself.

The smoking pipe that garnered all the media attention! This smoking pipe was made by L. Fiolet, a French pipe manufacturer that made high end pipes. The pipe depicts the confronting scene of an Indian mutineer about to slaughter a woman and was inspired by the 1857 Indian Mutiny.

The autumn months were spent mostly doing lots of projects where the works were located in road reserves, things like service renewals and road upgrades. While these works aren’t always the most exciting, there was the added fun of over half of the office going down with Covid at once after a now infamous Friday night at the pub…

Carly was one of the few that avoided being infected at the pub, which meant she was under strict instructions NOT TO CATCH COVID while everyone else was off sick, as someone had to hold the fort. Luckily, she wears a mask with style.

During this period, we also excavated the site of an aerated water factory. It should be of no surprise that we found lots of soda water bottles (although almost all of them were broken we should mention before we start getting messages from bottle collectors), along with more domestic items from the factory owner’s household. We’ve just finished the report from that site, so expect a blog post on it in the new year!

One of the rubbish pits from the soda water factory site that was chock full of bottles! The feature in particular dated to when the factory was first established, and mostly had bottles from England and Australia in it.

Just a few of the bottles that came out of the above feature!

At the end of June, we started our excavation of the Te Kaha site, where the new multi-use arena will be constructed. This project was particularly exciting as we went in ahead of the other earthworks crews and went through and investigated 23 of the archaeological sites that will be destroyed in order for the stadium to be constructed. We were on site until mid-October, and over the course of that time found hundreds of features and thousands of artefacts that relate to 19th century domestic households. Once again, we managed to hit the mainstream media, with a few newspapers doing stories and Clara appearing on the news again.

Rather unfortunately for us, July happened to be Christchurch’s wettest July on record, which made excavating interesting… Metservice very quickly became our most visited website as we tried to determine if it was going to be dry enough for us to make it out to site.

We also got slammed with lots and lots of big features. See the above example with a Neda for scale.

A rather unintentionally dramatic photo. Hamish and Amy definitely have career options starring in action movies if the archaeology gig doesn’t work out.

One of the best bits about being on a big project like this is getting to work with a large team on site. This photo was taken at the end of a particularly grueling week where we were slammed with big rubbish pits- as you can see from the photo most of them were waist deep!

Clara’s favourite feature from the project- a privy pit! We don’t normally find privy pits in Christchurch, as the dry earth closet system was favoured due to the high-water table, so it was really exciting to get such a great example (only archaeologists would get excited about centuries old poop).

A handful of finds from the site. We’ve got hundreds of boxes of artefacts to go through, so we’ll definitely be busy cataloguing them next year.

The CMUA team at the end of a very long, but very rewards, three and a half months.

As we’ve come back into summer, we’ve been busy writing up reports from the sites that we excavated this year. During the second half of the year, we’ve also once again had interns from the University of Canterbury through the PACE internship program. Emily worked for us on a research project related to the stadium site, while Hannah worked on a project for Lyttelton Port Company to display some of the artefacts that have been found in their office building. It’s been great to host interns again, and they always do such a good job with their projects.

We were super impressed with Hannah’s creativity in finding ways to display artefacts that were both informative and functional. There are definitely some good ideas there for other clients if they’re looking for ways to incorporate artefacts into their developments.

And in a full circle moment, we’re ending the year by cataloguing the artefacts from the Court Theatre site. The artefacts from the site are early for 19th century Christchurch, with lots of features dating to the 1850s, which has been super cool to see. We will hopefully be sharing some of our findings with you all next year.

One of the shops at the site was a shoe shop, and to say that we found a few shoes would be a massive understatement. Clara had to steal additional desks from people while they were on site as there were too many to fit on her desk.

Some of the pretty ceramic vessels found at the Court Theatre site waiting to be photographed.

