| Wilkie Rd, Dunedin, 1923. Hocken Library photo. |
I first saw the photo above a few years ago, when I discovered the excellent resource provided by the Hocken Library, free to people like me who are using their photos for love, not money. The associated caption stated its location and also that it had been taken from the Wilkie Rd/Neville St railway overbridge. I knew instantly where the house had been and, of course, knew that there would be a story behind it.
Not long after that I discovered "Papers Past" - without which I wouldn't even bother researching for a blog. In the pre-"PP" days, to access what can be found there, a researcher would have to travel around the country and (in the case of my local public library) search through either a computer index or a card file - or both - to find the relevant newspaper story. So, to make this blog a possibility, I needed to find "Papers Past," the Hocken's collections and the other online resources. And the rest, as they say, is history.
HOUSE COLLAPSES.
A slip in Wilkie road at 5 o’clock on Sunday night caused the collapse of a five-roomed house occupied by Mr S. Forrester. The house slipped fully 30ft, and is now resting on the footpath. One chimney top has fallen across the roof, and the other has crumpled on to the roof. Mr J. Scott and his two children were in the house at the time, but fortunately Mr Scott took alarm at the premonitory shaking and he and his family got out without injury. They must have had a really remarkable escape. The house swung to one side when it slipped and bulged in the wall of the adjacent house, occupied by a widow, Mrs Forrester, which has also been moved forward by the slip. The lean-to of Mr Scott’s house broke clear, and crashed into the back of Mrs Forrester’s house. At a first glance it would seem as if the lean-to had originally been part of Mrs Forrester’s house.
The hill at the back has a big gap in it, and the houses on the top does not look too secure. -Otago Daily Times, 24/4/1923.
For those reading this from outside Dunedin, "the Flat" was the named used by most to describe the area of southern Dunedin built on alluvial soil with a high water table. It is the area which flooded badly a few years ago. It's the area - then as now - where Dunedin's working people live in one of the highest density areas of population in the country. It is the area occupied - then as now - by those who can least afford to replace possessions lost in a flood or fire.
FLOODS FALLING
Further Glimpses of Relief Work
TAIERI POSITION BAD (excerpt)
SCENES ON THE FLAT
WATERS SLOWLY CLEARING.
A DEPRESSING EXPERIENCE.
Half Dunedin spent yesterday afternoon seeing how the other half lived, and the manner of life of the second half was not cheerful. As it was the first dry day — atmospherically speaking — since the deluge and a holiday to boot, those parts of the town which had suffered most from the flood became a resort for crowds of visitors from the more fortunate parts, in cars and traps and on foot, curious to observe the devastation and what progress had been made in the relieving of it. The house in Wilkie road which was dislodged by a landslip and pushed through the side wall of the one next to it was a main centre of attraction; and from here the sightseers ranged over the Flat, finding melancholy subjects of interest in a Dunedin new to them.
The flood waters had all been cleared from the Kensington streets, but they had left behind heavy deposits of silt, which the council’s carts were removing. It was drying day — and washing day — on the Flat. A number of soaked carpets stretched across the goal posts on the Oval gave early indication of the fact. Further back from the city most of the residents were engaged in cleaning out their houses and drying them with the aid of fires, when fires could be lit. Windows were thrown wide open to assist the process, and furniture, piled in heaps, which could be seen through them, told its own story of the discomfort within. Never before were the Flat’s inhabitants so peered upon, but it was with eyes of friendly sympathy and compassion. In many cases, where the water had partly cleared, planks stretched across fruit boxes to the front door or like contrivances told of difficulties of access still not entirely ended. In other instances, where water had not actually entered the houses, the sections on which they stood were completely submerged. Men baled the water from their paths or swept it energetically into channels. Women labored at their floors. Clothes hung to dry on clothes lines. Two days of bright sunshine would do more perhaps than anything else that can be imagined to bring cheerfulness, as well as dryness, into these damp dwellings. They would be the surest safeguard against colds and worse complaints that are to be feared. There was no sun yesterday, though the rain had ceased. The most valiant hearts among the Flat dwellers must have found the experience depressing. The one improvement in the position, as compared with previous days, was that over large areas the streets were dry. Carisbrook Ground, however, was still a lake, though its waters had appreciably subsided. A greater expanse of water, with no dry spots, was presented by Bathgate Park and the Chinamen’s gardens beyond it. Macandrew road, and the streets that intersect it on the Ocean Beach side of King Edward street, made a bad quarter. All these streets were still under water, though not so deep that a bicycle could not traverse it. One footpath that was continuously clear, and emergency devices at some crossings, made Macandrew road negotiable for foot passengers without the necessity of wading. At its intersection with King Edward street a supplementary pumping plant had been brought into play, and with its help, and the deepening of channels, the water was being cleared away more rapidly. All the streets running parallel with Macandrew road, almost to the sea front, on the lower side of King Edward street, were still under water. On the harbor side of that dividing line they were completely dry until one came to Musselburgh, where the pedestrian had to choose his road to be sure of any continuous passage by so much as a footpath. The Queen’s drive was completely dry, the new main laid down in that thoroughfare having proved the greatest blessing. Most of the streets were dry towards the foreshore, the operations performed on the big storm water conduit which runs along the line of the southern reclamation, and the opening of manholes (only meant to be used for the clearing of mains) having done much for the relief of that part of the Flat which is nearest the harbor. There were many visitors also to the north end of the town, where the floods did serious damage. Generally speaking, it is the Flat, however, which has had the worst of this experience. The inundation covered a much wider area there, and it is lasting longer. There was much less water lying on Tainui yesterday. Contrary to expectations, and to appearances from a distance, few houses in this low-lying district were actually entered by the flood, most of the dwellings having been built high through fear of such a disaster. -Evening Star, 26/4/1923.
Wilkie Road no longer has houses on it. The narrow strip between the road and and the hill behind could be described as "light industrial" - car painters and metal fabricators. The southern portion of the road is now occupied by a motorway and a scrapyard.
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