2. The Lodge, Mona Vale

Press, 28 February 1981, Page 15

2. The Lodge, Mona Vale

Drawing by OWEN R. LEE; text by DERRICK ROONEY

This elaborate piece of Edwardian craftsmanship (it could scarely be called beautiful) has been, for most of this century, a landmark on Fendalton Road, traditionally one of Christchurch’s wealthiest residential streets, and now the main route to the city's airport at Harewood.

With its ornate iron gates and fence, the Lodge marks the entrance to the tree-lined drive that follows the bank of the Wairarapa Stream to Mona Vale, one of the notable public gardens of Christchurch.

The Lodge, built about 1905, once housed the gatekeeper, or perhaps the coachman, of New Zealand’s richest woman, Annie Townend. who built Mona Vale, lavished thousands of pounds on its furnishings and its settings, and lived alone in the big house, seeing few people except her servants. Some mystery surrounds the origins of the Lodge. According to a popular account. Annie Townend wanted' a permanent reminder of one of her childhood memories, and handed the builder a picture of a house telling him to duplicate it at her gateway. But“it is not • dear whether the

house in the picture was a dwelling that had been destroyed by fire on her father’s estate. Glenmark, in the Weka Pass (a huge North Canterbury sheep run first owned by the Duke of Manchester); the original Mona Vale, a sheep station on the Macquarie River, Tasmania, where Annie’s mother grew up; or the home of an aunt on the Isle of Wight, where Annie grew up. Annie Townend's father was George Moore, a Manxman who emigrated to Australia in the 1830 s, and later came on to New Zealand, where he bought , the 58,000acre Glenmark station. By a mixture of clever business deals and skilful farming, he increased the size of his property to 150,000 acres, bought ■ additional large estates at Hinds and Rakaia, and amassed a personal fortune.

Moore and his wife had separated before he came to New Zealand, and Annie, then three, had been sent to live with her aunt. When Annie was 19 the two women came out to New Zealand. The aunt found that life on a

sheep station was not to her liking, and returned to England, but Annie stayed on, and became her father’s companion, caring for him until he died in 1905. at the age of 93. He left her a fortune estimated at one million . pounds. Wealth notwithstanding, her life was marred by tragedy. In his later years her father refused to let her have suitors because he was afraid that she would marry, and leave him. Secretly she married a physician, Dr J. H. Townend. but two years after the wedding, her husband was dead. She apparently formed no further close attachments with people, but kept a large number of pets of various kinds on the Mona Vale property, .where she lived as a recluse for her few remaining years after the . death of her father. She died in 1914, a rich but lonely woman. Her fortune, after a variety of public and private bequests had been made, went to a nephew in Britain. Subsequently. Mona Vale had a succession of owners until 1939. when it was ac-

quired by Tracey Gough. The lily pond which is a feature of the garden was built for Gough, and he made extensive alterations to the gardens, planting many of the finer trees and shrubs, including, it is thought, the fine avenue of flowering apples between the Wairarapa Stream and the railway line. Gough died in 1954, and his widow continued to live in the homestead until the early 19605. In 1962. Gough, Gough, and Hamer,’ Ltd, sold the property to the Mormon Church. By then, many parts of the garden had-fallen into disrepair. The elaborate and ugly fernery was a ruin. It had been a prime attraction at the great Christchurch Exhibition of 1906-7, where Annie Townend bought it for 5000 pounds then had it transferred. in its entirety, to Mona Vale. It has since .been restored. Her ornate conservatory, separated from the main house by a small area of lawn, and enclosing a swimming pool as well as a variety of exotic plants, was also in a bad way; it is now being repaired.

After the Mormon purchase, Mona Vale became the subject of raging public debate in Christchurch. When the church had subdivided the land required for its temple on the riverbank in Fendalton Road, it offered the rest of the . property to local bodies, as’an alternative to cutting it up for housing. None of the councils was willing, or able, to shoulder the full cost of the property, and efforts to arrange a joint purchase by all the councils — as was done for Riccaton Bush — were unsuccessful. Several councils refused to contribute. After public controversy that continued for several years, the service .dubs and the Christchurch Civic Trust promoted a public campaign that raised $55,000 towards the price. The Christchurch City Council and the Riccartbn Borough Council contributed the balance of the price, some $79,000. The gardens are now maintained by the city parks and reserves department, with some help from horticultural societies, which maintain a variety of specialised gardens-within-the-garden. The homestead is used aS a reception room and has also served as a viceregal residence.