McLeans Mansion valuables moved for protection

Press, 28 January 1984, Page 7

McLeans Mansion valuables moved for protection

Art work valued at 525,000 has been removed from McLeans Mansion in Manchester Street for protection against damage and theft. The historic property has been broken into at least three times since Christmas and an antique brass lampstand valued about $lOOO stolen. It was one of a pair fitted to the newel posts at the bottom of the wide kauri staircase which dominates the entrance hall and which is considered to be one of the most impressive features of the house. A blunt hacksaw blade was used to cut the lampstand from its base and the bannister has been slightly disfigured. Vandals have gained entry by throwing bricks through the windows. They have sprayed paint on some of the walls and tried to hack the light-fittings off. The mansion has been unoccupied since December, 1982, when the St Vincent de Paul Society closed its home there and moved out. It is administered by the Health Department but is surplus to requirements and so is being transferred to the Lands and Survey Department which will lease it to the Historic Places Trust. The trust intends to act as head tenant, sub-letting the property to World Government in the Age of Enlightenment, a transcendental meditation group. The terms of the package are that World Government pay the rent, nominal, at first, and that it restore the build-

ing, provide for maintenance, and open it to the public. Mr Barry Thomas, of the Lands and Survey Department, is supervising the negotiations, which have been in progress for many months and are still several steps from completion. He said yesterday that word had got round that the mansion was unoccupied and that there was evidence to suggest that people had been sleeping there. The Health Department employed a security firm to keep watch on the property at night but if was difficult to patrol because of its “immense size.” After the second break-in, Mr Thomas had an electrician remove the lightfittings for safe-keeping and

put the paintings and statues into storage after having them valued by the Robert McDougall Art Gallery. The culprits were probably children or teenagers, he said. “If it had been a well organised crime outfit they would have taken the artwork. Anyone with half an eye could see that it was valuable.” Instead, the vandalism was “mindless.” An artist with the department had been building displays in one of the large rooms. His cans of paint had been opened and paint sprayed on the walls but his work and the antique pictures had been left untouched. The vice-president of the Canterbury regional committee of the Historic Places Trust, Mrs Connie Wood, said that she was concerned about the burglaries because of the potential fire risk. The mansion is built of timber. “Why do people have to do these kinds of things? It is their heritage as well as mine,” she said. Mrs Wood agreed that less damage had been done than might have been expected and said that it was “incredible” that the paintings had been left unscathed. She regretted the theft of the lampstand, particularly as the shades on the reamining one had been broken. “Why on earth they should take that one thing I don’t know,” she said. McLeans Mansion, probably the biggest wooden house in New Zealand, was built for Allan McLean, a retired station owner, at the turn of the century and modelled on Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire, England. It was designed by a Christchurch architect, Robert William England. Other examples of England’s work are Riccarton House and the McDougall Mansion, now the Nurse Maude Medical Hospital.