By Roselyn Fauth
c.1910. Originally a Temperance Hotel, it was built close to the Railway station on the corner of George and Cains Terrace. The front right hand side of the postcard reads: 'This popular Private Hotel is close to the Railway Station and affords excellent accommodation for travellers and tourists. Tariff moderate. Letters and telegrams promptly attended to. Werry's Private Hotel, Timaru. (M. Werry, Proprietress)'. Muir & Moodie (Firm), Werry's Hotel, Timaru, N.Z. (c.1910). Hocken Digital Collections, accessed 17/04/2025, https://hocken.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/52777. No known copyright or other restrictions on use exist in this image. Permission to use this item for any purpose, including publishing, is not required from the Hocken under these conditions of use. Hotel’ is a New Zealand euphemism for a liquor establishment dating back to the days when the clamour for Prohibition was strong, a clamour mixed in with prejudice against the allegedly hard-drinking Catholic Irish. Things didn’t go quite as far as as countries like the USA, but even so, from World War One until 1967, New Zealand’s public bars had to close at 6 pm, which didn’t leave much time for drinking if you got off work at 5. Hotel guests were allowed to go on imbibing till late in the hotel’s private bar, along with anyone else who might be mistaken for a hotel guest. Many bars added a storey or two and became hotels. These new hotels also gained ultra-respectable names such as the Dominion, the Royal George, the Naval and Family, the Edinburgh Castle, and so on.
This Timaru corner links the Quinn family, the railway, fire, hotel life and buried coastal history
I started looking at Quinn’s Corner because of the building... That was the sensible plan... Look at the old façade. Check the heritage record. Work out who designed it. See how it fitted into lower George Street and Cains Terrace. Write a tidy little story about an 1886 commercial building in Timaru. Of course, Timaru buildings rarely behave that neatly.
Before long, this one had pulled me from an Irish family to Gabriel’s Gully, from Makikihi farms to a temperance hotel near the railway station, from carved Oamaru stone to whale bones under the foundations. It is one of those corners that looks ordinary if you are in a hurry, but becomes wonderfully complicated as soon as you stop and ask, “Why here?”
The building stands at 1 Cains Terrace and 9 George Street, where Timaru’s railway, port and CBD once met
The former Quinn’s Buildings, later Werry’s Hotel and then the Windsor, still stands at 1 Cains Terrace and 9 George Street. It sits in that lower town pocket where the railway, port, old landing service area and central business district all once rubbed shoulders.
Today it is officially recognised as a Timaru heritage place. The Timaru District Council heritage record identifies it as an 1886 building, designed by Maurice de H. Duval and built by Jones & Palliser in a Victorian commercial classicism style. It is listed in the district heritage schedule as HHI 37, Category B, and is also linked to Heritage New Zealand List No. 3153 as a Category 2 historic place. That is the official frame, but I think the spine of the story is the Quinn family.
Nicholas and William Quinn were Irish immigrant brothers who became part of South Canterbury’s business story
The Quinn brothers connected with this corner were Nicholas Quinn and William Quinn.
They were Irish immigrants from the north of Ireland, and William Quinn’s 1914 obituary gives us one of the best threads to follow. It says William and Nicholas came to New Zealand a little over fifty years earlier, then went to Gabriel’s Gully in Otago. One brother mined and the other kept store.
Frustratingly, the obituary does not say which brother did which.
That is exactly the sort of missing detail that makes local history both maddening and addictive. You get just enough of the story to see the shape of it, but not quite enough to close the file.
Gabriel’s Gully taught the Quinns that opportunity was not only in gold, but in supplying people chasing it
The pattern is clear. The Quinns were practical, mobile and opportunistic in the best pioneer sense of the word. They understood that money could be made not only by finding gold, but by supplying the people trying to find it.
That matters, because when they later appear in South Canterbury, they are not just farmers or storekeepers or businessmen. They are people who had already learned how to read opportunity.
After the goldfields, the Quinns built a wider South Canterbury footprint through Makikihi, farming, brickmaking and Waimate enterprise
After the goldfields, the brothers shifted into South Canterbury and took up farming at Makikihi. William Quinn became known as a substantial employer through farming and brickmaking.
Heritage New Zealand’s record for Quinn’s Homestead at Makikihi identifies him as an Irish-born immigrant entrepreneur whose work ranged across farming and brickmaking. He was also credited with building Quinn’s Arcade in Waimate.
