CITY AUCTION

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 70, 23 March 1945, Page 6

CITY AUCTION

PROPERTIES SOLD

OLD FORT ST. BUILDING Two city freehold properties assowith the early history of Auckland were offered for auction to-day by C. F. Bennett, Ltd. They are the Roberton Buildings, Limited, properties, situated in Fort Street, and a vacant section in Shortland Street. The two properties embrace over 20,000 square feet of land. The Roberton Buildingss are at Nos. 53 and 55, Fort Street, and are built of brick and concrete, comprising four storeys and s basement. The vacant section is next to IYA radio station and measures 105 ft 3in on the Shortland Street frontage, 232 ft llin on the east side and 110 ft 9in on the west, together with certain rights of way. Both properties were sold to Mr. F. W. L. Milne, on behalf of a company, for £35,500. About 40 people were present. Bidding began at £34,000 for the two properties, which were offered together, and went up in £250 rises. The history of the Roberton buildings is linked with Auckland's earliest days; the Roberton family has been associated, directly or indirectly, with the locality since 1840. In those days, Fort Street was known as Fore Street, because of its situation on what Avas then the foreshore of the settlement, extending along Commercial Bay, now Commerce Street, from the Queen Street area to Point Britomart. The properties which were described then, as now, as Part Allotments 9, 10, and 11, were the site of the first spring well, which gave a water supply to the people of the settlement. It is also recorded that this water supply was later augmented by a supply taken from lakelets created in the Auckland Domain from the original swamps, and carried by punga fern pipes down the slopes of the Domain to the foreshore area of the Waitemata. In the transactions of these foreshore lands, allotment 11 (one rood, 34 perches), was sold on September 17, 1840, to Willoughby Shortland, after whom Shortland Street was named, for £339 14/lh. The city rates on a similar area in that locality to-day are just on £365 per annum. On April 19, 1841, allotment 9 (one rood 16 perches) was bought by James O'Brien Oroker for £240 16/, and on May 5, 1846, allotment 10 (one rood 25 perches) was bought by William Smellie Grahame for £32115/

The properties were then, and subsequently, held under Crown grant.