Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 4, Issue 8 (December 1, 1929)

Carved in Stone

Carved in Stone.

Talking of golliwog-carvings reminds one that we have very few examples in New Zealand of the stone-carving art of a past generation. There were some whiskered masks in wood that adorned an old Wellington hotel, but they have vanished with the demolition of the place. The only existing examples of gargoyles and corbels or whatever they are called that come to mind at the moment are those on the old post office front in Shortland Street, Auckland, and the heads on the Supreme Court building in the same city. These were the work of an artist of the ‘Sixties of last century. The Court, quite unlike any other courthouse in the Dominion, is copied from an old Tudor castle in Warwickshire, and indeed it has quite an antique atmosphere about it. The mossy old corbels that adorn the outside of the Court are quite good portraits of long-gone worthies of Auckland, with here and there a Maori—the old Chief Paul Tuhaere, with his tattoo and his side-whiskers, is one of them. There is a judge or two, and there is a Governor. The stone-carver was a cunning artist in wood, too; he carved with beautiful finish some of the inside furnishings—the ends of the jury seats, the panels at the back of the judge's seat. I hope the modern touch of “improvement” won't touch that picture-like old Court on Constitution Hill.