Historic “Stone Jug” Becomes a Factory

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 554, 5 January 1929, Page 1

Historic “Stone Jug” Becomes a Factory

FORMER OFFICERS’ CLUB

RELIC OF MAORI WARS

Once a wayside inn. afterwards a rendezvous for officers in the Maori War then for many years an historic* derelict on the Main North Road, the “Old Stone Jug” is once more coming into active service.

In future it will be used as a chemical factory. iMany suggestions for utilising the old building have been made, and a few months ago it was seriously proposed to reinstate it as an unlicensed road-house, the area attacked to it to be opened as a motorists’ camping ground, but this idea fell through, and the City Council has now leased the building, and the new occupier will use it as a factory and residence combined. The new owner is Mr. R. A. Dutton, a manufacturing chemist, and for several weeks he has had a staff engaged repairing the old building, and remodelling the inside, which was in an advanced state of dilapidation. It is Mi*. Dutton’s ntention to use the ground floor as a factory, and he is having the walls of this portion painted by an artist, with Maori scenes. The windows will be left open to spectators on the footpath, and there will be visible a strange mixture of the modern in ancient surroundings.

The Old Stone JUg was built by a Mr. Edgcombo in 1838 and the blue stone blocks with which it is constructed have stood defiant of the weather ever since, though during past years, while it has been unoccupied, the slates have dropped from the roof, and the windows have warped away from their stonework. The building was intended as an inn, but during the Maori wars from 1860 to 1866 it became well known as an outpost, and a gathering place for the officers of the Militia then camped at Point Chevalier. It is asserted that such well-known officers as Major Gundrey, Lieutenant McDonnell and Lieutenant Chevalier, after whom the point was named, used to gather there. Major Von Tempsky used to stop there to break the journey and feed horses. Perhaps it was because of these meetings and the consistent patronage uf officers that the building became famous. Veterans who were unfit? for expeditions into the interior used to keep night watcli there in case of an attack by the natives.