In 1911, the year of the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary, the Wanganui Borough Council, using the expertise and equipment of the Wanganui Chronicle, published a book about Wanganui, as it was then spelt.
Rich in photographs and well-researched text, the book covered organisations, businesses, attractions and several houses. Such homes, owned or built by people of standing in the community, were fine examples of architecture and craftsmanship. Most were large, imposing and expensive, surrounded by well-maintained gardens on big sections of land. For various reasons, many of those homes have been lost, consigned to the pages of the 1911 book, but some survived to be included in later historical documents.
In 1978, the Wanganui City Council Town Planning Department published a small book of 18 structures in Historic Places Wanganui, 11 of which were residences and some of which remain standing to this day. Line drawings of the homes' frontages and floor plans accompanied text about the history of each building.
The following year, 1979, artist Des Bovey and researcher Kathleen McDonald produced Wanganui Buildings of Historic Interest, which included many stately residential edifices, some of which appeared in the aforementioned publications. Sadly, some of those, too, have been lost to us.
Some, however, remain, and many are in good condition.
Over the next little while, Midweek editor Paul Brooks is going out and about, photographing some of the remaining homes and telling a little of their story.
Field House
Field House, as it is called, is at 246 Somme Parade. At the time it was built, the road was known as Taranaki Quay.