National Swimming Sports held in a pond.

National Swimming Sports held in a pond

A town plan drawn up by the Government Surveyor, Robert Park in 1864 set aside a recreation ground which I believe he called the Grange.  However it was not until 1874 that the provincial Government saw the need to appoint an Ashburton Domain Board.  It has been said that until1877 the Ashburton Domain was indistinguishable from the surrounding untouched tussock country side.

 

Those first appointed to the board were John Greg, Alfred Saunders and Robert Miller.  As the board they considered that the land designated as the Domain was too far removed from that small clutter of buildings which first made up the Ashburton Township.  This small committee proposed that the land be exchanged for something a little closer to the community.

 

However, nothing further was done until 1877 when the newly appointed gardener to the Domain Board Mr H. S. Charlton began planting trees provided by the Canterbury Provincial Government.

In actual fact those same trees I believe were the first planted in the township.

In 1888 the Ashburton Roads Board made a grant of 250 pound to the Domain and in the same year the County Council granted 100 pound to the Ashburton Cricket Club.  This generosity enabled the club to lay out and sow down grass for the first cricket field located in the domain.

In those early years because of the because of the long working hours little support was given to the establishment of a cricket or football clubs in Ashburton yet against all odds these clubs somehow managed to survive.  In 1889 when Ashburton shopkeepers were approached for their support, they promised to encourage these sports by giving each member of the sports club a half a day off each week to participate.  However this arrangement was never successful.

The sports deemed the most popular during the 1890s were bicycle racing and swimming.  I believe a meeting of the Ariel Bicycle Club in 1898 attracted one thousand nine hundred spectators to the Domain to watch bicycle races around the dirt track.  The Ashburton swimming Club held a carnival during 1892 in the Domain pond which had been cleaned out to act as a baths on this occasion.

The event was deemed to be the most successful ever held in New Zealand according to some.  Competitors for the carnival came from as far away as Auckland and Dunedin and the spectator attendance topped two thousand.

David Thomas a leading horse owner in the district stepped in to give his encouragement to all sports during the mid 1890s.  It was I believe David’s work that led to the revival of the cricket and football clubs Amateur athletics owes much to David for the outstanding support he gave it and even though his build would have better qualified him as a Sumo wrestler he actually trained many athletes to New Zealand and International level.

It was again most probably the encouragement David Thomas gave all Ashburton sport that saw it grow to the extent that in 1907 or thereabouts a grandstand was erected in the Ashburton Domain.

Certainly the feature of this building was the two spires located at either end and while these had not practical use they did however tend to form a delightful part of the overall architectural design.

My sketch tries to emulate that first building although destroyed by fire it no doubt played an important role in the development of our sporting heritage.