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272 WORCESTER STREET, CHRISTCHURCH: REPORT ON ARCHAEOLOGICAL MONITORING
NZHPT AUTHORITY 2012/557eq
EMILY CUNLIFFE
UNDERGROUND OVERGROUND ARCHAEOLOGY LTD
MARCH 2012
UNPUBLISHED REPORT FOR NICON LTD
INTRODUCTION Subsequent to the earthquake on 22 February 2011 the building at 272 Worcester Street, Christchurch, was demolished (Figures 1 and 2). On 10 January 2012 the New Zealand Historic Places Trust issued an emergency authority (2012/557eq) under section 11 of the Canterbury Earthquake (Historic Places Act) Order 2011 to Nicon Ltd. This authority was issued to allow Nicon Ltd to complete the demolition of the building and remove the underlying foundations. An authority was required as the buildings had been constructed prior to 1900 and were afforded the same status as sub‐surface archaeological sites. As per condition 3 of the authority the building at 272 Worcester Street was recorded prior to and during demolition. Condition 5 of the authority required that the removal of the foundations be monitored by an archaeologist. Figure 1: Map of central Christchurch showing the location of 272 Worcester Street. 1 Figure 2: Aerial photograph showing the building at 272 Worcester Street prior to the earthquake. Image from Google Maps. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The section at 272 Worcester Street has been occupied from at least 1877, with a building evident on Strouts’s 1877 map of central Christchurch (Figure 3). The earliest land transfer deed is dated to 1888 which states that the owner of the property was Mary Ellen Pickett, wife of William Pickett. The building footprint on the Strouts’s map (Figure 3) is similar to the building shown in the aerial photograph (Figure 2). Based on a comparison of the footprints it is possible that the rear portion of the standing building was part of the original 1870s group of buildings in the Strouts’s map, and the frontage was possibly a later 1890s/1900s addition. Figure 3. Enlarged section of Strouts’s 1877 map showing a building on the section of 272 Worcester Street. Christchurch, Canterbury: compiled from data supplied to City Council and District Drainage Board; T.S. Lambert, delt.
([Christchurch]: Fredk. Strouts, 1877). MapColl 834.4492a/1877/Acc.3158.
2 BUILDINGS ARCHAEOLOGY The building at 272 Worcester Street was a pre‐1900 red brick and weatherboard‐clad domestic building (Figure 4). The demolition of this building was monitored by Emily Cunliffe of Underground Overground Archaeology on 12 January 2012. The demolition work was undertaken with a mechanical excavator. Figure 4. The front of the building (facing onto Worcester Street) prior to demolition. The building was a single storey red brick and weatherboard‐clad domestic building with a timber floor overlying a concrete ring foundation and volcanic stone piles. The front and rear external walls of the building were clad with bevel‐backed weatherboards. The side walls were double bricked fire walls in a common bond pattern with three courses of bricks between each header course (Figure 5). The brick gables on the east and west elevations both had a row of four large and three small metal rose‐heads anchored to the central internal wall (see Figure 5). Rose‐heads were used to tie opposite walls together to give extra strength to the masonry. 3 Figure 5. The east brick wall showing the gabled roof and front veranda. Four different types of bricks were used in the construction of the side walls; these were identified by their differing frog marks: “J C”, “W”, “H” and a five point star. “J C” stamped bricks were made by Jack Cooksley of Christchurch (Figure 6). The “W” stamped brick (Figure 6) was made by Wigram Brothers, a firm established by Sir Henry Francis Wigram in 1886. Their Woolston‐based brickworks could produce 100,000 bricks per month, and 170,000 were produced at their Heathcote works where they also ran malt houses. The “H” stamped brick (Figure 7) was made by Helmes, brick makers in Dampiers Bay (near Lyttelton). These bricks date to circa 1880s. The star stamped brick was made by John Savage of the brick and quarry partnership, Prisk and Savage.1 Figure 6. “J C” and “W” frog stamped bricks from 272 Worcester Street. 1
http://bickler.co.nz/bricks/canterbury.php 4 Figure 7. "H" and star frog stamped bricks from 272 Worcester Street. The building had two types of windows (Figure 8). On the north, east and south elevations, the building had single pane sash and casement windows. The west wall had a four‐pane casement window in the dining room area. There may have been other windows on the west wall but much of the brick had collapsed outwards, making it impossible to see. 1
Figure 8. The two types of windows in the house: 1 ‐ Sash window; 2 ‐ Casement window. 2
