“We hope that the Clarke family would be so pleased with the steps taken to preserve and care for their home and story.
“We plan to engage with descendants in the next phase of telling the story of the family, home and farm so our community and visitors can celebrate this part of our heritage.”
The colonial home was built in 1886 by Dr Alexander Clarke, who named it Glorat after a 19th-century mansion in his home country, Scotland. Having visited his brothers in New Zealand as a ship’s doctor, he too decided to migrate with wife Mary and their three sons William, James and Alexander.
They purchased 94ha of land in Maunu and Glorat was built by carpenter Richard Keyte.
As well as the family home, it served as a doctor’s surgery. James and wife Mabel took over Glorat in 1902 with their four children and it is said their time on the farm was a social one, with regular tennis parties, garden parties and dances.
The former doctor’s surgery at the front of the house. Photo / Jodi Bryant
Their son Basil inherited the farm and ran it until 1972, when he handed over the keys to Northland Regional Museum Trust.
Included in the sale was the guarantee that Basil would retain around 7ha for his own use during his lifetime, and he lived in the back of the homestead with Glorat’s housekeeper of 54 years, Myra Carter.
As he aged and the garden became overgrown, students from Maunu School across the road would refer to Glorat as “the haunted house”. After his death in 1983, the entire home was open to the public for viewing with its original antique furnishings and artefacts collected by the family.
Today, the Grade 2 Heritage New Zealand-listed building still stands proud, looking out towards Mt Manaia. And, thanks to the revamp, it’s looking sharper than ever.
Basil Clarke’s room. Photo / Jodi Bryant
The project began in 2019 with the removal and storage of all the items accrued from generations of the Clarke family. This was carried out by project manager Gael Ramsey and a small team of volunteers, who meticulously photographed and catalogued each item, polishing and packing it away for storage.
“It’s obviously a house full of treasures,” Gael said at the time. “I think different generations of the same family living here have added to the collection, not removing anything over the years. I opened a little drawer and there were some decorations that had been on a cake for a celebration of some sort.”
The homestead was then repiled, scaffolded and wrapped, reroofed and fitted with new guttering and spouting fitting the heritage style of its era. This work was carried out by Kerr Construction, the builders recommended by Heritage Northland.
Errol Pohe. Photo / NZME
The team of three was led by foreman Errol Pohe, who said they had been gaining an education and appreciation for 1880s craftsmanship and the high-quality materials while restoring one of Whangārei’s most historic buildings.
“It’s quite extraordinary the amount of effort that must have gone into building this place,” Errol said. “It must have been a very slow and precise process. It’s been like a giant jigsaw puzzle undoing it all and putting it back together.”
Heritage New Zealand’s Bill Edwards said Glorat’s quality construction, with all the added trimmings, was indicative of wealth.
“Glorat is an extremely good example of a late 19th-century house. The finest materials have been used in its building and the timbers are from the now rare and endangered, once extensive Northland kauri forests. The selection of cladding [ship lap], joinery and external ornamentation are of the highest quality and grade.”
Basil Clarke handing over the keys to Glorat in 1972.
This was Pohe’s third project at the Kiwi North site, having previously carried out restoration work on the heritage-classed chapel and outbuildings, and he had developed an empathy for the place.
He said that without today’s power tools and using the likes of hand-forged nails, he imagined the initial build would have taken at least double the amount of time it would today.
He and the team had also made some interesting discoveries: while crawling under the house during the repiling process, they had discovered an assortment of bones and a tooth.
“There was one that was quite big and it looked like a [humerus]. I was holding it up to my arm measuring it. That kind of stopped us in our tracks for a while. I was thinking, this used to be a doctor’s surgery …” he said with a grin.
As it turned out, the bones belonged to animals, likely dragged under the house by various owners’ pets.
A string quartet played at the celebration. Photo / Jodi Bryant
The next stage of the refit was rewiring and installation of a security system, the installation of a modern kitchen usable for future event catering, new kitchen flooring, painting all the ceilings, and renewal of the scrim and wallpaper throughout the house. The latter task involved engaging a replacement contractor after the first one found the task too challenging – McNabb Decorators came on board.
“They advised that the old scrim was deteriorated to such an extent that new scrim would need to be installed before they could wallpaper. The scrim is a heritage alternative to Batts and Gib board,” says Brittany.
