By Rhonda Bartle

Enter here

It was a bit of an invasion of an otherwise large, peaceful house in McLean St, Fitzroy, when five of us - Vivian and Pat King and Adrienne Tatham of the King family, and Diana Gibbons and I from Puke Ariki - stepped eagerly over the threshold and into a patch of warm wooden floor.

We'd been invited by owners Greg and Jill Miles to view some architectural relics from the grand old house that had once stood in New Plymouth's magnificent Brooklands Park.

Brooklands, a two-storied, five bedroom mansion built in 1888, had been built by well-known local businessman Newton King.

Though King had left it in his will to the New Plymouth Borough Council, along with enough money to maintain it, the money turned out to be non-existent and a potential purpose for the building could not be found.

After King's death, Brooklands was put up for tender, dismantled and sold off piece by piece.

Some of those pieces ended up in McLean Street in a house owned by Joe Gardner, manager of Masters Ltd, and built by the Boon Brothers in the late 1930s.

It has since passed through several hands to become the Miles family residence.

Well remembered

Vivian King, Newton King's grandson, has a mind for details as we stand at the bottom of a staircase which once graced the magnificent home where he lived for a year when he was nine. Though 91, his memory is sharp and clear.

"I've been here before," he says, 'while the house was being built. Boon Brothers bought most of the timber when the Brooklands house was dismantled.

"And this house was built with some of that timber, along with the State Theatre and other places."

He smiles at Jill, the owner who has generously allowed us inside. Along with the rest of us, she stands by as ancient history is revealed.

"The main things, from our point of view, are the balustrades on the staircase. They're all carved in oak leaves and acorns. It's so nice that they've been preserved."

"Yes," Jill, who has lived here for 12 years, agrees. "Luckily for us no one came in and painted them. They're very beautiful."

The architraves around two heavy doors and a window all came from Brooklands. Before we slowly ascend the stairs to see more, Vivian tells us the whole house at Brooklands was built of kauri - even behind the walls and the shingles on the roof.

He thinks it's conceivable the balustrades are kauri too, although the patina of age makes it hard to tell.

Wife Pat nods her head towards the deeply etched patterns in the wood, where each post bears an individual and different carving. "They match my chairs! Remember my chairs?"

Heads together: Newton King's granddaughter Adrienne Tatham and Puke Ariki's Curator of Archives Diana Gibbons study the woodwork: Image Puke Ariki TS2007_1158.

An author in attendance

Adrienne Tatham, another of Newton King's grandchildren and cousin to Vivian, prompts Vivian for more.

Author of the recently released Footprints of a King: Newton King's Life Story 1855 -1927, there can't be much she hasn't discovered about her forebears or their homestead, but she knows which buttons to gently push to get Vivian talking.

Vivian has no difficulty describing the rooms he roamed around in such a long ago.

"In Brooklands, when you went in through the main front door, you went through a huge area, about 30ft (9m) this way, and 35ft (10m) that way. And the staircase, which was slightly to the right, was wider than it is here, with pillars on each side.

"When it reached the first landing there was a grandfather clock standing there, and then more carvings, balustrades and more steps."

We stand at the top of the stairs, admiring the work of an anonymous master craftsman.

Though Brooklands was architecturally designed, the names of the American designer and his contractors are gone.

Joe Gardner must have acquired the panelling downstairs at the same time, Vivian says.

"Yes, I know that's original." It's a miracle, considering the fate of Brooklands, that even these relics have been preserved.

Doors into the past

Back downstairs, Jill points out a handsome pair of sliding doors, with bevelled glass squares that appear to match the timber on the staircase.

But Vivian is quite sure these were not part of his grandfather's house.

"Brooklands didn't have sliding doors, but between the sitting room and library were big folding ones," he recalls.

"They were almost never closed. My grandfather used to go through to the library every night to read the paper and wait for the car to come and take him to the Taranaki Club. The doors were always partly open.

"I think my grandmother had a very lonely life," he says. "She was expert at playing patience, whereas my grandfather played poker at the club till half-past ten every night. If he didn't leave then, she'd ring up the club and ask where he was."

Vivian's audience is enjoying his nostalgic family trip. "Can't wait to read your book, now," Diana and I say to Adrienne.

"Well, do it," she laughs.

Discovery of a double floor

Meanwhile, Vivian lays out more old images. "There was enough wood in Brooklands to build five houses, and imagine how many bricks in the chimneys! And you know, the whole ground floor was a double floor.

"When they pulled it down, they got an extra floor. The tongue and groove went both ways. I spoke with my friend from the RSA, Ted Riddick, who said it was probably to keep the draught out."

Newton King's grandson talks quietly of the stately 12ft (3.6m) stud, of going up wide steps onto the veranda, and of a single toilet that served the entire house. The bathroom, however, was huge and innovative.

An unbelievable bathroom

"The bathroom was unbelievable. It ran from here to there," he says, indicating a very big room indeed.

"What struck you when you first went in was a great wooden structure half way along, and a big plunger thing that came out of the wall.

"You climbed two or three steps, pulled the plunger and that was the plug to the bath.

"There were no visible taps, just this big spout for the water to come out. Half the bath was enclosed and on the wall was this great long control panel with two wheels and a lever in the middle.

"The wheel at the top was the hot water. The one at the bottom, cold water. The water came out at the bottom of the bath. But when you put it on another setting, it became a shower.

"The shower rose was as big as a dinner plate and inside that was a big hole and when the water came down it hit you on the head.

"When you moved the setting again, the spray stopped but all around you water squirted from every direction. Something ahead of its time."

A sorrowful ending

It's hard to fathom that a house that cost £2000 could be sold off not too many decades later for £180, with its entrails scattered to the four winds. But it happened, and probably the Depression of the 1930s was partly to blame.

When Newton King died in 1927, his wife stayed on until her own death in 1930, and though the New Plymouth Borough Council investigated possible uses for the King's bequest - home for the elderly or for unmarried mothers, or even an event's venue - they seemed to lack both the money and the imagination to save it.

Brooklands went to the highest bidder - the man who ran the bottle depot on Gill Street.

We all look at the beautiful fittings that survive in a different house.

"You're probably the only place around that's still got something original," Vivian says to Jill.