Queens Park Ramble (Wanganui)
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This multicache takes one on a walk around QueensPark where the Rutland Stockade once stood.. You will need to answer the questions from locations to work out the final co-ordinates
It is an easy walk mainly on paths and roads around the park. Some steps involved.The cache is hidden at the final coordinates and can be accessed from the perimeter of Queens Park.
You will visit some of the historic buildings which have been built here and get to know about the early history of Wanganui once the 5th City of the Dominion.
THE RUTLAND STOCKADE
The Boulder in Queen’s Park on the upper lookout car park acknowledges the Rutland Stockade that once stood on the site. Towards the end of 1846 tensions between Maori and European settlers in Wanganui led Governor Grey to decide to establish a military post here. A force of five officers and 180 men, mostly from the 58th Regiment (the Rutlandshire Regiment), as well as men from the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers were dispatched and arrived here on the 13th of December 1846. They proceeded, according to Grey’s instructions, to build a stockade with a blockhouse on the high ground overlooking the Whanganui River. This hill was known to Maori as Pukenamu and had once been a heavily fortified pa.By April 1847 the stockade was completed and the 58th Regiment moved in to garrison it. Other British Regiments that were stationed at the stockade included the 65th, 57th and the 18th Royal Irish. None of the soldiers lived in the Stockade itself. The Officer’s Quarters were on the flat area beside where the Davis Library is today, while the men were billeted in town. The stockade was 60 yards by 62 and enclosed two blockhouses, one at each end. It is believed that this was the largest stockade ever to be built in New Zealand and the cost was around 500 pounds. Rifle slits for the soldiers to fire through were included in the construction and because of this Maori gave the stockade the name “Te Whare Waakataata” (the peephouse).In later years the Rutland Stockade was used as a prison until the stockade structure started to deteriorate, and in 1887 the council sold what remained of the structure to P Pinyon, a carpenter of Wanganui, who took two days to demolish it.
ALEXANDER HERITAGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARY
The Alexander Heritage and Research Library focuses on family and local history resources for New Zealand, with the primary focus being Wanganui and the Whanganui geographic region. Sixteen years in the planning, Wanganui’s long-awaited second Library was opened on 28 June 1933, funded in most part by the generous gift of Miss E Alexander in memory of her late father Mr James Alexander.The Alexander’s Art Deco style reflects the trends of the times and was acclaimed as ‘a building worthy of the fifth City of the Dominion’. Designed by Wanganui architects Clifford Newton Hood and John Duffell, built by Walpole and Patterson, the library was described at the time as being “light and airy… (and) modelled on earthquake resisting lines’..After 50 years service to its community, the Alexander was considered too small for Wanganui’s needs, and a new lending library was built adjacent, on the site of Queen’s Park School.The Alexander’s new role, fittingly, is to showcase the Library’s extensive Heritage collections (of increasing national significance), and to provide heritage information and research services.
TYLEE HOUSE Tylee House went through a dangerous phase when, quietly crumbling in commercial ownership, it was used as a tyre storage depot. Fortunately it was rescued and restored and moved in 1984 from its place of origin in Wilson Street to the corner of Bell Street and Cameron Terrace where it sits now, so scrubbed up that it almost looks like a replica.It was built during the New Zealand Wars, in 1854, by John Tylee who had been appointed to take charge of the commissariat responsible for the supply of food and other necessities to the 65th regiment, which, with the 58th, comprised the town’s British garrison. The 65th were stationed in York Hill stockade which had previously been the fortified Patupuhou Pa. Armies needed to be self-supporting to a large degree and Tylee encouraged the cook of the 65th to grow vegetables near the stockade on a spot which has since become famous as Cooks Gardens. (There’s an irony here; Tylee is remembered but the cook’s name is not. Indeed Captain Cook is the name likely, mistakenly, to be associated with the modern sports stadium).
PEACE SCULPTURE Peace sculpture Handprints of some 6000 people – from newborns to elderly – form the ceramic work Handspan, which now stands as a homage to peace within the area where the Rutland Stockade and Pukenamu Pa once stood.This Peace Sculpture was dedicated to “the promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence for the children of the world” by the Governor General Dame Silvia Cartwright, on Saturday 21 September 2002.
