HOUSE BUILT IN 1841

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25994, 23 December 1949, Page 9

HOUSE BUILT IN 1841

WALLS BEING TORN DOWN "The Press" Special Service WELLINGTON, December 21. After 108 years the walls of Dalmuir, perhaps the oldest house in Wellington—it was built in 1841—are being torn down. Since 1841 it has stood on a height in The Terrace that once commanded a beautiful view of the fields of Te Aro Flat, with the harbour beyond. Now a block of Government flats looks down on the wreckage of a house which was the birthplace in 1852 of Sir Douglas McLean. It was damaged in the 1848 earthquake, the brick and clay foundation suffering and being repaired with wood. The demolition is proceeding casually. It was inhabited up to comparatively recently, but had reached the stage where it was beyond repair. As the weatherboarding has been torn off the walls, decayed studs and beams have been disclosed. There was plenty of pioneer ingenuity put into the building of Dalmuir As the corrugated iron has been ripped off the roofs, the supporting beams have been disclosed. But, instead of dressed timber, they consist of the original branches or trunks of small trees, roughly shaped and nailed into place. Rough as they were, those beams have withstood more than a century of decay.