Helen Craig and Richard Bourne with the Blue Plaque that will be awarded to Whanganui Collegiate School on October 17. Photo / Supplied
Helen Craig and Richard Bourne with the Blue Plaque that will be awarded to Whanganui Collegiate School on October 17. Photo / Supplied
Two signs will be unveiled in Whanganui to signify the historical significance of six heritage buildings.
Whanganui Collegiate School and five sequential buildings on Drews Avenue will have Blue Plaques unveiled next Monday.
A Blue Plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, building or former building on the site.
First started in London, the initiative was picked up in Canterbury in 2017 and has since seen 23 historic places in New Zealand receive a Blue Plaque.
Blue Plaques were brought to Whanganui by the Whanganui Regional Heritage Trust, with the only other plaque in the region going to the former BNZ building in Raetahi in July 2021.
Historic Places Aotearoa executive board member and Whanganui Regional Heritage Trust chair Helen Craig said there were many benefits to the round blue plaque.
"They help people recognise historic places in a really visual way," Craig said.
"We're hoping it will help people fall in love with Whanganui's heritage buildings even more and encourage owners to invest in their heritage buildings."
Whanganui Regional Heritage Trust received $2000 from Four Regions Trust and $5000 from a trust that chose not to be named to go towards future Blue Plaques in Whanganui.
Craig said Blue Plaques cost $2000 each, and both building owners of the two new plaques paid for the plaques themselves.
She said there were eight more planned for Whanganui sites this year.
"It's not exactly a trail, but we're hoping it will become something like that."
The corner of Ridgway Street and Drews Avenue around 1930. Photo / Supplied
She said the plaques were made in Dunedin.
"It's a very specialist process, it takes one man a week to make four plaques."
Craig said Morrie Gibbons Signs in Whanganui would install the plaques.
The first plaque is for five buildings in a row on Drews Avenue from the corner of Ridgway Street and Drews Avenue to the corner of Rutland St and Drews Avenue.
The buildings were built between 1877 and 1921, Ridgway Chambers, being the oldest commercial building in Whanganui's centre.
James Lockhart Stevenson, a grocer and community leader, built the Ridgway Chambers as a grocery store in 1877 and since 1912 has had a range of business tenants occupy it.
The former Cosmopolitan Club, 30 Drews Avenue, was built in 1900 and designed by local architect, William Pinches.
It served as the headquarters of the Cosmopolitan Club until 1979.
The Drews Avenue Precinct owner Hadleigh Reid said he first purchased the old Cosmopolitan building in 2010 to move his dental practice into.
When the other buildings came up for auction he was the only bidder.
"The Cosmopolitan Building was in a bad state," Reid said.
"I remember when I bought it there was a big creeper on the outside that completely covered the windows, so you had to use a torch to go up the stairs."
He said the roof was leaking into buckets onto the stairs and the carpet was mouldy.
"In some of the rooms upstairs, the creeper had come through broken windows and was growing inside.
"There were even mushrooms growing inside. It was revolting."
But he said at $250,000, it was a good price and cool to think of having his dental practice in there.
"Restoring these buildings has been fun and very challenging but as we have slowly progressed, I have been amazed at the transformation and overwhelmed by the public's appreciation of them.
Hadleigh Reid in front of the Stevenson Building, Whanganui's oldest commercial building. Photo / Supplied
"When I'm in different cities I've always enjoyed walking around and learning about different buildings and histories.
"Knowing the history just makes places so much more interesting and we have many heritage buildings around Whanganui, so I thought it would be cool to have that with the Blue Plaques."
The second plaque is for Whanganui Collegiate School, the oldest business in Whanganui.
Whanganui Collegiate School museum director Richard Bourne said the school first opened in 1854 on Victoria Avenue opposite the end of Plymouth Street before moving to where it is now on Liverpool Street in 1911.
Bourne said all but one of the buildings from 1911 on the school's campus had been preserved.
"When you're working and learning in a building that's over 100 years old it gives you a real sense of belonging to something special."
He said the key to Collegiate's history was when the decision was made to restore the school instead of demolishing and rebuilding it.
"By the 1980s Whanganui had already replaced many of its big brick buildings with modern buildings," Bourne said.
"But when the costings were done by the school's board to demolish and rebuild the school it came to around the same price as strengthening and preserving the building.
"So the board decided to earthquake-strengthen it and enlarge the chapel."
He said the plaque would be mounted on the foundation stone which was laid in 1909 outside the Big School building.
Both of the Blue Plaques will have unveiling events on Monday - 11am at Drews Avenue and 2.25pm at Whanganui Collegiate School.
Craig said the public was welcome to attend the unveiling of the Drews Avenue Precinct Plaque and Collegiate's was a school event, so not open to the public.
