More buildings from Oamaru

St Lukes Anglican Church - Victorian Gothic in limestone. Prime site - the Anglicans were always good at picking these.

Insurance building - these Victorian neo-classical buildings make good use of corner sites.

Waitaki County Council Building - spectacular!

Column and entablature of the ANZ Bank building

Detail of Criterion Hotel facade. The urns on the balustrade were removed for many years because of earthquake fears. Fortunately they were stored and preserved, and returned and secured after earthquake strengthening was carried out in the 1990s.

Another bank building. Much money was washing around Oamaru when these were built. Banks liked the neo-classsical style with its resonances of stability, solidity and order, so there are very few Victorian Gothic style banks in existence.  There is a very fine Victorian bank in the Gothic style in Melbourne though, which I saw many years ago on a visit there.

Row of facades in Tyne Street. I don't think many New Zealanders appreciate what a rare thing this is, to see a whole streetscape of buildings of this age and style. If this was Italy, it would have been put up for a World Architectural Heritage designation, but sadly here in NZ these are just old buildings which some feel should have been demolished for something shiny and new. It's one of the things I hate so much about my country; so often, philistines rule, with their argument always being "we can't afford to restore", but strangely, we always seem to be able to afford to demolish and replace. There are so many of these buildings here in the town, these few pictures are not all of them, this is just the area with the greatest concentration of examples. There are also several lovely buildings in the Art Deco style, all in limestone too.

It's been a good trip. I hope to return to Oamaru some time in the not-too-distant future, and visit the penguin colony, the limestone quarries and explore some of the surrounding countryside.