So Quinn’s Corner in Timaru was not an isolated little business venture. It was one point in a much wider Quinn map.
North of Ireland. Gabriel’s Gully. Makikihi. Timaru. Waimate... That is already a journey.
Side quest: find out which Quinn brother mined and which brother kept store at Gabriel’s Gully
I would love to know which brother mined and which brother kept store at Gabriel’s Gully. Goldfields records, Otago newspaper advertisements, miners’ rights or early store notices might answer that. It would be a small detail, but it would sharpen the whole beginning of the story... oh well a history hunt lead to follow through for another day.
By 1875, this Timaru site already had an earlier building before Quinn’s 1886 building existed
The building we see today dates from 1886, but the site was already active before then. The Council heritage record says an earlier building stood there by 1875. That makes sense when you look at the location.
This was useful ground. Lower George Street and Cains Terrace were close to the railway station, the port and landing service area, and the commercial life of town. In the nineteenth century, those things were not just nearby features. They were the reason the corner worked.
Produce, people, meals, messages, money, luggage, gossip and goods all moved through this part of Timaru. A corner like this did not need to be glamorous. It needed to be handy, and it was.
June 1881: the Quinn brothers began business here as Timaru produce merchants
In June 1881, the Quinn brothers began business on the corner as produce merchants. This is the moment the place starts to become Quinn’s Corner. Nicholas and William were associated with Makikihi, but their Timaru store gave them a town base. A partnership notice from 1883 refers to Nicholas and William Quinn, of Makikihi, settling accounts through “their Store, Timaru”.
The phrase “their Store, Timaru” shows the Quinns connected town and country business
That little phrase is gold. It tells us the Timaru store was not a vague side note. It was part of their business identity. It also reminds us how closely town and country depended on each other. Makikihi farming and enterprise needed Timaru’s railway, port, shops and customers. Timaru needed the produce, labour, capital and confidence of the surrounding district. The Quinns sat across both worlds.
Side quest: work out what the Quinn brothers actually sold through their Timaru produce business
The phrase “their Store, Timaru” makes me wonder exactly how the Quinns’ produce business operated. What were they buying and selling? Grain? Potatoes? Animal feed? Farm supplies? Were they acting as merchants, agents, or both? Advertisements and account notices in Papers Past may help build a clearer picture.
August 1882: fire badly damaged the earlier Quinn premises and changed the future of the corner
Then, in August 1882, fire badly damaged the earlier Quinn premises.
This is one of those moments where the story of one building becomes part of a bigger town pattern. Fire was one of the great forces shaping nineteenth century streets. Timber buildings, lamps, cooking fires, stables, workshops and closely packed commercial premises made towns vulnerable.
A fire could change a business, a family’s finances, a streetscape and, sometimes, a town’s building habits.
The Quinn premises were repaired for temporary use in late 1884. Tenders for a new building were called in 1884, but the replacement was delayed until 1886.
That delay interests me. It reminds us that heritage buildings were never inevitable. Someone had to make the decision to rebuild. Someone had to commit the money. Someone had to choose an architect, appoint builders, source materials and wait.
The present building was not just a replacement after a fire. It was a decision to make that corner more permanent.
Side quest: map Timaru fires to see how they shaped the town’s brick and plaster buildings
Fire deserves its own Timaru story... how many of our brick and plaster commercial buildings owe their existence, directly or indirectly, to earlier fires? A map of nineteenth century Timaru fires would probably tell us a lot about why the town looks the way it does.
In 1886, Maurice de H. Duval designed the present Quinn’s Buildings to look solid, ordered and permanent. The present Quinn’s Buildings were completed in 1886. The architect was Maurice de H. Duval, and the builders were Jones & Palliser. The Council heritage record describes the building as Victorian commercial classicism.
That sounds a bit grand, but in plain terms it means the building was designed to look orderly, confident and respectable. It was commercial architecture with manners.
The upper floors still show the 1886 building’s Victorian commercial classicism.
Once you stop looking only at the modernised ground floor, the upper levels still have plenty to say.
The building has three storeys and a slightly irregular rectangular footprint. The George Street and Cains Terrace frontages include grouped and paired windows. The first floor has round-headed windows, while the second floor has square-headed windows. There is a bracketed cornice, a solid parapet and engaged columns with decorative stonework.