THE CENOTAPH The Cenotaph is a memorial to the men and women of Wanganui who died in the First World War (1914 – 1918). The Dawn Parade service is held here each year on the 25th of April. While the idea of the Dawn Parade originated in Australia, Wanganui was the first city in New Zealand to adopt this service in 1936. The cross on each of the four faces represents the sacrifice made by the fallen, while the lamp is a symbol of eternal life.Shell cases were placed beneath the monument containing messages from the then Governor General, the Prime Minister, the Mayor of Wanganui, and the Wanganui RSA. Other items such as copies of Wanganui newspapers, a set of stamps, coins of the realm and the originals of children’s prize essays from a writing competition about the monument were also included.
SARGEANT GALLERY
When Henry Sarjeant died in 1912 he bequeathed the residue of his estate to the Borough Council with the expressed wish that they establish and maintain a fine arts gallery for Wanganui.In 1916 an architectural competition, judged by Samuel Hurst Seagar, was held to design a suitable gallery to be part of a proposed Civic Centre on Queen’s Park. The winner was Donald Hosie, a pupil of Edmund Anscombe of Dunedin. Anscombe presented the plans for Hosie, who was serving in the armed forces in France. Tragically Hosie was killed at the battle of Passchendaele in 1917.The design is in the form of a Greek cross with a central sculpture hall under a dome. It is constructed from brick faced with Oamaru stone, with windows and walls designed to reduce the amount of direct and reflected light, which could interfere with the viewing of the art works.The foundation stone was laid on 20 September 1917 with P Graham and Son engaged as the builders. The gallery opened on 6th September 1919.Over the years the Gallery has been re-roofed twice and had air conditioning installed. It is the home of many valuable works and has housed many prestigious exhibitions, both national and international. Its superb acoustics and visual beauty make it a striking venue for musical performances, weddings and private functions.Positioned as it is at the top of the Veterans’ Steps, with its white dome and stately lines, it is an icon of Wanganui.
QUEENS PARK SCHOOL MEMORIAL GATES Enterprising Queen’s Park School pupils held a Queen Carnival in August of 1926 to help raise funds for these Memorial Gates, in honour of past pupils who gave their lives in the First World War (1914 – 1918).The gates were unveiled in 1926 and were retained when the Queen’s Park School was demolished in 1977. Innovative design of the new library building situated on the Queen’s Park School site in 1980, ensured the gates could remain where they are.Surplus funds from the Queen’s Park School Centenary in 1979 were donated to give the gates an initial preservation facelift and so help keep this final reminder of one of Wanganui’s illustrious primary schools, as well as being a timely reminder of the cost of war.
THE BELLS which you may hear on your walk around Queens Park. The Wanganui Carillion is comprised of eighteen various sized bells and can be played manually on the two octave keyboard housed in the plinth under the bell tower or controlled by an electronic pulse. It plays at least once each hour and has a range of pre-set tunes contained on a 300 millimetre wide plastic tape, programmed with a series of little holes. When the tape moves, each hole activates a trigger, which in turn sets off a bell. It is a Dutch custom to give a bell to commemorate an auspicious occasion, and it is for this reason that the Carillion was officially presented to the City of Wanganui on the 21st of May 1981. It was given to mark the opening of Farm Equipment Company’s new factory – the first owned by the Dutch company P J Zweggers en Zonen outside Europe.
The bells, cast in Holland by Petit and Fritzen, were considered an appropriate gift to mark the bond between the Netherlands and Wanganui. Petit and Fritzen were founded in 1660 and has cast many of the famous bells around the world over the last three and a half centuries. The bell tower is 5.7 metres high and sits atop a 2-metre plinth and was installed by Emmett Brothers.
The cache is hidden at the final coordinates and can be accessed from the perimeter of Queens Park. It is a small cache in with no room for swaps and coins. Please bring your own pencil to write in the log book and hide the cache securely when placing it back.
Check sum for south D+D+A+C+B=26
East E+F+C+D+B=16
FINAL CO ORDINATES
S39 dd.acb
E 175 ef.cdb
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
N gerr bapr fgbbq urer