Know your town

Jellicoe Street – east side
The J W McCarthy buildings were established in 1983 on sections 463 and 464 of the original Martin Plan. Mr McCarthy senior had the buildings constructed for his son John Willowby McCarthy to carry on his tailoring business. The smaller (now 33) first then the larger, more upmarket one. The shops had living quarters attached at the back with the addresses confusingly listed as the shop’s being Otaraia Road but the residences as Lower Valley Road.

John McCarthy sold the buildings to A O Considine in 1908 but carried on his business in the smaller building until 1912 when he retired to Hawkes Bay. The buildings were then sold to Fred Machell the proprietor of the Martinborough Star. In the late 1970s his son Chas gave the land and buildings to the Martinborough Council from who Angela Sears purchased the properties in 1992.

The larger building, restored in 2004 by Angela Sears, was the home of the Bank of New Zealand from early 1904 until mid 1909 with the rent being nine pounds per annum (2013 = $1, 430). The windows had a roll up metal security shutters on the outside, these shutters are still in place rolled up behind the false ceiling.

The Martinborough Star printing press was housed in the rear of the building with the front being variously used as Badland the Draper, then Dale and Grace Engineers and later their former apprentice electrician N Hudson.
A addition was built on the side by Noel Thomas in 1935 at a cost of fifty five pounds (2013 = $6,108). For a time a part of the building was used as a solicitor’s office. Much later Vern Burling’s garden centre and machine repairs business occupied the building.

On John McCarthy’s retirement Mrs H Thomas occupied the smaller shop. Her advert read: ‘Fruiterer and greengrocer opposite the Fire Bell Otaraia Road’ (the bell was on a frame where Circus cinema now stands).
Mrs Thomas also sold jams, preserves, biscuits and buttonholes for dance night at three pence each.

In 1928 the shop became the ‘Dolly Varden’ dressmakers and milliners, Misses Rendle and Rogers proprietresses. This was short lived becoming Tom Smith’s paint and wallpaper business in 1930. From 1940 the shop was Olive Madsen and her mother’s florist and plant shop, in 1950 Olive moved over the road to the former J R Wakelin’s shop.

Noreen Standish was the next tenant offering flowers, plants, photographs and a lending library. Whitby senior took over the plants and trees business in 1961 with library being bought by the Borough Council. Later the building became a Women’s rest room.
Now Angela Sears’ ‘Heritage Shop’.