We’ve had a bit of a sabbatical from social media this year with so many big projects taking priority, but we’ve got big plans for next year, including hopefully some good in person events for Archaeology Week and Christchurch Heritage Festival. And with that, we wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas from the UOA team!

Underground Overground Archaeology

Not just horsing around

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Horses were a big part of everyday life in 19th century Christchurch and were integral for transport and farming endeavours. They were present on the Canterbury Plains long before the Canterbury Pilgrims arrived in 1851, with John Deans having imported three mares for his Riccarton farm in 1843 (Orwin, 2015: 52). But horses were not just for transport or farming, they were also a big part of the community’s leisure time, with horse racing becoming a beloved pastime for many Cantabrians. While horses are used a lot less for transport and farming these days, horse racing is still a widespread sporting activity.

Photograph of a boy riding a toy horse and buggy in c.1920-1930s. Image: Roland Searle, 1920-1930s.

The settlement of Canterbury had been underway less than a year before a public meeting of colonists was called to discuss the establishment of a jockey club in the fledging township in September 1851 (Lyttelton Times, 6/9/1851: 1). The results of this first meeting appear to have been promising, with many of the leading names among the colonists pledging support. They were already discussing their intention to select a site for a racecourse in Riccarton and to have the grounds prepared in time for the first Canterbury Anniversary festival races which were to be held in December 1851.

The objectives for forming such an institution went beyond the mere establishment of horse racing for sport, but also for encouraging the breeding of good horses which “has always been considered a truly English object” (Lyttelton Times, 20/9/1851: 5). The Canterbury plains were considered particularly well adapted for the production of superior horses, and it was hoped that such breeding establishments would stimulate economy and cause an increased demand for locally grown oats, hay, and straw.

Despite the promise shown at the first meeting, for reasons not outlined in the contemporary newspapers, the jockey club was not established in 1851. Nevertheless, even without a jockey club, Cantabrians would not be without horse racing. For the first three years of settlement horse races were held for the December anniversary festival in Hagley Park, organised by a committee of volunteer citizens (Lyttelton Times, 20/12/1851: 6, 25/12/1852: 10, 3/12/1853: 12).

Advertisement to form anniversary race committee in November 1853 (Lyttelton Times, 5/11/1853: 1)

A public meeting to discuss the formation of a jockey club in Canterbury was held for a second time in September 1854 (Lyttelton Times, 16/9/1854: 1). Many of the same gentlemen were present at the second meeting as at the first, and the same high objectives were discussed, but this time the meeting proved successful and the Canterbury Jockey Club (C.J.C.) was formed (Lyttelton Times, 8/11/1854: 4). The first general meeting of the C.J.C. was held in early December 1854 to establish the rules of the club and elect its first officers (Lyttelton Times, 29/11/1854: 1). The annual Canterbury Anniversary races were not held in December 1854 in ‘consequence of the general unsuitableness of the season’ and instead they were postponed until the following March (Lyttelton Times, 20/12/1854: 5). As an alternative to the anniversary races, the C.J.C hosted a New Year’s Day race on their ‘new course’ on 1st January 1855 – utilising for the first time the racecourse at Riccarton (Lyttelton Times, 23/12/1854: 4).

Photograph of Phar Lap galloping in c.1920s. Image: Te Papa Tongarewa.

The C.J.C.’s first official race meeting was held at the Riccarton Racecourse in March 1855. The festivities comprised two days of events which included a hurdle race and races over a half mile, one mile, two miles, and three miles (Lyttelton Times, 17/2/1855: 1). The meeting was well patronised with attendance on the course being numerous (Lyttelton Times, 14/3/1855: 4). Since its inaugural race in 1855, the Riccarton Racecourse has continued to be the home of racing in Christchurch and since 1865 it has been the location of the annual New Zealand Cup race.

