THINGS I DIDN'T KNOW - BUT NOW DO

Many readers have asked me if I could write more post series. You like post series.

here's an example:

 

 

Well, as luck would have it, today being a blustery and rainy day, I've been reading indoors. I browsed through 'Wellington Through a Victorian lens Revisited', looking at the many old photographs and read a lot of the narrative.

Now while I was born in Wellington and lived there many years there are still some things I don't know. I attended Marist Brothers Newtown and St Patrick's College - both very close to The Basin Reserve. I spent many hours wandering over the playing fields in the reserve, climbing the trees and the fences and watching cricket games there but never thought to ask about the name - The Basin Reserve.

Reading the book today I learned that the site was originally a lagoon that was known as the 'Basin'

 

When Surveyor-General, Captain William Mein Smith, drew up plans for Wellington in 1840, a stream linked the harbour to a lagoon that he simply labelled ‘Basin’. Smith’s intention was for this Basin to become a safe harbour for ships, accessed through a canal to the harbour. Over the next fifteen years the city continued to develop around Smith’s Basin as people from around the world moved to the new colony.

There were plans to build canals running where Kent and Cambridge Terraces run from the harbour to the 'Basin'. This would have been spectacular and could have made wellington much more of a tourist attraction than it is akin to Amsterdam or even Venice. Unfortunately the 1855 earthquake put paid to that plan by raising the ground level enough to destroy the basin lake and make the canal project impossible:

The area that is now Basin Reserve was originally a lake (known as the Basin Lake), and there were plans to connect it to the sea by a canal to make it an alternative inner city harbour, with major warehouses and factories alongside it. However, the massive 1855 Wairarapa earthquake uplifted the area nearly 1.8 m (5.9 ft) and turned the lake into a swamp. Due to the colonists' English roots, sport, particularly cricket, was a vital part of the community's way to relax. However, no land had been allocated by the city planners for recreational reserves. Although natural grounds, such as the Te Aro flat, provided a small area for matches, the colonists wanted more recreational land than they had. The matter became dire as buildings began to be erected on these plains, as flat land was hard to find in the mountainous Wellington. So, after the 1855 earthquake, which historians estimate measured magnitude 8, influential citizens seized the chance in 1857 to suggest that the new land be drained and made into a recreational reserve. The Wellington council accepted the proposal and on 3 February 1863 prisoners from the Mount Cook Gaol began to level and drain the new land. The swamp was drained by September and a fence and hedges were placed around the entire area. However, massive population influxes from 1863 to 1866 (caused mostly by the Parliament being situated in Wellington) hampered construction on the Basin Reserve as workers were pulled to other areas.

After a council meeting on 11 December 1866 the Basin Reserve became Wellington's official cricket ground. No cattle or horses were allowed in the ground and only small hedges and shrubs were allowed to be planted so as not to hamper cricket games. Soon after, on 11 January 1868, the first game of cricket was played, although the ground had numerous stones and thistles on it, which the umpire later apologised for as some players got injured from them. Although it was the opening day, no ceremony or music was played, nor was the opening advertised with banners.

        Wikipedia

 Well, what do you think of that? Should this become a new series?