When the owner of this house stumbled across it more than 45 years ago, she had no idea of its military connections. Kim Dungey reports.
"I’m the sort of person who dreams of finding antiques at the back of rundown sheds," Marian Poole says. "So it was just magic to find this thing."
The Dunedin music teacher is standing in front of a piece of furniture whose original owner was apparently charged with defending Otago Harbour from Russian invaders.
When she discovered it in her wood shed, the sideboard was missing a drawer, and covered in saw marks and paint. But suspecting it was a link to the Deborah Bay Torpedo Boat Corps, she dragged it out, had it restored and placed it in her living room.
Located on the northwestern side of Otago Harbour, Dr Poole’s house was built by the Defence Department around 1887, amid growing concern that Britain and its Empire would become embroiled in a war with Russia.
In 1873, an Auckland newspaper alarmed readers with a report that the crew of a Russian warship had seized gold and taken the mayor and other prominent citizens hostage. The story was a hoax, designed to show that the country was not prepared for a surprise attack.
The torpedo boats’ main weapon was a long pole or spar with an explosive device fitted at the end, designed to be placed against the hull of an enemy ship and detonated as they sped away.
They were also meant to lay submarine mines, but this seems to have happened only at the entrances to Auckland and Wellington harbours.
According to author Norman Ledgerwood, the Deborah Bay depot included two long corrugated iron sheds to store mines and torpedoes, a tramline that ran from the sheds across Aramoana Rd to a wharf, and Dr Poole’s house, which was built for the sergeant-in-charge and referred to as "the barracks".
However, she and her late husband, poet Rob Allan, knew nothing of this history when they stumbled upon a "for sale" sign in front of a bare paddock while out walking in 1976. The possibility of creating a garden from scratch was inviting enough. Then they glimpsed the house on higher land behind.
"Apparently the real estate agent had just gone. We were right on the spot and we bought it there and then."
It was only later they realised the home’s only "toilet" was a bucket in a shed. The lower part of the section was too flat for a septic tank and the Dunedin City Council "laughed" at the idea of a proper composting toilet. So they and their three sons managed with the bucket until pipes were laid and a flush toilet installed in 1990.
Renovations inside began earlier, when they knocked down walls and extended the living room. They also replaced the kitchen and added a conservatory. Finally, they moved out for two years while they embarked on a "substantial rebuild".
The house was tired and in need of renovation, but they wanted to keep faith with its original style and retain as many of its features as possible, she says.
Sustainability and passive heating were also important: as well as triple-insulating a wall of the conservatory to make it a heat sink, they insulated the entire house, and added double glazing and a log burner. This has a wetback attached to the hot-water cylinder, which is also fed by solar panels on the roof.
Two sides of the house were extended, with the new sections designed to look like built-in verandas. Surplus door architraves were re-cut to go around windows and construction timbers from the house were carved into dado panelling.
The rebuild also incorporated the many windows and "bits and pieces of timber" that Dr Poole had collected from demolition yards and old houses — slate for the back foyer came from the House of Nazareth chapel which was demolished after the Christchurch earthquakes, a wash stand in the bathroom from her old Dunedin flat, and a window in her bedroom from one of the original storage sheds.
Outside, the couple spent many weekends planting fruit trees, natives and "heritage" trees such as oak and copper beech.
"About 10cm below the topsoil, it was asphalt so I figured it might have been used as a parade ground or it could have been the foundations of a shed, which was demolished by the time we got here," she says.
"There was also quite a lot of ship’s metal around the place."
Alongside the fruit, nuts and berries, there is a large vegetable patch where Dr Poole uses permaculture principles: each bed becomes a "compost bin" once harvested. She also keeps chickens and grows her own firewood.
The area, with its creek, bush, foreshore and "infinity pool", was an easy place to raise a family, she says. She loves that the house is steeped in history and says finding the sideboard was a "once in a lifetime thing".
"I kept on dreaming for ages after, that there was another shed behind the shed — a complete treasure trove," she says, laughing.
"But discovering a further shed full of treasure did not come to fruition, more's the pity!"