The materials tell a South Canterbury story through brick, Timaru bluestone and Oamaru stone
The materials are wonderfully local and regional: brick, cement plaster, Timaru bluestone, Oamaru stone, concrete foundations and corrugated iron.
One of my favourite details is the carving. The carved Oamaru stone capitals on the bluestone columns were reportedly done by Mr Godfrey of Dunedin, from the same carving family associated with Larnach Castle.
That gives this Timaru commercial building a small but lovely connection to a wider South Island craft story.
Whale bones found under the foundations connect Quinn’s Corner to Timaru’s older coastal landscape, reportedly found when the foundations for the present building were dug. Suddenly the corner is not only about the Quinns, Victorian commerce and Duval’s architecture. It also touches Timaru’s older coastal landscape, its whaling history, its shifting shoreline and the layers beneath the town.
There is the building you can see... then there is the place underneath it.
Side quest: investigate whether the whale bones relate to whaling, shoreline change, fill material or older coastal activity
The whale bones are begging for more research.
Were they from natural remains, butchery, whaling activity, fill material, or something else? Could they relate to the old shoreline or nearby whaling-era activity?
This could connect Quinn’s Corner back to Caroline Bay, the landing service, early coastal industry and the stories under Timaru’s streets.
J. O’Dowd, baker and confectioner, reminds us that Quinn’s Buildings were part of ordinary daily life
One early occupant of the 1886 building was J. O’Dowd, baker and confectioner.
I like this detail because it brings the building back to ordinary life. Heritage reports can make buildings sound still and formal. A baker changes that. Suddenly there is heat, smell, sugar, flour, early mornings and people coming in for something practical.
The building was not experienced by nineteenth century Timaru as “heritage”. It was a place to buy things, settle accounts, eat, work, wait and move on. That is easy to forget.
By the 1890s, the building shifted from Quinn family commerce to Werry’s railway-side temperance hotel
By the 1890s, the building had entered its hotel chapter. In 1894, the Werrys moved their temperance hotel into Quinn’s Buildings. The source notes refer to Maurice and Mary Werry in the timeline, although there is a naming inconsistency elsewhere that I would still like to check against the original newspaper references. For now, Mary Werry is the person I most want to keep in view.
Mary Werry’s refreshment rooms and hotel supervision show women’s work at the centre of the building’s story
Mary had refreshment and dining rooms in the Quinn premises before the hotel story fully developed, and later advertising emphasised her personal supervision of the business. She was not just attached to the hotel by name. Her management was part of its reputation.
Werry’s Hotel worked because it was close to the railway station and served travellers, meals and accommodation. Advertisements promoted the hotel as only a minute’s walk from the railway station, and the building was heading towards more than forty rooms.
By 1910, Mary Werry was still advertising superior accommodation for travellers within one hundred yards of the railway station, with luncheon available too.
That “one minute from the railway station” line tells us this was intended as a traveller’s building. Commercial travellers, country visitors, families, railway passengers and people doing business in town all needed somewhere convenient to eat and sleep.
A temperance hotel offered accommodation without the public bar culture attached to many hotels of the period. The building had changed from produce and retail into hospitality, but the logic of the site was the same. It still served movement. People arrived. People ate. People stayed the night. People caught trains. The building kept working.
Side quest: tell Mary Werry’s story as a Timaru women’s business history
What did it mean to run or supervise a temperance hotel in Timaru? Who stayed there? How did it compare with licensed hotels? Were women travellers, families or commercial travellers part of its target market? In 1902, Nicholas and William Quinn were still shaping Makikihi through church, land, bricks and community giving. While the Timaru building became closely associated with Werry’s Hotel, the Quinn family story continued at Makikihi.
In 1902, the New Zealand Tablet reported that Nicholas Quinn donated five acres of land and £200 towards a new Catholic church at Makikihi. The report described his generosity as something already well known locally.
William Quinn contributed bricks and later made another substantial donation towards the cathedral fund. The Quinn, Meehan and Makikihi Catholic names suggest a wider South Canterbury network worth untangling.
An address to Bishop Grimes was signed on behalf of Makikihi Catholics by Nicholas Quinn, William Quinn, James Meehan and Patrick Quinn.