Map of the facilities at the Riccarton Racecourse in 1939. Image: Evening Post, 5/8/1939: 22

Just as it had been predicted in 1851, the formation of the Canterbury Jockey Club and the establishment of horse racing in Christchurch stimulated the Canterbury economy. The breeding of thoroughbred racehorses was quickly taken up, and numerous advertisements for stud horses of fine racing lineage began to appear in the local newspapers.

Advertisement to stud the well-known thoroughbred horse Joe Miller (Lyttelton Times, 20/10/1855: 2)

Auction houses were also erected for the specific purpose of selling horses. David Barnard had constructed his horse repository on Cashel Street (near the corner of High Street) by the beginning of 1863 (Press, 3/1/1863: 6). Within three years Barnard had erected a specialised area within the auction house specifically for the sale of racehorses which he called “the Christchurch Tattersall’s” (Lyttelton Times, 8/6/1866: 2). The name Tattersall’s persisted, and the Tattersall’s auction houses remained a fixture on Cashel Street until the 1930s. Barnard’s horse repository also became closely linked with the Canterbury Jockey Club, with the club using the premises as its club rooms for a number of years (Lyttelton Times, 17/7/1865: 2). A description printed in the Lyttelton Times in December 1865 indicates just how popular and well patronised the horse bazaar was:

It is well known that at Barnard’s repository thousands almost congregate every Saturday. It is the Christchurch fair, where all classes, high and low, rich and poor, are to be found. Horse dealers, horse buyers, horse sellers, and horse breakers are always to be found here (Press, 14/12/1865: 3).

Photograph of Tattersall’s horse bazaar (originally Barnard’s repository) on Cashel Street in the c.1880s. Image: Christchurch City Libraries.

Back in 2014, we excavated part of the site of Tattersall’s horse bazaar, and while we didn’t find remains associated with the bazaar itself, we did uncover a cellar structure which you can read about here.

With horses playing such a big part of everyday life in 19th century Canterbury, it is no surprise that horses appear in the archaeological record. Horseshoes are ubiquitous on every site, which attests to the ubiquitous nature of horses as the primary source of labour and transport prior to automation [1].  I’m reminded of the ‘Great horse manure crisis of 1894‘, the notion that in the late 19th century the issue of removing horse manure from the street was one of the major issues facing urban transport and development. To remove the manure, you’d need to bring in more horse and carts to remove it, which just produces more manure! It’s horse manure all the way down!

Anyway, we also find the remains of horse bridles, yokes, and other accoutrements, further attesting to the primary role of our equine accomplices in hauling everything (including their own manure) that the fledgling city of Christchurch needed.

Horse workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your yokes!

Toy horses have always been popular, and we find these on sites as well.

Toy horse (left ) and horse shoe (right). Image K. Bone.

The remains of the horses themselves are also relatively common. Less so than sheep, pig, or cattle, but isolated horse bones are often parts of an assemblage, likely the remains of some butchered for dog feed. On occasion we find whole skeletons, not of racehorses, but likely of work horses submitted to the earth for their final rest.

Horse skeletons found associated with a stable at the Isaac Theatre Royal Site (left) and at in a farming context at Redcliffs (right)[2].

A selection of ceramics showing horse imagery.

And in the very end…

Early 20th century Gloy Glue pot. Image: J. Garland. To read more about 19th century glue, see here.

Lydia Mearns

Footnotes

[1] Ed – Unfortunately, by nature of being excavated, any luck contained therein these shoes has already slipped out.

[2] Ed – Since then – ’tis Centuries – and yet/ Feels shorter than the Day/ I first surmised the Horses’ Heads/ Were toward Eternity

2022 – Turns out it can get worse.

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With the dawn of a new year (yes, we know it’s already April May June July, no we are not accepting constructive criticism at this time) the Under Over team has hit the ground running. The dream of a leisurely start back to the working week was quickly dashed with the rise of the new Court Theatre build. Kirsa assured us it would be a straightforward and easy site. Kirsa was in fact wrong. We have also been juggling many other sites, as per usual.

