Old Supreme Court

Press, 9 May 1981, Page 16

Old Supreme Court

Pencil drawing by OWEN LEE

Text by

DERRICK ROONEY

This stone carving, once part of the now-demolished Christchurch Supreme Court building, typifies the love of ornamentation evident in the surviving early buildings of the city. Executed in a bold manner, it depicts the Canterbury arms in a simple circular frame which is thrown into bold relief by flanking, intricately executed, decorative motifs. The carving was in the archway above the old public doorway of the courthouse, facing north into Chester Street, and generations of court visitors and witnesses passed beneath the forbidding gaze of its surmounting angel. It was one of two coats of arms which decorated the building; the second, Queen Victoria’s arms, was above the doorway facing the Avon River. Both were among the items saved when the building was demolished, and are now stored in crates in the Ministry of Works and Development yard in Blenheim Road. They will re-emerge into public view when the new court complex, now in planning, is built, because they will be put in the new building, probably as interior murals. The carving of the Canterbury arms has considerable historic interest. It is made of high-quality Oamaru stone, and unlike many examples of stonework in this material in Christchurch, it has weathered very well, partly because of the protection afforded by its sheltered aspect and deep setting in the doorway, and partly, perhaps, because the carver cut well into the stone, removing the salt-saturated outer layer which might have caused it to corrode (a major reason why Oamaru stone has weathered badly in early Christchurch buildings is that it was shipped up the coast in scows, and arrived in Christchurch soaked in corrosive salt spray). . The carving is not in a single block, but in several pieces of stone. The practice at the time was for the builder to set the stone in place, taking great care in the jointing, and to leave it “boasted”, for the carver, who would work in situ. Sometimes the carvers made errors or struck unsuitable stone, and patching was necessary: there is some evidence of this in the Supreme Court carving.

Several heraldic symbols are used in the arms because of their significance to Canterbury. An angel flanks and surmounts the shield. The cross in the upper middle of the shield symbolises the connection of the young province with the Church of England, as do the Y-shaped motifs on either side of the cross; these represent bishop’s yokes. The sheep and ploughs represent the agricultural basis of the early wealth of the province. Originally, and for very many years, the doorway which the carving adorned served as the public entrance to the Supreme Court. It was closed off in 1959, when an additional courtroom was made upstairs, and the entranceway was converted to a waiting room. The doorway was filled in with a timber screen. The carving is attributed to William Brassington, the stonemason who did all the carvings on the nearby Provincial Buildings, and on several other historic Christchurch buildings. The Nottinghamshire-born Brassington emigrated to New Zealand in the Brother's Pride in 1863, and set up a stonemason’s yard at the Barbadoes Street cemetery. His carvings include the pulpit of St John’s Church, Latimer Square (made of Weka Pass stone): the pedestal of the Godley statue in the Square: and a pair of coats of arms, smaller than those from the Supreme Court but of similar design, which were uncovered recently during restoration work at the Timeball Station, Lyttelton. He did not just carve stone, but worked with it on a larger scale, too. He built the old back part of the Canterbury Museum (but did not do the carvings decorating the Rolleston Avenue entrance; these were executed by his son, Claudius). He built the Timeball Station for £1585 and, commissioned by J. B. Acland, the church at Mt Peel, for which he used boulders, taken from the Rangitata riverbed and shaped, and limestone from Mt Somers. Brassington depicted himself, with mallet and chisel, in one of the corbels in the Provincial Buildings. He died in 1905.