Shopping Arcade Plan

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30561, 2 October 1964, Page 1

Shopping Arcade Plan

The White Hart Hotel, probably Christchurch’s first licensed hotel, will go out of business at the end of this month. The three-storey building will then be used for a modern shopping centre, with shops in a ground-floor arcade and in a basement, and offices and professional rooms on the upper floors.

A private company, T.S.H. Holdings, Ltd., has owned the building since 1960, but its plans for what was to have been the city's first modern shopping arcade had to be postponed until the hotel lease expired. The licence, which was applied for 113 years ago, will be transferred to another site. The first new development will be the construction of 10 shops with frontages to High street and an inner arcade which will be 18ft wide. There will also be a large coffee shop and tearoom with a mezzanine floor overlooking the main arcade. There will be two entrances to the arcade from High street, and plans are being made in co-operation with the adjoining owners for pedestrian access for shoppers to and from the arcade into Wardells-Kincaids. Ltd., in Cashel street, and Chas. Begg and Company. Ltd., in High street.

Seven shops are being built in the basement, with direct stair access to High street and a stairway to the arcade. Each of the upper floors has about 5000 sq. ft. of space that can be let, and these will be converted into office suites to be served by a new electric passenger elevator from the arcade. A roof penthouse will be converted Io caretaker’s quarters. Shop space has already been reserved for selected tenants for most of the ground floor, and retailers will include silks and fabrics, a home bakery, a women's fashion shop, a dress salon, a home decorating business and a tobacconist and men’s hairdresser. Applicants for the remaining shops and office suites are now being received by the owners for early occupation. It is expected that some of the shops will be occupied by Christmas, and others early in 1965. All the shops and offices will have vehicular and pedestrian access to Lichfield street for deliveries. A new, modern veranda will be built in High street, where the existing shop frontage will be modernised. The architects for the project are Messrs W.H. Trengrove, Trengrove and Marshall. The consulting engineer is Mr I. L. Holmes and the quantity surveyors, Messrs F. Tomlinson. Dickson and Partners. The White Hart Hotel applied for a licence in March. 1851, and although the date the licence was granted is

not known, it was probably within a week of the application. Mr Michael Brennan Hart, the owner, used a tent first, and within eight months of the arrival of the First Four Ships he was advertising the opening of the White Hart Inn and Auction Mart. At that time it was still possible to have a drink in the inn and then go to nearby Lichfield street and shoot wild game in the raupo swamp. Mr Hart bought the present site of Bonnington’s, on the corner of High and Cashel streets, for £l4. When the trustees of his estate sold it, it brought £14,000. The inn became a resort for the well-to-do drinkers, and it bad a civic importance as *he beadquarters for inquests. For many years the veranda of the hotel served as the corn exchange. Farmers used to take their grain samples there on Saturday mornings, and on Saturday evenings there was always a traditional market dinner. The original building was replaced in 1866, and 11 years later it was refitted and refurnished at what was said to be great expense. The iron bedsteads with the White Hart scroll at their heads were specially Imported. In 1880 a stone and brick building was erected, and in 1908 the present building was put up to replace the one destroyed by fire.

The White Hart’s place in the city’s history will be retained by the name of the new arcade. It is being called the White Hart arcade.