FIND THESE STEPS – Between 188 and 182 Lambton Quay opposite Midland Park and at 97 The Terrace opposite The Wellington Club.
Mr Irvine-Smith records that the first school was established by George Macmorran (a ‘kindly pedagogue’) at the corner of Woodward Street and Lambton Quay in 1840 when the location was known as Kumototo Corner. The sea at that time was at the door of the brick school.
Ms Irvine-Smith describes a very different street to the present:
‘Purling by was the Kumutoto Stream, long since covered in, running down Woodward Street, where the boys at dinner-time caught eels and bullies’ (The Streets of My City at page 39).
The street was named for Jonas Woodward who arrived in 1840 on the ‘Bolton’, and he was a leader of the temperance movement. (The Astoria cafe and bar is across the street).
Now the Druids Chambers buildings is on the corner, built in 1925, for a Masonic order.(Michael Kelly, Heritage Trail, Wellington City Council, 2005)
The Spinning Top sits on the site of a turntable used by motorists in the 1970s to turn around their cars. (The Wellingtonian, 17/01/2014)
Just a glimpse in the upper right of the sign of the now-closed Beujolaise wine bar. One of the best. Gone.
At the top of the steps on The Terrace.
Another route from the top of Woodward Street, below, through the tunnel with the sound of native birds heard before all the buildings arrived.
At the top of the Woodward Street steps, the Terrace Pohutukawa – City Council required The Wellington Club to build around the tree and not destroy it.
Below, Woodward Street in February 1956, with a view of Druids’ Chambers, a Masonic order known as The United Ancient Druid’s Lodge in 1879. This building was built between 1924 – 1925.
Looking up Woodward Street from Lambton Quay, Wellington. Evening Post. (Newspaper. 1865 – 2002): Photographic negatives and prints of the Evening Post newspaper. Ref. PAColl-7796-90. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand./ records/22358559. Paperspast, National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga O Aotearoa)
Wellington Steps 