So, what have we all been up to? Our historians are hysterically working their magic, Clara is buried somewhere in the lab, while Jamie and Carly are sticking it out in Moncks Bay and the redzone. Nigel is in a brick barrel drain and Ashburton AND Akaroa (at the same time?!), Hamish is covered in rust, and Tristan is glued to a microscope. Our lovely lab team, Wendy and Naquita have frantically been washing shoes and torpedo bottle bases, Kirsa has been on field school (lucky) and invoicing (unlucky), and Neda, Rebecca, and Alana can be spotted in the wild somewhere in the CBD. All in all, the whole team has been putting in some major mahi these past few weeks months, and we thought we’d kick off the blog this year with some of our cool finds (It’s still technically the start of the year because we haven’t hit June July August yet, that’s our story and we’re sticking to it). We’ve summarised it down to our most dastardly sites and exciting finds for you (translation: we wrote most of this in early March… we’ve been busy).

Buckle up kids.

Court Theatre – Performing Arts Precinct

If any of you readers have been watching or reading the news recently (yes, we are famous now) you may have heard about the Court Theatre site. Additionally, if you  visited the library in January or February you may have spotted us working at the new Court Theatre site on the corner of Colombo Street and Gloucester Street. We were easy to spot given we were in full cover white asbestos suits – which are great in 30-degree heat (Rebecca here, did you know you can still get sunburnt through a full coverage suit? *Single tear smiling face*). Fun fact: asbestos itself is one of the few weaknesses of the archaeologist (along with alcohol free beer and snakes – naturally).

Figure 1. An archaeologist in the wild. If you listen carefully, you can hear them begrudging the asbestos.

The new Court Theatre site was originally home to Cookham House, a boot factory in operation from 1851. Many other businesses were soon established on the site facing Colombo Street. These included grocers, a butcher, a jeweller, a China and glassware shop, a confectioner, photographers, solicitors, drapers, and more. Essentially, this was a major boujie shopping centre, comparable to The Crossing or Merivale (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Colombo Street looking south in the 1880s. Image: Burton Brothers Studio, c.1884c.

With it being the site of a former boot factory, we had initially joked about how we would find large pits full of shoes. Unfortunately, the joke was on us as this was literally what we found (Figure 3). Feature 1 was a very large rubbish pit with “an entire archaeological layer of compressed shoes” (any Douglas Adams fans out there?). How many shoes you ask? Two fridges full.

Figure 3. Feature 1 half sectioned with the compressed layer of archaeological shoes, some bottles, and underlying roofing slate.

In total we encountered 49 archaeological features. I too was disappointed we didn’t have one more to get to 50 but believe me 49 was plenty. We encountered all sorts of features including rubbish pits of the large, extra-large, and outrageously large variety; multiple wells and artesian bores; building remains such as foundations and pile holes; a brick cesspit; a latrine; an infilled gully; and much more. With bulk earthworks only recently finishing we haven’t completed our analysis just yet, so stay tuned for future updates. But in the meantime, here are some photos!

Figure 4. X marks the spot of yet another very large archaeological feature.

Figure 5. A brick cesspit – don’t wonder too hard about what those layers are made up of.

Figure 6. A red brick well!

Figure 7. A yellow brick well! (follow, follow, follow, follow)

Figure 8. A clay smoking pipe recovered from a rubbish pit at the Court Theatre site – we may have an upcoming blog on clay pipes so stay tuned!

Superlot 15 – Cambridge Terrace

Much like the name suggests, there were many super things about Superlot 15. The ground was super hard, it was super hot, and the archaeology was super cool. Unlike the Court Theatre rebuild, which featured a fun viewing platform shaped like a large library, you probably didn’t see us digging at Superlot 15. This is because we were hiding a metre below the surface in the one corner on the site that was filled to the brim with archaeological features. Fun fact – the metre-high edge-of-excavation was to the west, so we spent a lot of time baking in the sun! Luckily, we had Brent on site who took it upon himself to build us a sunshade made up of various bits and pieces lying around on site, which we highly appreciated. We love an innovative king. He also gave us biscuits. Is he the best digger operator ever? We think so.

