Perhaps everyone has a picture in their mind of the ideal grandmother.  She is old now and time has not always been kind, knocking off the odd corner on the way.  She seems to have shrunk and the younger members of the family tower above her.  But a look at her photograph album shows her in her glory days – young, attractive, confident and looking ahead to a bright future.

 The building I most admire is certainly the grandparent (with a few “greats” thrown  in) of Auckland architecture and is possibly the oldest commercial building still existing in its entirety on Queen Street.  It used to be called The Mining Chambers although as far as I know this name is no longer used as no mining agent  has occupied these premises for years.  It is situated at 95 Queen Street, on the corner of Exchange Lane and opposite Fort Street and is best viewed from Fort Street.  While it now appears overshadowed by the surrounding buildings it was, when new in 1865 or thereabouts, symbolic of a new order, the epitome of confidence and style and a declaration that Queen Street was now the place to be. 

 From Auckland’s earliest days Shortland Street (or Crescent as it was first known) had been the principal street of the capital until in 1858 a fire devastated the mostly wooden buildings.  Many of the businesses moved their premises to Queen Street, seeing it as the new main commercial thoroughfare of the city.  This was despite the extra expense of building there as Queen Street was now covered by the Auckland Building Act  of 1858.  This specified that all new buildings over a certain height and within a defined area must be constructed of permanent materials to reduce the danger of fire.  The temporary nature of colonial Auckland with its ramshackle buildings was fast disappearing and the new buildings, of substance and quality, became the new “temples of commerce” of the city.  The Mining Chambers (as I still refer to it) was one of these and a photograph held by the Auckland Museum and dated 1865 shows this new building as a prestigious and handsome Italianate structure of brick and plaster, and at three storeys high, standing taller than its neighbours.  Today the building looks much the same as it did then, with the addition of a verandah, a balcony and flag poles (only one of which remains). It is only the perspective which has altered as newer and taller buildings have long since left the Mining Chambers in their shadows.

Even the section on which the building stands is a link with the very early city, when the shore line reached Fort Street (known in the early days as Foreshore Street) and neither Customs Street nor Quay Street existed.   On the 15^th August 1842 Alexander Marshall bought a section set on the west side of Queen Street so close to the water that at times the sea water washed over the it.  The boundary pegs would be loosened to such an extent that cairns of stones had to be placed over them to keep them in place.  Marshall bought the property on behalf of himself and his two partners, Alexander Black and Alexander Dingwall who together were known as “The Three Sandies”.  The partners divided the property into three sections – Marshall to the south, Black in the middle and Dingwall to the north.  At the formal division of the property the partners allocated a 5 foot strip on the southern side to be used by members of the public. This was the beginning of the small road now known as Exchange Lane ,after the investors who gathered there each day to discuss the state of the market. 

Each partner built a wooden warehouse and these remained until 1865 by which time reclamation had taken the shoreline beyond Customs Street.  At this time Marshall leased his section to Gilfillan & Co.   They had the right, within six months, to demolish the existing building – providing they replaced it with “a good substantial brick building suitable for a Merchants Store, warehouse and offices” – the building which stands today.  For a considerable period of time  it was known as the “Mining Chambers”, the name first appearing in the 1898 Auckland Directory. The building had been leased in 1897 to two men who were Mining Agents, buying and selling shares in the gold mines of Thames and Coromandel.

I am very fond of this small building with its links to the very earliest days of Auckland and its early residents.  Apart from having had a corner removed the exterior, at least, remains much as it was.  I hope that this little gem shall always be part of the Auckland cityscape as a reminder of the enterprise of the early settlers and the size and proportions of the early town. The Three Sandies are as together in death as they were in life as each is buried in the Presbyterian section of the Symonds Street Cemetery.

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