The end nears for United Service Hotel

Press, 22 July 1989, Page 25

The end nears for United Service Hotel

The United Service Hotel has seen many changes since it was built in 1884. Once one of Christchurch’s grand hotels, it has now reached the end of its life and faces the demolition hammer.

Richard Morten, who arrived in Christchurch with considerable capital in 1860, bought the hotel site for $7500 in 1865. The price was considered inflated at the time. In 1877 a public meeting was called to consider buying the site for offices for the Christchurch City Council, and to widen the entrance to the Square. The proposal was turned down.

Morten later declined an offer of $40,000 for the site before starting work on the four-storey Morten Building in 1884. The architect was Thomas Lambert, who had studied in Edinburgh. He won a competition for the design of the building, a mixture of Victorian styles, themselves interpretations -of classic ItalianateRomanesque styles of previous centuries. It is likely Lambert’s ideas came from similar buildings in Edinburgh. The timber-floored building is divided into bays, into which have been inserted colonnaded windows. It is a finely built building with precise and beautiful stone facings produced by a team of stonemasons working local stone.

Designed as a commercial building, it became a hotel in 1906 as an extension of the Hereford Hotel. The design of the building forced plumbing and fire escapes to be fitted externally, changing its internal and external appearance. In its heyday the United Service Hotel, with The Clarendon and Warners Hotel, was a high society hotel, welcoming visiting politicians, entertainers, and Royalty. The building will be replaced by a singlelevel shopping mall.

Photographs by

JOHN COSGROVE