A NEGLECTED RESERVE

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1107, 21 April 1911, Page 6

A NEGLECTED RESERVE

« THE FROWSINESS OF "THE.BASIN." SIGNS OF ITS DOOM. (By Sylvius.) There is an old yellow plan in the City Engineer's ollice of Wellington. One feature of this old relic in plans is that- the chief cricket ground, which has for forty years or more been known as the "Basin Reserve," is tinted a faded blue, and is connccted with the harbour hv a faded blue band, which investigation shows is .intended to lie a canal—the faded blue is the draughtsman's subtle suggestion of water. Over half a century ago it was seriously proposed that the depression at the foot of Adelaide Road should be a kind of inner harbour, to which vesseis of a certain draught could obtain access by means of the canal, which was to follow the line of what is now Kent Terrace, whilst Cambridge Terrace (the west side of that precise littlo riband of shrubs and asphalt that divides the thoroughfare) was to be a kind of tow-path. Anyhow, nothing caino of it, and what was to have been the canal never got any nearer in likeness to a water-way than an open sewer.

Changes and Memories. I can, unfortunately, remember that open sewer. Jt had a planked bottom, and planked sloping sides, which were always dangerously slippery with suds and scrub-water deposit ot Wellington South. My last recollection of this ancient link between the harbour and the swamp lands about "the Basin" was witnessing the efforts of half-a-hundral people endeavouring to hoist out of the ditch a largo and exceedingly weighty white draught horse. it was su heavy that it took this number to accomplish a task ten men might otherwise have done, because no help could be expected from the animal itself. it clawed madly at- the greasy sides time after time, with a maze of assisting ropes round its body, aud then Hopped ' )ll . L 'k hopelessly into the turgid stream, as it lite was too short to make any further at: tempt to regain the level of the streets, where only hard, relentless work awaitea him. The counsels that urged an _ inner basin or harbour for the shipping of Wellington were dictated largely by the prevalence of the hard north-westerly and southerly gales, which made 1 ort Nicholson "dangerous for shipping. They wero on the wrong track, and tnat was foreseen before anything practical was done, and "the Basin" eventually became a reserve for cricket and other recreations, and tho canal was bricked in and covered with a decent macadamised road, which has long sinco been replaced with wood-blocks. So year in and out the local crickcting giants have repaired to "the Basin," as the provincial people of early Victorian England repaired to tho village green, "To test their skill with bat and ball, And littlo reck whato'er befall." "The Basin's" Fate.

Councillor Godber, at a meeting held a few nights ago, went as far as to say that the time was rapidly approaching when the trams would have to pursue a direct course from Kent Terrace to Adelaide Road, through the centre of the Basin Reserve. That time, I maintain, has already come. Wickets have never been thoroughly satisfactory on "the Basin," because it has no bottom, ami some say that it is folly to talk of trying: to attain a perfect wicket oil such a ground, though, to bo sure, Saunder? has done a great deal with the pitches while, on the reserve generally, as everyone knows, the caretaker (Dobson) is busy all day long, and making the most of an uphill job. I know little about what kind ot bottom a cricket ground should have to provide a" perfect surface, but it is admitted by those long associated with cricket that "the Basin" is not what it used to be, and that it is not getting any better, as "the seasons crcep along the years." Walk over tho Reserve at present, cutting out tho fact that topdressing operations are in progress, and compare the texture of the turf with any of the other important grounds in New Zealand. 1 am afraid Wellington would be an easy last if such a comparison could be made. lam aware that late autumn is probably the worst time in the whole year to judge a ground—but the Basin has the appearance of a ground that cannot be kept in order unless an altogether disproportionate sum of money is spent on its upkeep. This has in the past fallen to the lot of tho Wellington Cricket Association, which from its lean pouch lias been able to keep half the playing area decent. The other half is, and always has been, little better as a cricket ground than the "home paddock." "The Basin" is doomed—the Argus-eyed trams which whirl round it angrily covet the green sward which makes them turn from the straight path, and groan in their anguish as they swerve painfully into Sussex Square. The air of dilapidation about tho reserve and its ancient grandstand is somewhat pathetic. The fence which surrounds the ground has never known where it was exactly—it has been the long-suf-fering buffer between the advocates of high and low—those who believe it is the people's prerogative to see all that happens on the people's ground free of charge, and those who would encourage athletic bodies in providing good sport at a reasonable figure. That fence could speak of its uprisings and its goings-down interestingly if it were not 50 reserved.

The Decayed Grandstand. 'Citizens protect your own property!" I. this notice on a large, aggressive sign-board in a very mean and shabby garden plot near the Kent Terrace entrance to the Reserve. I looked over the picket-fence, and saw a few nasturtiums straggling along the ground, feeling for a wall or a fence for support in their decreiitilude, and sundry weeds fighting out their destiny in untrammelled freedom. I wondered at the sisn—there seemed no little to protect. The grandstand is an ancient wreck of a building long past the span of lifo allotted to neglcctcd wooden structures. .Someone has evidently punched the southern wall in a fit itf abstraction, or after making a "blob " and found it. to be unsound—rotten, i'n tact. All IS over with this structure-i't exudes an air of decay, and has the odour ot the building knacker's yard, livervtiling and every part is quite innocent, of protection in the form of paint, (here are broken seats and broken windows, the figures on the plates for indicating the score are almost, indecipherable Below are exterior seats-broken, cut about, plain, plank seats thai have done their duty bravely for forty vears. Surelv a few new seats with backs lo them would encnurago cricket-watching. The present sears are the most uncomforrable on earth, or at least they vie with the pit seats at a circus for that, honour. The picket fence that, flanks the'playing area on the western side is broken, 'in dozens of p aces, and the paint has a dirtv, dilapidated appearance. The opposite'bank where stands .the Temple of Pomona in miniature could be n ade a place of beauty ii some of "Glen's men" from the- gardens were set to work on it for a week or two. Wily not? Why is a frequented central reserve liko "the Basin" so utterly neglected? If Iho Basin is going to be treated in the future as in the past (hen it should be thrown to tho trams, and so made a high sacrifice to the god of transit. At present it is just the shabby old Basin-a very dilanidaird second-hand kind of basin, which will, and perhaps should, bo allowed lo become a land of erinket memories merely. What, have the c.i„di,!.-iles for the City Council to say about itP