City Rail Link has today reached a milestone after the tunnel boring machine completed the second of two rail tunnels. Video / Supplied
A treasure trove of early Auckland artefacts has been unearthed during City Rail Link excavations, including parts of a brick seawall and a downtown wharf with oysters encrusted on stone blocks dating back to the 1850s.
Details and photos of the historic discoveries are being shared online as part of Archaeology Week.
The City Rail Link, which has employed an archaeologist to document and preserve artefacts, says many finds have been the result of the city’s foreshore reclamation which dated back to the 1850s.
It includes the old Customs St seawall that dates back to around 1860.
The old Customs St seawall dating back to 1860 was uncovered during excavations in Lower Queen St in May 2020. Photo / Supplied
Excavation work around the original Chief Post Office in downtown Auckland - later converted to Britomart Station - had also revealed remnant piles and basalt rocks from the original Queen St wharf dating back to the 1850s.
Nine colourful glass bottles, eight identified by historians as aerated water bottles dating back to 1880s, were recovered by contractors from reclamation fill 2m below the ground beneath the post office during excavation.
The City Rail Link Facebook post said multiple wharf piles, some of which had survived intact, and one crossbeam were excavated from beneath Lower Queen St. They were discovered up to 4m below the modern ground surface.
Some of the piles recovered showed a tapered point that retained the scallop marks produced by shaping with an axe.
Several bluestone rocks - one with oyster shells covering a side - were found lying to the west of the easternmost line of piles.
Piles and bluestone blocks from the original Queen St wharf were uncovered intact in September 2018. Photo / Supplied
“Only one of these appeared to have remained in situ. The stone had been shaped into rectangular blocks and the side that was exposed to the ocean was clear through the covering of oyster shells.”
A number of other artefacts including leather shoes, stoneware bottles, a short length of rope and a wrought iron hand shovel were also recovered from the reclamation fill surrounding the wharf piles.
When the early reclamation of the Waitemata Harbour was under way, historians say household rubbish and building debris were thrown in along with the fill from the 1859 demolition of nearby Smales Point.
This household rubbish is the likely source of bottles we uncovered during excavation work.
Bottles dating back to the late 19th century recovered from reclamation fill from beneath the Chief Post Office excavations. Photo / Supplied
A section of Auckland’s old tramway was also unearthed in Victoria St West.
“Working through layers of power and telecommunications services, construction workers came across this unexpected piece of Auckland’s transport history – the section of the city’s old tramway network in Victoria Street West that connected back to Customs Street.
“Even though we had used ground penetrating radar and searched through the city’s service records, we didn’t expect to uncover anything of the old tramway network.
Auckland’s electric trams ran from 1902 to 1956. Running from downtown at the Waitemata Harbour and across to Onehunga on the Manukau Harbour, they were then the world’s only coast-to-coast tramway system.
A section of Auckland's old tramway was found in Victoria St West. Photo / Supplied
This follows an announcement earlier this month when fragments of an ancient tree estimated to be about 28,000 years were discovered under an ancient lava field while the City Rail Link’s boring matching was excavating a new stormwater drain in Mt Eden.
