Memory boxes
Sometimes heritage buildings seem to hide in plain sight. They become such familiar fixtures in the streetscape that they are almost invisible. The ‘‘Old Lodge’’ on River Rd in Hamilton East is one such hidden heritage building, and yet it is also a prominent local landmark.
Erected in 1924, the Masonic hall replaced the Grey St lodge building that opened in August 1877. Lodge Beta Waikato had been formed by members of the Fourth Waikato Regiment in 1865 and it met for a number of years in the Royal Hotel until the lodge in Grey St was built.
Through 1922 and 1923, in anticipation of the Masons building a new hall, the reuse of their Grey St premises as a local museum and social hall for Hamilton East was being discussed. The borough council authorised a loan of £2500 to buy the hall in November 1923, but the plan must have been more tentative than newspaper reports suggested, given that a ratepayer poll in regard to raising a loan of the same amount was proposed in January 1924. The project was championed by the Hamilton East Citizens’ Association, but it came to nothing and the old hall was taken over by another lodge.
The Lodge Beta Waikato’s new hall was opened in September 1924 by Oliver Nicholson. Nicholson was provincial grand master of the Freemasons and also a prominent Auckland lawyer and local body politician. He was elected chairman of the Bank of New Zealand – when it really was a New Zealand bank – in 1932.
Through their common membership, the Lodge Beta hall appears to have been closely associated with St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, which is just along the road. Hamilton solicitor Campbell MacDiarmid, who was St Andrew’s session clerk for many years (1912-42), was installed as Worshipful Master of the Lodge Beta Waikato in 1909.
The lodge continues to operate but now meets in Barton St. Its River Rd building appears to have been designed by local architect John Warren, who was a Freemason and an authority on Masonic history; Warren also designed a number of masonic halls around the district.
A single plan sheet for the Lodge Beta Waikato hall in the Waikato Museum collection is, frustratingly, not signed. It shows the building being oriented towards Myrtle St with a gabled entrance porch that opened into a large supper room. The lodge room was accessed off the supper room and aligned parallel with River Rd. The window boxes and decorative window surrounds are a latter addition as, it would appear, are the buttresses that strengthen the brick walls. As built, the brick was exposed, but the half-timbered gable ends were painted and the rafters exposed.
Today the Old Lodge and St Andrew’s Church are the survivors of a small suburban centre. Used in recent years as a function and performance venue, the Old Lodge could do with a little love and attention. If not, hiding in plain sight is just the right condition for the loss of a historic building that contributes a sense of place and identity to Hamilton East.