FIND THESE STEPS – From Lambton Quay, at 259 Lambton Quay, and on the top level look for the ‘Plimmer Steps’ sign at 86 Boulcott Street.

If Wellington’s steps had a celebrity ranking, this, surely would be the top of the list – it’s in Google Maps and Trip Advisor.

The steps are historic, and fun, with several levels and notable items along the way, too.

From the top, looking at the entryway from Boulcott Street.

 

‘The Brig Gertrude which brought John Plimmer to Wellington 1841.

Where else do you find a tree descended from one planted by one of Wellington’s better known public figures? (At the top of the stairs)

‘THIS OAK TREE, GROWN FROM THE ORIGINAL PLIMMER’S OAK, WAS PLANTED IN OCTOBER 1991 TO MARK THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARRIVAL IN WELLINGTON OF JOHN PLIMMER, THE “FATHER” OF WELLINGTON, OCTOBER 1841.’

The area surrounding the steps is filled with the ghost sites of Wellington’s history. The lower area was once Dominion Avenue, noted in The Streets of My City as the former site of the Dominion newspaper (currently the Dominion Post, aka Stuff, and possibly yet another name soon under possible new owners). Barrett’s Hotel, one of the first hotels in Wellington, was just next door. All new modern buildings around you now, but just a reminder of what was.

And John Plimmer (1812 – 1905) was a character, as they say. Among his activities, he bought a wreck of a ship and made it into a wharf, called Plimmer’s Ark, or in some circles, Noah’s Ark. Some of the remains are visible under the Old Bank Building, just down Lambton Quay. He built a hotel, the Royal Albert Hotel (on the location of the current St George Hotel, where the Beatles stayed during their tour in 1964), which had the astounding feature of carved wooden heads, likenesses of early settlers (including Wakefield and Plimmer himself), along window arches, and the hotel became known locally as the “Old Identities Hotel.” It was knocked down in 1929.

Plimmer’s home was at the top of the steps. He arrived in Wellington on the ship Gertrude, in October 1841, right after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in February 1840. The Gertrude is marked with a small tiled construction near the top of the steps.

Half way down the stairs, stands another oak tree and this one may have been planted by Plimmer himself. The nearby plaque tells the story. The tree is looking unwell now.

Just below the Plimmer tree a circular walk makes its way around a few shabby buildings, making a quirky addition to the steps.

John Plimmer is present, too, at the bottom of the stairs, just inside the corridor to the steps on Lambton Quay. He is beside his dog, Fritz, striding along with hat intact, defying Wellington winds.

(Bronze sculpture by architect Tom Tischler, sculptor Ross Wilson, Judy Alexander and Alex Kennedy, 1996)

Why ‘Father’ of Wellington? According to the Dominion Post, he started a brickworks and set up Plimmer’s Ark Wharf, served on the Provincial Council, the Chamber of Commerce, and Wellington City Council, advocated land reclamation to expand Wellington into the harbour, served on the railway company, and the New Zealand Times. Plimmerton, the beautiful little village up the Kapati coast, is named for him. So all that activity earned him the title, as well as his own efforts to make it so.

The view before the rebuild. Plimmer Steps, public air raid shelter (1960s) WCC Archives 00138-0-6064.

And just for fun, there apparently is some dispute as to the name – the sign at the top of the stairs indicate ‘Plimmer Steps’ but Ms Irvine-Smith in Streets of My City has it as ‘Plimmer’s Steps’.

Look for this at Lambton Quay.

And a little point of difference – Plimmer Steps to City Council, Plimmer’s Steps to Ms Irvine-SMith, and most historical notations.

Evening Post, 2 November, 1921, CC-NZ-by NC-SA

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19211102.2.93

 

Employment Opportunities at Plimmer’s Steps in 1911:

Dominion, 01-12-1911, PapersPast, CC-NZ-by-NC-SA

 

Plimmer’s Obituary in 1905:

New Zealand Mail, 11 January 1905, PapersPast, CC-NZ-by-NC-SA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FIND THESE STEPS – From Willis Street, turn up the hill at St John’s Presbyterian Church, 168-176 Willis;  Dixon Street meets The Terrace at 271 The Terrace, and the steps are at the far end of the street.

This is a favourite of Victoria University students, and the hearty and fit commute – 144 steps – the Dixon Street staircase trims the time for a walk to work or a quick run to Courtenay Place.

A short walk from The Terrace along the residential portion of Dixon Street, then zigzag down the stairs to where Dixon Street and Macdonald Crescent meet.

From upper Dixon Street with a view of the spire of St John’s church.

As you walk along Dixon Street on the  upper level, you will be walking over the tunnel of the Wellington Inner City Bypass.

For a bit of a rest on the way up a memorial to “a feminist and activist and former head of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs” – this bench was installed in 1988. From the Wellington City Council website for the Dixon Street Steps.

View towards Willis Street.

According to The Streets of My City, the street was originally named ‘Dickson Street’ in the original plan of Wellington in 1840, but other investigation indicates it was named for one of the members of the New Zealand Commercial Company, John Dixon.

When the sun is right, the stairs can become a sun lounge for a cat.

And a strategic hideaway in the shade.

View of the Dixon Street flats from the stairway.  The building was part of the Labour government’s state housing project in 1944, and designed by Gordon Wilson and possibly Ernst Plischke.

The flats front on Dixon Street and also at the top of the Willis Street steps.

As they were around 1970.

 

And today, from the bottom of the steps, just up Dixon Street from Willis Street.

From Paperspast (Evening Post, 11 May 1886), evidence that the Dixon Street steps have been well used for decades:

(Paperspast, National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga O Aotearoa)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s Dixon Street – from a distance it becomes rows of trees with Victoria University in the back.