Construction
The blockhouse was designed by Col. Thomas Mould and built towards the end of 1860. On 18 August 1860, Major W. Rawson Trafford, commanding Wellington Militia and Volunteers, announced that plans for a Stockade and Blockhouse to be built at the Upper Hutt, on McHardy's Clearing were available from the Royal Engineers office in Lower Hutt and that tenders for either one, or both closed at Noon on 5 September 1860. The successful tenderer, Mr W. Taylor, had previously constructed the Lower Hutt Blockhouse and Stockade.
The frame of the two-story structure is made from timber and double-skinned with shingle infill, to protect it from rifle fire. Loopholes were also built into the blockhouse so defenders could return fire.
The building was at one corner of a stockade formed by a perimeter earthwork with parapet and trench. A well and magazine were within the stockade. The stockade earthworks have since been removed and the surrounding land levelled during the construction of Heretaunga College in 1954.
According to Best the blockhouse was never used as a refuge, but there are anecdotal reports of families retreating there one night in the late 1880s or early 1890s during an undefined emergency.
The blockhouse has been subject to some modifications over the years. Originally the blockhouse did not have windows. Two upper level windows that were cut in the western end-wall before 1916 have been replaced by a single window, while on the inward facing walls, one upper level window has been enlarged and another added since 1916. The windows cut in the lower level of the inward facing walls have instead been covered up.
Electric power, security lights, fire alarm and a sprinkler system are more recent additions, as are the metal gratings over the loopholes. The building has also been restored with a black stain applied to the wood and has red corregated iron roof, a colour scheme similar to how the building would have looked in the 1860s.
Read more about this topic: Upper Hutt Blockhouse
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