Wooden Houses Surprise Scot

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31737, 22 July 1968, Page 1

Wooden Houses Surprise Scot

Graeme Repper, the twenty - fifth Otaki scholar to visit New Zealand, said yesterday that he was surprised at the number of wooden houses, and single - storey houses here. He could not recall seeing a wooden house in Aberdeen. Graeme, who arrived in Wellington on Wednesday on a six-week visit to New Zealand as the 1968 Otaki scholar from Robert Gordon’s College, Aberdeen, will travel

throughout the North Island and the South Island as the guest of the New Zealand Shipping Company and the Government His Christchurch visit is based on St Andrew’s College where he will attend a reception today, rrieet the staff and have lunch with the boarders. This morning he will visit the New Zealand Shipping Company and call .on the Mayor (Sir George Manning). He. will leave for Queenstown tomdrrow and will return to Christchurch on August 2. Graeme said the “auld hoose," the oldest building of Robert Gordon's College, was built in 1732 and was still in

full use, mainly as an administrative block. The rest of the old buildings were built in 1822. A four-storey block on stilts was built in 1964, and another stilt block was under construction. Stilts preserved ground level playing areas in compliance with regulations for a certain number of

square yards of ground space a pupil. He said that every building in Aberdeen had to be of granite or ganite faced to preserve the beauty of the city. Although grey and rough in texture, the crystaline composition glittered in the sunlight

His own home in Aberdeen, built of granite in 1899, was comparatively new. Most buildings were given a clean every 60 or 70 years to restore the glitter. Graeme was this year’s school captain at Robert Gordon’s College, and secured his Scottish certificate of education with passes in English, mathematics, Latin, geography and science. The study of New Zealand occupied nearly two terms of one yean and he successfully applied his knowledge of the country in the university entrance examination. He intends to study geography at Aberdeen University on his return.