History – The original building boom

Two of Warkworth’s oldest buildings still in use were built by Charles Thomson around 1870. Located at the lower end of Neville Street, they were formerly the family home of the Thomsons and housed a bakery and the commodious Temperance Hotel.

Four Thomson brothers came to New Zealand in the 1850s from Campbelltown, Argyleshire in Scotland. Family papers suggest that Charles was a baker on the troopships transporting soldiers to the Crimean War and that Charles and Lachlan were the first of the brothers to emigrate.

The corner formed by Neville, Main (later Queen) Wharf and Baxter streets was the hub of commercial activity in the 1870s. Lachlan Thomson owned a store where Warehouse Stationery now trades and Bowen’s Store stood on the other corner, opposite Southgate’s hotel, which had been built in the 1860s.

In 1874, Charles Thompson was the contractor when a drain was dug from Southgate’s property to the river. It was sunk 10ft (3 metres) in places and heart-kauri planking one-and-a-half inches (4cm) thick and well tarred was used to make a box drain. I wonder if that sturdy kauri timber still lies beneath the tarseal and concrete there today.

Captain and Mrs Ragg, who had sailed to New Zealand in the Golden City in 1864, purchased Thomson’s hotel and bakery in 1885. Like their predecessors, the Raggs ran a family business with the unmarried daughters helping their mother. Occasionally an advertisement would appear for a boy who could make himself useful. He was assured of a good home at Raggs Temperance hotel. Mrs Ragg kept pigs on the land at the back of the hotel.

It was announced in January 1915 that Mrs W Fleury had taken over the business and it would now be called the Mascot Private Hotel. Modifications had been made to provide smoking and sitting rooms. A few months later, an important sale of town property was completed when Mr Fleury bought the entire block with frontages on four streets.

Whatever future plans the Fleury’s had for their investment they did not eventuate. As William Fleury prepared to leave New Zealand with the Auckland Regiment of the Expeditionary Forces, Mrs Fleury was rushed to hospital where she died in November 1916. Her husband was killed in action in France on October 4, 1917.

Older Warkworth residents will remember Mrs Hughes who ran the hotel as Hinemoa House. She sold the land and buildings consisting of 16 bedrooms, one acre 25 roods to Roberts Electrical in 1942. Since then it has been known as Robert’s Corner.

The original Thomson home became a separate entity as Broomfield House when a Warkworth solicitor, Mr A G Broomfield, purchased it as his home and office.

Commercial interests over the years have altered both buildings significantly. Only in photographs can they be seen as they once were.