Memories of old Cromwell will be preserved

Press, 9 January 1987, Page 13

Memories of old Cromwell will be preserved

Story by STAN DARLING Pictures by DAVID ALEXANDER

... in a small way

Muriel Craig, a member of the society that is trying to take apart old Cromwell business district buildings and reassemble them on higher ground — out of the reach of the future Lake Dunstan — used to live across the street from the Old Cromwell site.

She grew up in a cottage that is no longer there, and her greatgrandparents built the Victoria Arms Hotel in Melmore Terrace, just a building along from the preservation site. Mrs Craig says that an early Mayor of Cromwell used to live in a house just in front of a building already on the site. He made his wine in the cottage/ storehouse, which will be restored by the Old Cromwell Society.

Behind the storehouse is stockpiled stone for a rebuilt Cobb and Co. stables.

Horse and gig rides for tourists might be provided along the new lakeshore, which will be across the street from the preserved buildings, and to other parts of Cromwell.

Grain store the flagship

Reconstruction of a Chinatown building, one of those in the Chinese miners’ village that existed below Cromwell’s former business district on the Kawarau River, may also be done at the edge of Old Cromwell. Some buildings that are now in the way of the new Cromwell gold-mining venture have remained untouched until the parts that are wanted can be carted away.

Martin Bonny, the Old Cromwell Society president, says that reinforced concrete skeletons have to be built on the preservation site so that the shifted buildings can be rebuilt round them.

“The buildings also have to have quite thick foundations,” says Mr Bonny. Many old Cromwell centre buildings were built without elaborate foundations, on the top of river gravels. 'The old Jolly’s Grain Store now stands on its own, ready to be moved. Mr Bonny says it will be the “flagship” of the new project. It could be used as the Old Cromwell ticket and information office. Stones from at least one building that cannot be shifted, because of its size, will be saved for use at the new site.

Behind a former butcher’s shop is a smokehouse that might be restored in Old Cromwell, and the society wants to preserve — and return to working order — an old bakehouse oven that exists in the former Road Ser-

vices building. Two buildings in Old Cromwell will be set up as a nineteenth century drapers and general store. Parts of them could be leased to such groups as craft cooperatives. A jetty on Lake Dunstan, near the preservation site, could be the starting place for jet boats and other water recreation.

The Government has now announced a conditional $132,000 grant for the Old Cromwell project. The money, from the Community and Public Sector Grants Scheme, could be used to relocate historic stone and timber buildings. Aside from helping to finance the shifting of buildings, the money would pay for plumbing and electrical work on the preservation site.

The Minister of Tourism, Mr Moore, has said that the grant

will be paid when the Old Cromwell Society has confirmed that it can arrange a project coordinator and staff required for the shift. He hopes that local efforts can provide money to shift buildings that are not covered by the grant. Old Cromwell is seen as a combined early settlers museum and "living history” theme park. Local organisers say it is a way, if only a small one, to keep the memory of their former town centre alive after its remains are drowned by a hydroelectric lake. The Government has recognised the project’s tourism potential for a town that some say will never seem the same again. But others, such as Bruce Jackson, a long-time retailer whose business is now in the Cromwell Mall, says it will be “the best place in New Zealand, no question about it.”