BUILDING TRADE IN TIMARU.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2738, 30 December 1881, Page 2

BUILDING TRADE IN TIMARU.

The building trade was surely never so actively employed in Timaru as it is at the present time. In all directions an active consumption of bricks and mortar is going on. The handsome offices for the N.Z.L. and M.A. Company adjoining Jonas’ buildings, are making good progress, and so are the new buildings for the National Bank, next to the N.M. and A. Co.’s office. Further south the section whereon Mrs Hope’s shop was , burned down a short time ago has been prepared for a range of new shops, and the cement foundations are already laid. On William street, facing Market Place, a good-sized brick building is going up, and cottages have lately sprung up like mushrooms, unobserved till they are up, in all parts of the town. The new Waitangi mills, however, eclipse all the rest. The original building, destroyed by fire on the 21st May last, was probably the finest of its class in Canterbury. The new building iwilljbave few if any equals in the colony. Already five storeys are completed, and now a sixth is being proceeded with, and when this is finished and the parapet added, “ Brace's chimney,” hitherto a standard of comparison for indefinitely great heights, will be dwarfed by the big mill to comparative insignificance. The consumption of bricks in the erection of this building is something to wonder at, a donkey engine is kept busy all day winding up barrow loads to the workmen above. On the beach level at the next street northwards, a commencement has been made with the erection of large stores for the Farmers’ Co-operative Association, and a portion of the foundations arc down. To-day a commencement was made to excavate the unsightly clay bank between Wildie, Allan, and Stumbles’ Horse Repository and the main road, to make room for a range of sightly shops. This rapid progress in building shows that Timaru is going ahead in an unmistakeable manner.