“The team from McNabb’s was fascinated to work on this project as it was such a rare opportunity. Some of the older crew members were familiar with scrim, while some of the younger ones and especially the apprentices, had never come across it before. It was a great learning opportunity for the crew.”
The change in contractors and Covid caused a delay in the project, along with a budget blowout from the original estimated $500,000.
The homestead regularly played host to tea parties.
Says Brittany: “The project met many challenges, as is common with heritage-grade work. For example, finding a source to replace the broken pane of patterned glass for the front door – we went across New Zealand searching for suppliers and ended up getting the original ‘aster’ print restored by a local signwriter in the end – and signed off by Heritage New Zealand. Covid era also provided delays and with delays came price increases blowing some elements of the project higher. It is also challenging to find specialty tradesmen for specific heritage-grade works.”
Governed by the Whangārei Museum and Heritage Trust, Kiwi North used funding from Whangārei District Council, Lotteries Environment and Heritage, Foundation North, Sir John Logan Campbell Estate and Stout Trust. She says with remaining tasks to be complete, it is hard to put a final figure on the project.
“We need to seek further funding for stage three of the Glorat project for interpretations and tour guide recruitment and training.
“The whole restoration project has really raised the standard for how we care for and display the Clarke archives. We want to ensure this standard of care can continue into the next phase. We hope to open Glorat for guided tours in 2026. We also need to make some changes to the current fire system so it complies with building consent.”
The removal of glass viewing dividers, used to keep distance between spectators and displays, will assist with airflow, keeping humidity under control and enabling longevity. Visitors will now be able to enter the rooms supervised. Guided tours will also include the outhouses and gravesites.
With all items returned to their original nooks and crannies within the house, visitors can expect to see the likes of the Bible that Alexander and Mary were gifted on their wedding day, Basil’s drum kit and his lifetime membership for the Whangārei Museum.
Christine Wernham (nee Clarke) standing in front of where the tennis courts once were. Photo / Jodi Bryant
Fittingly, for her dedication to the project, Gael was awarded a lifetime membership at the recent project completion celebration and was presented with a certificate designed to replicate Basil’s.
“To me, it was about restoring the pride – not just of the house but for Whangārei,” says Gael.
‘That’s all Basil would have wanted’
For Christine Wernham (nee Clarke), it was like stepping back into her childhood while wandering through the preserved memories of her youthful stomping ground.
She spent many a day and night running around outside and having sleepovers at “Uncle Basil and Aunty Myra’s”.
Christine remembers having many family meals around this oak table. Photo / Jodi Bryant
“I remember running around the gardens, eating walnuts and playing tennis,” she recalls, pointing out the area where it’s still clear to see was once a tennis court. “We used to hang around when we knew they’d finished hay baling and were about to have morning tea,” she says with a laugh.
Christine’s father was Neville, Basil’s brother, who was the last Clarke descendant to live in the homestead.
“He was a dear old thing,” says Christine. “We would stay here when Mum and Dad were going to dances and Aunty Myra would give us a Swiss biscuit and a hot lemon drink from the garden.”
Now living in Auckland, Christine and her husband returned to Whangārei to attend the celebration for the Glorat project completion and it was with mounting excitement that she went through the newly renovated rooms.
Christine and Dean point out their family members. Photo / Jodi Bryant
“Gosh, we had many a family dinner at this table,” she reminisced, patting the large oak table fondly.
“There used to be a crystal bowl here,” she points to a dresser, “with glucose lollies in it and a teaspoon and we used to try and sneak one without Aunty Myra hearing the clink sound”.
Unbeknown to Christine until it was later pointed out, in the same room were distant relatives, Dean Alexander Clark with daughter Alicia and niece Katie. Dean is also a descendant although, somewhere along the line, the “e” was dropped from the surname.
“I’d never been here before,” says Dean of the homestead.
“I didn’t even know this existed,” says Katie, before pulling out her phone and looking up the family tree to see how they were related.
“It looks like Alexander is our second-grand-great uncle …”
Dean: “We didn’t actually know the relevance of the name Alexander but the name has ended up being carried down the line of males in our family with my son Jacob Alexander.”
“And we told him, if he has a son, his middle name has to be Alexander,” says Christine, who wasn’t aware the house had once gained a haunted reputation from kids at the nearby school.
“Although I do remember having to go outside to the bathroom and we were terrified because the bamboo would creak.”
Of Basil’s thoughts of the family’s lifestyle being preserved, Christine says: “That’s all Basil would have wanted.”