December Christmas Meeting

Zonta’s Best Christmas Adventure was certainly a different experience for most of us, and not your usual end-of-year Christmas party.

First we had fish and chips and bubbles at the Best Café in Stuart Street, a well-known Dunedin institution since 1932. We had a warm welcome there with three tables set up for us. 28 meals all at once was no problem to the friendly staff. (Their blue cod is highly recommended.)

Then it was a short walk to the old Dunedin Gaol. Bronwyn and Kevin from the Dunedin Prison Trust were very knowledgeable tour guides and showed us around the red-brick building which was completed in 1896 and operated as a working prison for men and women until 2007.

We noticed how cold it was inside (even in summer) and the many concrete steps to negotiate up and down. Most of us hadn’t been inside the building before, and found the experience most enlightening.

The Dunedin Prison Trust was formed in 2011 by a group of concerned citizens anxious that the beautiful heritage building should be saved and converted into a commercially viable visitor experience. The building contains some 56 cells, and has 550 square metres of commercial office space to let facing Castle Street. It carries a Heritage NZ Category 1 Listed building classification in view of its historical significance and rarity.

A Conservation Plan was completed in 2014 which will guide the Trust through the restoration and conservation of this building, and the roofing-over and conversion of its stunning courtyard into a restaurant and functions space.

Then another short walk to the Leviathan Hotel for coffee and Christmas pudding. We enjoyed another drink from the bar and studying the artifacts displayed of the hotel’s history.

When the Leviathan Railway Temperance Hotel was built in 1884 it was situated beside the harbour, near the original railway station on land which had been reclaimed from the harbour with rock dumped during the flattening of Bell Hill. With 150 bedrooms, the Leviathan was then reputed to be the largest hotel in Australasia.  At the time the Exchange area of Dunedin was the hustling hub of the city, the railway station, steamboat landings and tram terminus were all minutes away.