At the front of the building was a small veranda and the front room in the northwest corner had double doors opening out onto this. Above the front doors was a rectangular stained glass window (Figure 9). 5 Figure 9. The stained glass fanlight above the front doors. The internal walls and ceilings of the building were timber frame with lathe and plaster lining (Figure 10). The ceiling joists attached to the top of the external walls by slotting into timber set into the brickwork. The building had hardwood tongue and groove flooring. The roof of the building was a hipped gable style, with common rafters making the pitch of the gables. There were no trusses used in the roof. Sarking boards were used to line the interior of the roof (Figure 11), and these were covered with corrugated iron. The gable fronting onto Worchester Street was topped with a wooden carved finial. Figure 10. The internal lathe and plaster wall construction and the ceiling joists. 6 Figure 11. The interior of the hipped gable roof (looking towards the front of the building). There was no obvious evidence of the building having modern modifications and much of the original fabric of the building was intact. It is possible that the rear section of the building was a later addition; however, the fabric of the building as a whole appeared to be contemporaneous. Thus if any additions were made, they likely occurred soon after the original building was constructed. See Figure 12 for a floor plan of the house. Timber samples from the building were retained for future analysis (see Appendix 1). 7 Figure 12. Sketch plan showing the layout of the rooms in the house at 272 Worcester Street. Not to scale. ARCHAEOLOGICAL MONITORING OF EARTHWORKS On 12 January 2012 the concrete slab and foundations from the building at 272 Worcester Street were removed using a mechanical excavator with Emily Cunliffe of Underground Overground Archaeology Ltd monitoring the work. A sketch map of the site was prepared showing the location of the foundations that were to be removed (Figure 13). 8 Figure 13. Sketch map showing the location of the foundations at 272 Worcester Street. Not to scale. Removal of the foundations at 272 Worcester Street required little excavation due to the footings being only 250mm deep. The foundations were made of non‐reinforced concrete and measured 400mm deep and 250mm wide (Figure 14). In the interior of the foundation perimeter the building was supported by volcanic stone piles. Figure 14. A portion of the foundations at 272 Worcester Street. The soil at the site was dark brown topsoil. Excavations at the site did not go any deeper than 250mm and did not encounter any deeper stratigraphy. Thus a large proportion of the site remains 9 unexcavated, including the back garden area. A small quantity of artefacts were found during the foundation removal at 272 Worcester Street. ARTEFACT ANALYSIS In total, three artefacts were recovered during the archaeological monitoring at 272 Worcester Street. These were a fragment of a ceramic cup (Figure 15), a piece of glass bottle and a sheep bone. Figure 15. Fragment of ceramic cup found at 272 Worcester Street. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS The demolition of 272 Worcester Street and the subsequent removal of the building’s foundations was monitored because the house was built prior to 1900. The building at 272 Worchester Street had undergone no obvious alteration since its construction some time prior to 1877, with much of the original fabric and integrity of the building remaining to be recorded prior to and during its demolition. Little excavation was necessary to remove the foundations, and thus the majority of the site remains undisturbed. From the work undertaken at the site it is likely that intact archaeological deposits remain at this site in the areas that were not excavated. As a result of this work this section has been recorded as archaeological site M35/599 (see attached). 10 APPENDIX 2 Artefact Class Ceramic NISP
MNV
Description
Pale blue band and thin stripe on Fill
outside rim of white earthenware cup, stripe on inside rim ‐ rim fragment Brick Sample ‐ Plain brick with impressed "W" frog with curved sides Brick Sample ‐ Plain brick with impressed "H" frog with angled sides 1
1
Cup 1
1
Brick 1
1
Brick 1
1
Brick 1
1
Brick Glass Bone Other Form 1
1
1
1
1
1
Bottle 1
1
Feature Brick Sample ‐ Plain brick with impressed "JC" frog with angled sides Brick Sample ‐ Plain brick with impressed five point star frog with straight sides Aqua glass ‐ side fragment
Fill
Sheep ‐ ? astragalus C
Fill
Timber sample with metal bracket attached by nail, with lathes for lathe‐
and‐plaster(?), various other nails Timber sample with rusted nails
Notes
See Figure 15. Sample from east wall. Made by Wigram Bros (http://bickler.co.nz/bricks/canterbury.php?row=5) but lacking impressed dots either side as in the example shown. See Figure 6. Sample from west wall. Pale orange brick with deeply indented rectangle with angled sides and deeply indented letter H. Made by Helmes brick makers of Dampiers Bay circa 1880s (http://bickler.co.nz/bricks/canterbury.php?row=3). See Figure 7. Sample from west wall. Made by Jack Cooksley of Christchurch, frog with straight or angled sides not curved though (http://bickler.co.nz/bricks/canterbury.php?row=3). See Figure 6. Sample from west wall. Made by John Savage, of the brick and quarry partnership of Prisk and Savage (http://bickler.co.nz/bricks/canterbury.php?row=6). See Figure 7. Sample of internal hall timber
Timber sample from top of exterior East wall where ceiling joists join
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