Figure 9. Local archaeologists grateful for shade on hot day. Photo also featuring variations of the ‘sexy sunhat’ and ‘naughty neckshade.’ Safety first, everybody! Make sure to bring electrolytes to site on a hot day (it’s got what plants crave).

The area currently dubbed ‘Superlot 15’ is an area originally made up of parts of 6 town sections, which was used for residential purposes. The houses were owned and built primarily by Edward Coxhead Mouldey and Charles Wellington Bishop. While the Bishop family likely lived on the section until the 1890s, Edward Mouldey owned Town Sections 229-233, and we suspect he did not personally live in all 8 houses on his own. Following his bankruptcy in 1888, ownership of Town Sections 229-233 eventually passed to Alfred Bullock, who leased the 8 dwellings. Aerial imagery from the 1940s suggests the 19th century houses survived well into the 20th century!

Figure 10. Detail from Strouts’ 1877 map of Christchurch showing buildings present on the relevant town sections. Town Sections 227 and 228 (coloured blue) were owned by the Bishops until the 1890s. The project area is indicated in red. Image: Strouts, 1877.

Figure 11. Aerial image from 1946, showing buildings previously on Superlot 15. 263 Cambridge Terrace (Town Sections 227 and 228) indicated in blue. The project area is outlined in red. Image: LINZ, 1946.

We had already spent quite a bit of time on Superlot 15 since works began and had found a scattering of archaeological features across the site, but nothing too dramatic. Turns out this gem was truly saving the best (?) for last. In the space of two days, we went from 10 features to 29, and we entered what I like to call ‘Survival Mode.’ There’s nothing quite like densely packed earth to push your excavation skills to the limit. The crew at Superlot 15 were very patient with us while we desperately tried to wrap our head around these features.

Figure 12. A small portion of our small area, showing rubbish pits in the fore, mid, and background.

Figure 13. Facing the opposite direction from the previous photo, some more features. A lot of the features on this site appeared to be connected for various reasons; these rubbish pits were connected/disturbed via a 20th century drainpipe. It made for some interesting digging!

A large amount of drainage features were encountered on site – earthenware pipes, a brick sump, and a brick chamber for an artesian well. This confirmed what we had suspected all along – whoever was living here did at some point have running water and plumbing – wow! The rubbish pits on this site came in all shapes and sizes, mostly containing a lot of household refuse typical to the 19th century including a wide range of ceramics, torpedo bottles, condiment bottles, tonnes of sheep bones, piles of oyster shells, and some other fun finds. Pictured below is Rebecca holding an anchovy paste jar. You can see by her expression that she is shocked people would eat something so repugnant. Another fun find was the Cavalier smoking pipe pictured below. This site is not yet finished, so stay tuned for more hard-packed earth.

Figure 14. Rebecca gasping at the anchovy paste jar recovered at Superlot 15. Endorsed by her Majesty Queen Victoria, we however, remain sceptical of the product.

Figure 15. Local French man featured on smoking pipe.

Figure 16. A half-sectioned rubbish pit with layers. From this view we can tell the rubbish was being deposited from the west (right) side of the feature. Feet included for artistic purposes only.

Updates from The Lab

The stoneware bottle pictured below is an unusual find. It was made for a specific pub, but not a pub in Christchurch, or even New Zealand. The impression on the bottle reads “BRAY/ Six Bells/ Chelsea base: FULHAM/ STONE/ POTTERY”. This tells us the stoneware flask was made by the Fulham Pottery, which was founded by John Dwight in 1672 and primarily manufactured stoneware up until the 1950s (Oswald, et al., 1982). Six Bells was a public house located at 197 Kings Road in Chelsea, that was established by at least 1722 and is still operating today as a restaurant. Members of the Bray family are listed as the publicans from at least 1823 until at least 1866. By 1881, a Christopher J. Aston is listed in the post office directories as the manager, indicating that the Bray’s association with the pub ended sometime after 1866 and before 1881 (pubwiki, 2022).

