The carillon at Pukenamu/Queen's Park is one of 40 items profiled in Karen Wrigglesworth's book on Whanganui's engineering heritage. Photos / Bevan Conley
The carillon at Pukenamu/Queen's Park is one of 40 items profiled in Karen Wrigglesworth's book on Whanganui's engineering heritage. Photos / Bevan Conley
Who knew the Victoria Ave pavement was once lined with little glass windows that let light into underground basements?
Or that Whangaehu once had a factory that used milk to make plastic?
These and 38 other pieces of engineering heritage are profiled in Karen Wrigglesworth's new book, Take MeWith You! A Self-Drive Guide to Whanganui's Engineering Heritage.
Wrigglesworth is both a mechanical engineer and a technical writer and storyteller. She works in Whanganui for WSP Global, formerly Opus International and the Ministry of Works.
She wrote columns about Whanganui's engineering heritage for the Chronicle in 2008-9.
The book includes items in the surrounding area, with profiles on the Pātea and Waitahinga dams, the Ōhakea air force base hangars, the Raurimu railway spiral and the wind turbines at Te Āpiti.
"Most things in the book, there's something still there that you can go and visit," she said.
A set of vault lights remains, in pavement outside a Guyton St building. Photo / Bevan Conley
One favourite are the vault lights that used to run up and down Victoria Ave, and still exist in Guyton St. Their prism-shaped glass concentrated light in basements below street level.
"I like them a lot because they're really simple, really cool, effective technology. All they are is bits of glass. The technology is really in the shaping of them."
Another is the former casein factory in Whangaehu, and she would love to know exactly where it was. It opened in 1911 and ran until about the 1930s, turning milk protein into a kind of plastic used for knife handles, piano keys and billiard balls.
With all the angst about our modern plastics made from petrochemicals, plastic from casein could be made again.
"It's not just a little story. It's the future - potentially."
Wrigglesworth's book got its final form during her 10-week Robert Lord Cottage Writers' Residency in Dunedin in 2019-20. The cover was designed by her 15-year-old daughter Freyja, and she took most of the photographs herself.
Take Me With You! A Self-Drive Guide to Whanganui's Engineering Heritage will be launched at 5.30 on August 27, in the Treadwell Gordon law offices in the top storey of the Wanganui Computer Centre - one of the items profiled. The launch is open to the public, and the book will be for sale for $45.
The book has been self-published with H&A Print and help from Hinemoa Ransom-Boyd. It will be available from Paige's Book Gallery and from her website: www.karenwrigglesworthwriter.com.
