It’s quite a clocktower, that one in Waipawa.
The striking white column, some 15 metres tall, is what many will remember from their drive through the otherwise (with the utmost respect) fairly unremarkable Hawke’s Bay town.
With its small centre and around 2300 residents, Waipawa’s not quite small enough to be a “blink, and you’ll miss it” batch of buildings, but it’s not far off it. That makes this relatively huge structure all the more remarkable.
The thing is, it’s a bit more than a tower with a clock in it – it’s the town’s war memorial.
READ MORE:
* Lounge area for base of Carterton’s clock tower
* Meet one of New Zealand’s oldest inland towns: Waipawa
* Timeout for heritage clock as watchmaker inspects old brass cogs
It was late 1917 when the grieving parents, widows, fiancées, children and siblings of the 86 local men killed in WWI decided their loss should be marked somehow.
The Waipawa clock tower is probably the Hawke’s Bay town’s most striking feature.
They considered building memorial swimming baths, a memorial road, or an arch of triumph, but settled, through a public poll, on a town clock.
It took several years and a lot of fundraising to amass the required £1743 that led, on July 21, 1922, to the unveiling of the memorial by Governor-General Viscount John Jellicoe.
The clock itself, shipped from England along with its five accompanying bells, still runs today. For the past century various “clock controllers” have had the task of winding the clock mechanism every seventh day.
Marty Sharpe/Stuff
Waipawa historian Ken Hamlin with the clocktower.
This Saturday the town is marking the clock tower’s centenary with a ceremony featuring local MPs, councillors and RSA members, to be followed by an RNZAF flyover.
State Highway 2 will be closed and diversions put in place for the occasion.
Local historian Ken Hamlin said it might seem like rather a lot of fuss to make over a clock tower to some people, “but this is quite a big deal for us”.
The ceremony will be a form of remembrance for those who fell in both World Wars (a plaque with the names of the 27 locals who died in WWII was added to the memorial in 1954), but also to those who took it upon themselves to ensure the memorial was built.
Marty Sharpe/Stuff
The WWII Roll of Honour was added to the memorial in 1954.
“It can be easy to forget, sometimes, these things. But it’s important we don’t forget, I think, and important that occasions like this are commemorated. It’s only once in a hundred years, after all,” Hamlin said.
Saturday’s ceremony begins at 2.30pm at the Central Hawke’s Bay Municipal Theatre, followed by a walk to the clocktower, where there will be a rededication and plaque unveiling prior to the flyover at 3.50pm.
التعليقات