This suggests then that the stoneware flask was made by the Fulham Pottery specifically for the Bray family and the Six Bells pub – in Chelsea. It is hard to date the flask based on the available evidence, but a manufacture date range from approximately 1823 until 1866 is assumed.

While examples have been found on other Christchurch archaeological sites of table wares that have been commissioned specifically for hotels, there have not been any examples of stoneware bottles commissioned by, or for businesses located outside of New Zealand. Searches of Heritage New Zealand’s digital library revealed that it is probable that this is the first example of this type of bottle found on a New Zealand archaeological site. Google Image searches could not find a similar bottle, suggesting that either not many of the bottles were produced, or that not many have survived and that they are rare. It is likely that the stoneware bottle was brought specifically by Mr Bowley to New Zealand. Further historical research would need to be conducted into the Bowley family to determine what their connection to Chelsea and the Six Bells pub was, but the presence of the bottle would suggest that there was some connection.

Figure 17 . The stoneware bottle manufactured for the Six Bells pub in Chelsea.

To Conclude

All in all, the team have been working really hard (as per usual) and it’s been a rather exciting start to the year. Christchurch continues to surprise us with new archaeological discoveries and while we jest about how exhausting our sites have been recently, we wouldn’t have it any other way (Rebecca here – still advocating for a three-day weekend personally). While we quietly pray for a brief reprieve from field work to tackle our reports, we do in fact thrive in the chaos. Stay tuned for future finds as rumour has it, someone has a stadium to build or something.

-Rebecca and Alana <3

2021: A Busy Year

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If there was one word to describe 2021, then it would be busy! It’s been a hectic year on all fronts this year. Thinking back to March-April we were definitely like ships in the night, with everyone coming and going from different sites. Even Clara and Kirsa were both covering multiple sites- something that never happens! We had a wee reprieve from fieldwork in the middle of year, but made up for it with assessments. And then had the same pattern over the latter half of the year- with lots of fieldwork around September and October and lots of assessments the past couple of months. While it made for a full on year, it did mean that there was plenty of opportunities for lots of photos.

Smiles all round before a big survey.

Jamie and Rebecca pausing their survey to pose.

Clara contorts her body to shade the feature- the technical term for this is “throwing shade”

Neda takes a break mid half-section to show off her finds.

Jamie and Neda are 10/10 so happy about the number of rubbish pits and features that were at this site.

 

What’s this? A shoe? Rebecca really taking the time to appreciate the artefacts coming out of the site.

A common theme this year, car boots filled up with artefacts.

Jamie and Neda explored new excavation techniques like digging with your eyes shut and digging upside down and sharing the spading.

Kirsa stoked with her feature.

 

Tristan, Carly and Alana enjoyed some well deserved ice creams after a tough day digging.

Rebecca and Neda demonstrating their fantastic bandaging skills on their first aid course- if anyone gets hurt we’ll be in safe hands.

Tristan demonstrated stone tool making for us.

Kirsa made sure to protect the plants during our earthquake drill.

Rebecca and Neda are still smiling despite the rapidly fading light as the digger continues to excavate late.

Jamie stands beside the now demolished St Mary’s Church in Pleasant Point.

A big milestone was the repealing of the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Act at the end of June. We spent a good chunk of the first half of the year applying for general authorities for clients who had earthquake authorities with ongoing site works, or monitoring works for clients who were trying to get their projects finished before the legislation ended. For those of the team who were around in the heyday of the post-earthquake boom, it was a time to reflect back on when they used to be sent lists of hundreds of sites to appraise, and spent their days going site-to-site recording constant pre-1900 building demolitions and monitoring foundation removals.

