News & Events

Christchurch ‘Heritage Lost’
The debates about Christchurch’s heritage continue in the Listener.

‘What Does Unesco Recognition Mean, Exactly?’
This New York Times article discusses the pros and cons of Unesco world heritage status.

Archaeologist studies Sounds cottage
Archaeological deposits at an 1840s cob cottage in Marlborough provide a picture of the day to day life of early European settlers.

New Walk Auckland App

An app has been launched that is packed full of interesting information about the heritage and history of Auckland, including walks specifically about its engineering heritage. The walking tours are available through iTunes.

Learn more about the Walk Auckland App

Waitakere Ranges Water Supply System: new to the IPENZ Engineering Heritage Register

At its October meeting the IPENZ Engineering Heritage Board (EHB) confirmed the registration of the Waitakere Ranges Water Supply System, Auckland.

The EHB recognises that this series of dams, and other structures, has outstanding engineering heritage importance because:

• The establishment and growth of this system was essential to the development of New Zealand's largest city during the twentieth century and it remains a key contributor to Auckland's water supply.
• This group of dams demonstrates the changing face of dam building in New Zealand during the twentieth century. The Waitakere Dam (1910) and Lower Nihotupu Dam (1948) were particularly innovative structures.
• This system is also associated with many leading twentieth century New Zealand engineers.

Waitakere Ranges Water Supply System IPENZ registration report

Engineering heritage related places recently added to the New Zealand Historic Places Trust Register

Category I historic places

• Hangar No.2 and Hangar No.3, RNZAF Base Ohakea. These two reinforced concrete hangars were designed in the lead-up to World War Two and rapidly completed in response to its outbreak.
• IPENZ Record for Ohakea Hangars 2 & 3

Category II historic places

• Fleming and Company Flourmill (Former), Invercargill. This place is important to the industrial heritage of New Zealand as the former base of operations for an iconic foodstuffs brand.

Book Review

Switching On the King Country: A Century of Community Achievement by Helen Reilly

ISBN 978-1-877448-99-7
Published by Steele Roberts
Reviewed by Willie Mandeno FIPENZ

This history was commissioned by the King Country Electric Power Trust and launched at a dinner celebrating the 70th anniversary of the King Country Electric Power Board’s first meeting.

With over 200 pages of extensively illustrated and referenced easy to read text, this book documents the history of electricity supply in the King Country by the various local power boards. It also records various engineering and political challenges were overcome to reticulate isolated rural properties in one of New Zealand’s most sparsely populated regions. 

This is Helen Reilly’s third energy history book. Other titles by Helen Reilly are Gas, Power & People: Energy Supply in Hutt Mana 1880–2005 and Connecting the Country: New Zealand’s National Grid 1886–2008.

Copies of Switching On the King Country: A Century of Community Achievement are available from the Wellington-based publisher Steele Roberts for $39.95. It is also available as a 10 hour audio book (read by John Callen) on eight compact disks from the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind.