Unravelling the origins of Karewa, or Mona Vale

Press, 20 July 1984, Page 14

Unravelling the origins of Karewa, or Mona Vale

Mrs June Coates, of Bath, England recently wrote to “The Press” asking that a publicity brochure about Mona Vale, “Heritage of a By-gone Age,” be corrected. As a grand-daughter of Frederick and Alice Waymouth, she asked that they be given the credit for building Mona Vale, a home they called Karewa.

Mrs Coates observed that “the leaflet is not meant to be history, but what is written down has a way of becoming ‘fact’ and gets repeated uncritically for ever after.” Having sat at Canterbury College under Dr Highet, “who taught us the duty of recording truth as far as we could ascertain it” she felt this was important, when there was evidently ,? a great interest in local history which gave people an opportunity to understand their origins dispassionately and without sentimentality — and before too much became myth.” Their grand-daughter suggests, modestly, that the Waymouths were no more remarkable than many other families who contributed to the municipal, commercial, and cultural life of Christchurch from the 1880 s onwards.

W. J. A. BRITTENDEN

Yet Frederick Waymouth was not only a very successful secretary and, later, managing director of the Canterbury Frozen Meat Company, but he was Mayor of St Albans, chairman of the Lyttelton Harbour Board, president of the Christchurch Chamber of Commerce, a notable supporter of Captain Scott’s first Antarctic expedition in 1903, and a secretary to the 1906-07 International Exhibition.

On July 22, 1897, lot 124 of rural section 163 (an area of 4 acres 1 rood in block xi of the Christchurch survey district) was sold by John Deans to Mrs Waymouth. Eight years later, on August 30, 1905, this property was sold to Mrs Annie Quayle Townend, for £6OOO. This figure suggests much more than a mere four acres of land, even of the highly regarded Riccarton estate. A fascinating collection of copies of photographs culled from the Waymouth albums was sent to the writer by Mrs Coates. They confirm that the Waymouths were the original owners of what was

later called Mona Vale. Questions still to be answered concern the identities of the architect and contractor responsible for the building of the homestead or the mansion, as it is variously called. For fear of creating another myth, one hesitates to suggest that the England brothers, R. W. and E. M. England — architect and builder, respectively — were responsible. Although no success has greeted researchers so far, a careful search of the newspapers will, no doubt, eventually produce an answer. In the meantime, information from those readers with family, or other connections, with men who actually worked on the project, would be greatly appreciated and could well put researchers on to the right track. Another puzzle is the origin of the house just inside the property at the end of Irvine Street. Was this the house built, as supposed, by a Mr Clarke, from the West Coast, about 1898? Mrs Townend, clearly, did not build Mona Vale, but she made

some significant additions, notably the lodge of Fendalton Road and the “bath-house” and other bits and pieces from the 1906-07 International Exhibition. Mrs Townend did not buy the original four acres surrounding the house, but she added another nine. Although she extended the landscaping and added to the variety of trees and plants, it was the enthusiastic amateur botanist and plant collector, Alice Waymouth whose well annotated copy of Cheeseman is still held by her ' family, who personally made the original gardens and planned the landscaping. Strangely enough, although her name is firmly associated with the property, Mrs Townend appears not to have regarded Mona Vale as “home.” Her death certificate records her usual place of residence as Cashmere Hills and it is there that she died, on May 16, 1914. In her letter to “The Press,” Mrs Coates expressed her delight that her grandparents’ house and garden continued to be well maintained by their successors and that the Christchurch and Riccarton councils are together now so imaginatively preserving and restoring them.