Monday, June 11, 2012

A Chesney Shrine for Katherine?




Chesney Wold was the family name for Katherine Mansfield’s Karori home, 372 Karori Road. The house was built among 14 forest acres Sir Harold Beauchamp leased below the southern hills over to Makara. Today the house is a block of flats hemmed in by our present predilection for subdividing.

In Prelude K M describes the move from Tinakori Road into this unknown country of 1893, along new roads with high clay banks on either side, up steep steep hills, down into bushy valleys, through wide shallow rivers – a five-mile journey into the back of beyond. Her father was pleased to get it dirt cheap.
Night was magic time for K M. In Prelude it is late at night when Kezia comes up the drive in the cart, looping suddenly an island of green, coming upon the long and low house with the pillared veranda and balcony all the way round.
Later she is within as her father is driven home at night round the island of green to the welcome of open windows, a jar of wild flowers on the mantelpiece and a lamp making a big soft bubble of light on the ceiling.
In the garden are camellias, roses, clumps of fairy bells, all kinds of geraniums, little trees of verbena, bluish lavender bushes, a bed of pelargoniums with velvet eyes and leaves like moths’ wings, a bed of migonette, another of pansies, borders of double and single daisies and all kinds of tufty plants.
Beyond are the drenched paddocks and the sombre bush of early morning, tiny stars floating for a moment then dissolved like bubbles, the sound of a creek running over brown stones, hiding under clumps of dark berry bushes, spilling into a clump of yellow water flowers and cresses.
Suburban spread knocked all that in the head. I used to live at the bottom of the Wold garden, in Hildreth Street, next to the park. In winter the stream flooded through the house and the clouds fell down on us like Chicken Licken always feared, making a peasouper of southern Karori, but not deterring the determined spectral shapes of dogs and joggers splashing round the waterlogged park.
It was a stone’s throw over a dozen houses to the Wold, its balcony and veranda and other decorative aspects mostly shaved clean off so it was cut down to everybody else’s egalitarian anonymity.
Pat Lawlor visited the Wold in the late 50s and was shocked to see it the victim of vandals. He thought it unbelievable that a noble house would be allowed to fall into such a state of decay. It provoked some of his most sensitive impressions, of gaping holes in roof gutters and floors, yellowed sagging wallpaper, yellowed mattresses, yellowed newspapers, fireplaces and stoves glutted with halfburned debris, desolation upon desolation in every room. A demolition order pended.
It is still possible, he pleaded, to make Chesney Wold a shrine for Katherine Mansfield in New Zealand. In France they fully restored the Villa Isola Bella. Surely New Zealand might do a similar thing for her own distinguished daughter.
We didn’t.
Pat’s plea did inspire somebody to buy the house, for £1700, do it up and let it.
This could be a fate worse than destruction. Professor Roy Worskett of Bath University told our first national symposium on preservation last April that our urban housing is more threatened by alteration than demolition. Chesney Wold is surely an example.
Its fate gives new meaning to KM’s fear of the dark-time.
Out in the garden
Out in the windy swinging dark
Someone is sweeping, sweeping . . .
Someone is secretly putting in order
Our once celebrated cult of the quarter acre has given way to an obsession for subdividing and spec building, getting two houses on the price of one quarter acre, in the process either pulling down or doing up existing Victorian villas.
Lord preserve us from that kind of preservation, for there is no sign we will ourselves. Chesney Wold is gone for good, and only 25 Tinakori Road is still unharmed, our last chance to make a shrine for KM in New Zealand.


From The Compleat Cityscapes by David McGill and Grant Tilly.

5 comments:

ana said...

To see what indeed happened at Chesney Wold, visit the site:

https://sites.google.com/site/bestofpropertyrenovationideas/feature---chesney-wold

Josh said...

Nice post which Night was magic time for K M. In Prelude it is late at night when Kezia comes up the drive in the cart, looping suddenly an island of green, coming upon the long and low house with the pillared veranda and balcony all the way round. Later she is within as her father is driven home at night round the island of green to the welcome of open windows, a jar of wild flowers on the mantelpiece and a lamp making a big soft bubble of light on the ceiling. In the garden are camellias, roses, clumps of fairy bells, all kinds of geraniums, little trees of verbena, bluish lavender bushes, a bed of pelargoniums with velvet eyes and leaves like moths’ wings, a bed of migonette, another of pansies, borders of double and single daisies and all kinds of tufty plants. Thanks a lot for posting this article.

S Simmonds said...

Interestingly enough (or unfortunately enough), the stream sometimes flooded in our house, too, on Marshall St. Until the back yard was developed, and the stream was culveted over.

My sister owns Chesney Wold now (the outside staircase is no longer there). Just a few houses away from where my mother lived as a child.

S Simmonds said...

PS I defy you to throw a stone from Marshall St to CN, let alone Hildred.

seanoffshotgun said...

I'm the husband of the sister mentioned above. Yes we do own Chesney Wold. We have spent much time, effort and money on maintenance of the house over the last 3 years. It is not what it used to be, but it is a testament to how a house that is 150+ years old can change over time and still remain as a very livable dwelling. We don't wish to change Chesney Wold other than superficially, to continue that positive growth. PS: I'm keen on getting my hands on a copy of the Grant Tilly artwork or The Compleat Cityscapes, and would appreciate anyone that can help me with that. PPS: The stairs are still there... well, actually we rebuilt them as they were a health and safety risk. :)