Walk through history at Antrim
In its 113-year history, Antrim House has had a variety of uses, and many different characters have ventured through its doors.
The Boulcott St house is one of 15 heritage attractions around New Zealand open free of charge to the public on Waitangi Day.
Though it is now the national office of Heritage New Zealand, the ornate Edwardian villa was originally built in 1904 for Robert Hannah, founder of the Hannah’s shoe stores, and his family.
The eight-bedroom house has also been a hotel and a hostel for young men in the public service, and in 1940, it survived a fire which engulfed the stairwell.
General manager heritage destinations Nick Chin says the upper floor is rarely open to the public so Waitangi Day offers a special opportunity.
‘‘The last time [it was open] was a couple of years ago. We only opened up for a few hours and we had about 300 people, and the time before that was about 12 years ago when we had about 800 people, so it’s very popular whenever we’ve opened up Antrim.
‘‘We want people to just enjoy the day by visiting some of our special heritage and historic places. These places belong to all New Zealanders, with Heritage New Zealand looking after them on your behalf.’’
The aim is to ‘‘make heritage interesting’’, he says.
‘‘One of our major objectives is not only to conserve heritage but also to engage or get people interested in heritage and understand what a very interesting subject it is.’’
Antrim, and many of the other open properties around the country, will feature a display of eight historic flags that have represented New Zealand over the past 180 years.
There will be a copy of the Treaty of Waitangi and stories about its significance at each site.
Chin says the stories, especially those about the flags, are amazing and visitors to the sites are bound to learn something new.
‘‘Arguably, our first flag was a [pake-style Maori] cloak. And one of the first ships built in New Zealand was the Sir George Murray, and they sailed to Sydney with the cloak as a flag. The ship was impounded because they didn’t have a proper flag.’’
This led to the creation of the first official flag, the flag of the United Tribes.
Antrim House will be open from 1pm to 4pm on Monday.
Old St Paul’s in Mulgrave St will also be open from 9.30am to 5pm.