The Canterbury Club is a historic gentlemen's club in the
central city
In urban planning, a core city, principal city metropolitan core, or central city, is the largest or most important city or cities of a metropolitan area. A core city is surrounded by smaller satellite cities, towns, and suburbs. A central city i ...
of
Christchurch, New Zealand. It was founded by urban professionals in 1872 as a breakaway club from the
Christchurch Club, which had been set up by large rural landholders in 1856.
History
The Christchurch Club had been founded by wealthy
runholders in 1856. Their permanent premises were built adjacent to
Latimer Square to a design by
Benjamin Mountfort.
Urban businessmen and professionals found that their interests differed from the rural gentry, and in 1872 founded their own gentlemen's club, the Canterbury Club. They commissioned one of their members,
William Armson
William Barnett Armson (1832/3 – 25 February 1883) was an architect, surveyor, engineer in colonial New Zealand. A co-founder of the Canterbury Association of Architects, and an architect to the provincial government, he established the architec ...
, to design a building, but he fell ill and in early 1873 the commission was passed to
Frederick Strouts instead. Strouts was guided by the lead that Mountfort had taken with the Christchurch Club a decade earlier and also chose
Italianate architecture
The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...
as the style for the building, to be erected on a site on the corner of Cambridge Terrace and Worcester Street.
The construction contract went to tender in May 1873 and
Daniel Reese was chosen as the builder.
The building was strengthened in 2008–09 and this work was the reason that the
2010
File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...
and
2011 earthquakes caused only moderate damage. After earthquake repairs had been done, the premises reopened on 8 June 2012. A dress code has applied since the club was founded.
Heritage registrations
The building was registered by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust (since renamed to
Heritage New Zealand) on 25 November 1982 as a Category II historic place.
Outside the front door on the Cambridge Terrace frontage, two further heritage items are registered as Category II: a gas light, and a hitching post. The gas light was installed for public lighting in circa 1900, but the gas lighting system was switched off in 1918 when municipal electricity had become available. Somehow, this particular gas lamp was never removed, and it was restored for the February 1963 royal visit by Queen
Elizabeth II.
Years later, the lamp was shifted a short distance to be located outside of the club's main entrance. The lamp was still run on gas for many years after the gasworks closed in 1985, but in the 1990s, the Canterbury Club converted it to an electric light. In 1999, the
Christchurch City Council and the Canterbury Club reinstated gas supply to the lamp.
Adjacent to the gas light is a hitching post, erected in the 1870s or 1880s by the club for members to tether their horses. Once common throughout colonial towns, there are very few remaining today.
References
External linksOfficial website
from 1874
{{Coord, 43, 31, 52.02, S, 172, 37, 57.44, E, region:NZ_type:landmark_dim:50, display=title
Heritage New Zealand Category 2 historic places in Canterbury, New Zealand
Buildings and structures in Christchurch
2011 Christchurch earthquake
Gentlemen's clubs in New Zealand
Christchurch Central City
1870s architecture in New Zealand