From Heritage New Zealand, Spring 2009

by Amanda Cropp

Historic boat sheds are home to a traditional Christchurch pastime that retains all the trappings of Edwardian England

Wesley Golledge was six years old when he first visited Christchurch’s Antigua Boat Sheds. He and his father went there to see the phonograph collection of then-owner Bill Dini but he never imagined that one day the distinctive green-and-white-striped building would become his workplace.

Since the mid-1990s Wesley has run Punting on the Avon from the boat sheds in Cambridge Terrace and his tiny office overlooking the river-bank is in the attic where Bill stored his phonographs. Wesley is also a phonograph fan and to the delight of passengers he occasionally takes one along on punt rides, even if winding it up and changing the records are a bit of a challenge out on the water, especially with a long punt pole to manipulate.

He explains that a punt, originally designed for fishing, dredging and carrying freight on rivers such as the Thames, is not technically a boat at all “… because it doesn’t have a keel. It’s just a big, flat-bottomed floating platform pushed with a pole, so it’s very easy to construct, takes a lot of weight and operates well in shallow water”. This makes punts eminently suitable for the Avon, although Wesley occasionally comes across some unusual obstacles in the river. “I’ve found a double mattress and a complete toilet pan.”

Pleasure punts with cushioned saloons for passengers became popular in the English university cities of Oxford and Cambridge in the early 1900s. In Cambridge, where punting is a multi-million-pound business, touts trying to attract customers became so aggressive they were banned and English punters also have to watch out for “pole snatchers” as they pass under low bridges. That’s never been an issue in Christchurch where punting was introduced in 1986, operating from the river-bank outside Our City O-Tautahi, the historic Queen Anne building which housed the original Municipal Chambers.

In 1989 Wesley scored a holiday job on the punts and liked it so much he quit his university history studies to work on them full time, eventually setting up his own punting business at the Antigua Boat Sheds where canoes and rowboats have been available for hire for more than a century. Two years ago he took over the inner-city punts where he had begun his career on the river. Wesley gets a real kick out of working from the historic boat sheds, erected in 1882 by two Lyttelton boat builders, and he is well accustomed to their quirks such as the attic floor which slopes 400 millimetres from front to back.

In 1907 half the building was destroyed by a fire which was thought to have originated in a stove used to steam timber for boat building. Another nearby boat shed at the Montreal Street Bridge was also destroyed by a fire set by arsonists in 1929. Given that history and the fire risk of the old board-and-batten building, a sprinkler system was a high priority when current Antigua Boat Shed owners Mike and Sally Jones undertook a major restoration project in 2006, costing almost $200,000. Sally’s parents bought the boating operation from Bill Dini in 1978 and she and her husband took over the business in the mid-’80s  Mike says the years had taken their toll on the building. Without remedial work there was a danger that part of it might collapse and much of the ground floor virtually sat on dirt and was rotting away.

Following preparation of a conservation plan, a wall was removed to provide access to dig out foundations and install 63 piles. Scaffolding was erected to hold up the shed for the duration of the exercise and hiring of the 89 canoes, skiffs and paddle boats continued during the 10-week renovation, albeit from a trailer on the river-bank.

New hardwood flooring blends seamlessly with older parts of the building and work was also done on reframing and structural bracing. Mike says the restoration was made possible only by a $60,000 heritage incentive grant from Christchurch City Council and a $98,363 NZHPT grant from the National Heritage Preservation Incentive Fund which aims to encourage the conservation of nationally significant heritage sites in private ownership. The Antigua Boat Sheds are regarded as an important piece of recreational architecture and although they currently have a Category II rating they are being considered, says Mike, as potential candidates for Category I status. The boat sheds are already fully protected under a heritage covenant agreed to by the City Council and the Joneses say any further work on the building must be approved by the NZHPT.

When the Antigua Boat Sheds opened in the 1880s, rowboats and canoes were built on site and that tradition continues today. Three wooden skiffs created by craftsman Ben Lander are exact replicas of a 100-year-old skiff hanging in the rafters and another Canadian canoe is taking shape in the attic workspace.

Mike says some of the 1950s fibreglass canoes known as bananas are still in use and the mould for them is on display in the boat shed’s café. “Down in  the punters’ shed there used to be a big concrete block which the forge sat on. They did all the iron work here, forging the rowlocks.” While the forge is long gone, steaming ribs for the skiffs continues, thanks to Mike’s inventiveness. “I made my own steamer. I looked it up on the internet and thought ‘that’s not hard; I’ll make one’.” Christchurch’s first punts were made in 1986 by a Bath boat builder flown out especially for the job.

Over the years Wesley has commissioned five new boats from builders and joiners in Mapua and North Canterbury. Each one took six weeks to make and cost $13,000. In Cambridge cheap self-hire punts last only about six years but Wesley expects his 11 carefully maintained vessels to last up to 30. They range in length from 6.5 to 8.5 metres, with the largest carrying up to 10 passengers, and lifting them into storage every night is no mean feat. “It takes four strong fellas to lift a dry punt; wet they’re even heavier.”

Punts are traditionally made from mahogany but some of the Christchurch boats incorporate macrocarpa and kahikatea. Hulls these days are made from marine ply, doing away with the messy and time-consuming job of recaulking every two or three seasons. “You had to rip the rope out between the gaps,  replace it and hammer it back down, soak it in water so it took up the moisture then tar it.”

But other traditional touches remain. There is rope belting around the top edge of the hull and a V cut into the seat backs to hold the long wooden punt poles which have a metal “shoe” – prongs on the end to stop the pole getting stuck in the mud. “The instinct is to cling to the pole but the trick is to let it go or you end up in the water. We lose a pole once a month (each punt comes with a paddle to aid retrieval). Last season one of our punters got his braces caught on the branch of a chestnut tree which pulled him off. The passengers saw what was happening and hung on to his feet but that kept his head under the water. When you fall in, it always happens in front of a crowd.”

Six couples have married on board under flowerdecked canopies and Wesley says they are a popular location for proposals. “We’ve had a 100 percent success rate so far but what the hell do you do if she says no and you have to sit out the rest of the ride?” At the height of the tourist season Wesley employs 20 staff kitted out in Edwardian attire. “We wear trousers with good working-men’s braces, a shirt with a tie or cravat – none of this open-necked nonsense – boat shoes and a straw boater.” In cooler weather punters don blazers, sourced mostly from second-hand clothing shops. Like authentic straw boaters, they are becoming increasingly difficult to find.

Come summer, the Avon will once again resound to the splash of canoe paddles, rowboat oars and punt poles as hundreds of people take to the water. Thanks to the building’s facelift, Mike is confident the boat sheds will remain the focus of city boating for many years to come. “It’s a Christchurch icon; it’s been here 125 years and we haven’t changed the outside of the building at all.”