A well deserved wine for these five (and for all the ex-UOA staff who also worked through the earthquake period).

We had four students work with us this year as part of the PACE internship program through the University of Canterbury. The students assisted Clara with cataloguing artefacts, wrote blog posts and helped put together exhibitions. It’s been great to see the interns develop their skills and to learn a bit about archaeology, and hopefully they’ll be able to use the experience in their future careers. We’ve also been able to offer one of them, Naquita, a part time job with us following on from her internship.

Three of our four interns from this year- Rosie, Alethea and Naquita.

Speaking of exhibitions, we had some good ones this year. For this year’s Archaeology Week, we had an exhibition of a doctor’s assemblage. Clara also spoke on the assemblage at a series of talks organised for Archaeology Week, and more recently presented on it at this year’s Australasian Society for Historical Archaeology conference (it’s been her favourite site of the year if you can’t tell). If you missed seeing it, there’s a summary of the talk here. For Heritage Festival we had another exhibition that was centred around the various types of artefacts found on archaeological sites in Christchurch. Our fabulous intern Alethea put together a website to accompany the exhibition (as well as doing most of the hard yards in terms of putting the exhibition together), and you can see that here if you missed it earlier in the year.

Clara speaking on her medical site as part of Beneath Our Feet: Archaeological Stories of Place, an event held for the 2021 Archaeology Week.

As has probably been a theme for most people this year, Covid has cast a shadow over the year. We’ve been pretty lucky to escape the worst of it being in Christchurch, but our lockdown did lead to some serious malaise.

Covid cat says wear your masks folks!

This year’s been a bit of a mixed bag in terms of projects. There’s been lots and lots and lots of drains and roading jobs and other infrastructure projects. These types of sites are interesting in a big picture way, when we take what we’ve learnt from all the individual sites and look at the infrastructure from 19th century Christchurch and what it can tell us about the infrastructure of a 19th century city, but are perhaps less interesting when you’re standing on the side of a road staring at a drain. We’ve had our usual rebuild and inner city development projects, which are always good for learning more about domestic life in 19th century Christchurch. And we’ve also been doing assessments and carrying out enabling and investigative works for some of the final big inner city projects. We’ve already found some extremely cool things on these projects, but have yet to really share those publicly as we’re saving them for exhibitions and displays that will hopefully happen next year or the year after. Looking at the calendar though, 2022 is going to be a really good year and we’ve got some exciting stuff in the pipeline.

A few favourite finds from the year.

With every year we welcome new people, and say goodbye to others. Neda, who interned with us last summer, employed the excellent job-obtaining technique of just never leaving once summer finished, and is now a full-time member of our team (as you might have already gathered from her photo-ops earlier on in the blog) We then sadly said goodbye to Angel, our Uncle Bulgaria, who was one of our main field archaeologists and always good at coming out with the best one-liners in the office. Next we welcomed Nigel from Australia. Nigel managed to time his starting at the company with a sudden spate of night works, which, with being the new guy, he of course got assigned to and is now known as Ole’ Night Works Nigel. Following Nigel we welcomed Carly and then Alana to the office. Carly has worked in America and Auckland previously, and brought some “wild” habits with her, like drinking a can of V before 9am, but also brings a lot of field experience as well as being a lovely person. Alana had been previously working mainly in Kaikōura and was extremely excited to dig her first historic rubbish pit on her second day of working with us. And today we say goodbye to Michael and Megan. Megan’s been with us since December 2014- meaning she’s worked with us for seven years! She’s done a lot over that time- lots of the work at the port and the various infrastructure jobs that took place under SCIRT. She’s been a team leader and has mentored a lot of our new staff members over the past few years. She’s a genuinely wonderful person and a great archaeologist and we’re really going to miss her!

We hope everyone has a great Christmas break and we’ll be back in February with more blogs on Christchurch archaeology. Byyyyyeeeee.

Underground Overground Archaeology