The official party boarded a tram, bound for the Ormond Road terminus, and was followed by Gisborne’s city band, the fire brigade, and a procession of cars. At the terminus on the Gisborne borough boundary, the procession was greeted with a banner, bearing the words, Welcome to Mangapapa. A large and representative gathering honoured the importance of
the event at a special function held at the Garrison Hall pictured at centre above.
The first Taruheru Bridge
The new bridge replaced the wooden Taruheru Bridge, which had an up-swinging span allowing tall boats to travel upriver. Tugs and barges ferrying carcases from Nelson’s freezing works were built to travel underneath.
The Taruheru Bridge was built in 1881 by the New Zealand Native Land Settlement Company, to connect the Whataupoko Block with the Gisborne township.
Spearheaded by community leader Wi Pere and lawyer politician William Rees, the company embodied hapū aspirations to profit from the sale and settlement of Tūranganui.
From 1879, tribal landowners entrusted their new block titles to Pere and Rees to win some control over the disconcerting market in individual land interests created by Native Land Court titles (in some cases land was traded for store credit or liquor).
The company was to develop these trust lands, having first provided for hapū needs: to survey and subdivide the balance into sections for sale, with roads and public reserves, along lines agreed to by hapū themselves.
The Taruheru Bridge was a crucial component of the company’s ‘close settlement’ scheme on the 19,000-acre Whataupoko Block, one of the first to be vested in trust.
Local Māori were said to have ‘cheered delightedly’ when the first piles were driven for ‘their bridge’ in April 1881.
Such jubilation was short-lived. The company had borrowed against the trust lands for its settlement scheme and Whataupoko Block was forced into a mortgagee sale before the bridge was completed. The borough council declined to contribute towards its £2000 construction but allowed the bridge to be tolled. An ongoing dispute over payment meant the bridge was still closed a year after completion.
Pere and Rees later claimed to have personally contributed to the construction and there are suggestions tribal lands were mortgaged, to the owners’ consternation, to finance the development.
Bridge builder JW Davies, declared bankrupt soon after, apparently opened the swing span and stopped traffic until he was paid. He claimed Rees had promised him Te Kopua Block land as part payment.
By 1920, this bridge could no longer cope with the increased traffic flow. Residents voted in support of building a larger concrete structure ‘of plain and substantial character’.
The Peel Street Bridge
Gisborne’s Peel Street Bridge was designed by borough engineer John A. MacDonald and built by contractor Fred Goodman, who had been associated with the construction of Auckland’s Grafton Road Bridge. MacDonald worked on the design for a year from 1920, and the two-year construction contract was signed in December 1921.
The contract price for the construction of the bridge, re-grading and re-forming Ormond Road and Fitzherbert Street, re-laying Peel Street in concrete, and extending the tramway to the borough boundary on Ormond Road was £60,079 15s, of which £24,970 was allocated to build the bridge. The Mayor drove the first pile of the new bridge on February 23,1923, and remarkably, the bridge opened nine months later.
The Poverty Bay Herald reported that MacDonald’s drawings were a work of art as well as an essential guide to the contractor and borough engineer. His plan book of 21 drawings, on which intending contractors based their estimates, was 3ft 6in (1m) by 2ft 3in (.7m). The smallest detail was drawn, and practically every hole, screw, and fishplate incorporated. The plans, as was the custom, were forwarded to government experts for approval, and it was a tribute to his work that they were returned practically unaltered.
The bridge was a lasting tribute to Mayor George Wildish who brought the project to fruition. He advocated the work both in and out of the council chamber, and worked incessantly to ensure the poll on the proposal put before ratepayers was carried. When elected to the mayoralty in 1919, Wildish had promised permanent work. The new bridge, regarded as one of the best of its kind in New Zealand, was a result of his intentions.
This 420-foot long, 40 foot wide bridge (five feet on each side forming footpaths) was built in nine spans using reinforced concrete girders resting on octagonal piles. A single line of tram rails ran down the middle of the roadway. The bridge had 10 piers, each 35 feet wide, supported on concrete piles, 16 of which were driven under each pier, the whole structure needing just over 160 octagonal piles.
The bridge was calculated to allow “the heaviest double-deck tramcar in the Dominion” to pass over it, or to carry the weight of a 15-ton traction engine or road roller. It was well-lit, a powerful and attractive light being placed on each of the 10 piers each side of the roadway. The columns give clearance of 13-foot 6 inches at low water.
The bridge contained 285 tons of steel reinforcement, 1000 tons of cement, and 3800 cubic yards of gravel and sand.
Two brass tablets, at the town end of the bridge, carry the names of the councillors concerned with adopting the plans, and the construction start date. Mr MacDonald’s name figures on one tablet.
The structure “was not disfigured by innumerable telegraph and telephone wires, water, and gas mains, etc”. These were carried underneath, as in the latest London bridges, in a dry place, providing “room for a man to crawl along to make repairs if necessary”.
The tram rails were laid on a strip of concrete, but between that strip and the roadway proper was a narrow strip of tar paper so the whole roadway need not be torn up in case of repairs. The bridge was expected to last practically indefinitely. Large nicely rounded wings opened the bridge on to Read’s Quay and Fitzherbert Street.
The road at the Reads Quay end was widened to 66 feet to make it safer and to improve its appearance. At the Reads Quay corner, a set of concrete steps down to the esplanade reserve was designed as part of the bridge structure.
Within six months, the “unsatisfactory” bitumen surface was ragged and broken. By April 1925, the road surface needed re-concreting for nearly half the bridge at a cost of between £3OO and £5OO.
While the Peel Street Bridge is basically the same, it has been altered over the years. The original gas-fuelled lamp standards were removed, the tram rails buried under the current bridge surface, and, in 1977, the original concrete hand-rails removed. These were replaced with galvanised steel rails that run between the original concrete pillars to increase visibility for motorists and reduce the dead load on the bridge. At the same time, repairs were made to spalling (damage from water absorption in the concrete) on the bridge structure.
Listed a Category 2 historic place with Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, the Peel Street Bridge is historically significant because of its role in the development of Gisborne’s transport and communications systems, and the development of Whataupoko and Mangapapa. It is a good example of reinforced concrete bridges, which began to be built in New Zealand in substantial numbers in the early 20th century. The bridge makes a substantial contribution to the urban fabric of the city, and to the important role rivers have played in the region’s development.
MacDonald and Goodman were also responsible for the Gladstone Road Bridge, 1925; and the Railway Bridge across the Turanganui River, 1929. Goodman was the construction contractor for the Tolaga Bay Wharf, 1926-29.