That one cluster of names opens another door. The Quinns were not just business people. They were part of Catholic community life, land development, farming, brickmaking and local giving.
The mention of James Meehan is interesting too, because the Meehans later acquired the former Quinn building in Timaru in the early 1930s. That does not prove a direct link. It may simply show overlapping South Canterbury Catholic and business circles. But it is worth noticing.
Side quest: check whether the Quinns, Meehans and Makikihi Catholic community were linked by family, business or faith
The Quinn, Meehan and Makikihi Catholic connections need careful untangling.
Church records, land records, family notices and probate files might show whether these were simply community links or part of a closer business and family network.
In 1909, Mrs Werry’s personal supervision was advertised as part of the hotel’s reputation. In 1909, advertising noted that Mrs Werry would continue to personally supervise the hotel. That phrase is small, but it is valuable. It gives Mary Werry agency. It suggests that her oversight mattered to the business and to its customers.
Then, on Christmas Eve in 1913, the hotel had a dramatic scare. A bedroom curtain caught fire, and half-dressed boarders rushed into the corridors before the flames were put out. A full hotel. Christmas Eve. A curtain catches. Smoke. Alarm. Boarders scrambling out in whatever they were wearing. Then relief. For a moment, the old building stops being a façade and becomes a place full of people.
The 1913 hotel fire echoes the 1882 Quinn fire, but on a smaller and more human scale, and echoes the 1882 fire that damaged the earlier Quinn premises.
Side quest: collect Timaru hotel fire scares and near misses as a hidden history of accommodation buildings
The 1913 Christmas Eve fire could be paired with other hotel incidents in Timaru. Hotels were full of lamps, curtains, kitchens, guests and late nights. There may be a whole hidden history of small fires, scares and near misses.
In 1914, William Quinn’s death closed one chapter but left the Quinn name attached to the corner. By then, the Timaru building still carried the Quinn name, but the corner had already moved into other hands and other uses. That is one of the odd things about place names. They can outlive the business, the people and even the original purpose.
William’s obituary pulled together a long life: north of Ireland origins, arrival with Nicholas, Gabriel’s Gully, South Canterbury farming, brickmaking and enterprise.
Quinn’s Corner is only one piece of that life, but it gives us a physical place to stand while we think about the wider story.
By about 1925, Werry’s Hotel had become the Windsor and the building gained another identity
The building had already collected several identities. Quinn’s Buildings. Werry’s Hotel. The Windsor.
Each name belongs to a different phase. Quinn’s Buildings points to produce, Makikihi enterprise and the 1886 rebuild. Werry’s Hotel points to railway travellers, temperance accommodation and Mary Werry’s management. The Windsor points to the building’s continued role in a changing twentieth century town.
Old buildings do not just gather dust. The good ones gather names.
In the early 1930s, the Meehans acquired the building. In 1935, it passed to the Commercial Bank of Australia, which carried out alterations.
This part is less romantic, but it matters. A bank needs different spaces from a hotel. Offices need different spaces from bedrooms. Shops need different spaces from dining rooms. Every new use changes the building a little. From one angle, that looks like loss. From another, it is the reason the building survived.
Quinn’s Corner stayed useful. In 1969, the ground floor was modernised. The façade was painted, and at some unknown stage parapet ornaments disappeared.
This is probably why many people walk past without noticing the building properly. Modernised ground floors can confuse the eye. We look at street level, see later changes, and miss the older building above.
With Quinn’s Corner, the trick is simple.
Look up.
The upper storeys still carry the older rhythm: the windows, the scale, the corner presence, the classical detail, the sense of an 1880s commercial building trying to look solid and permanent.
The 1969 changes are part of the story too. They tell us about a time when older commercial buildings were often updated to look more modern, more practical or more retail friendly.
We might not always love the result now, but those alterations are evidence of another generation’s priorities.
A working heritage building is rarely one pure thing.
From 2025 to 2026, Quinn’s Corner was still listed, still standing and still in mixed use. Recent commercial marketing in 2025 described the property as a mixed-use central Timaru building, with ground-floor commercial space, first-floor offices and an upper apartment.
The 2026 district heritage schedule still lists it as HHI 37.
It has been a produce merchant’s corner, a place with a baker and confectioner, refreshment rooms, a temperance hotel, the Windsor, a bank, real estate offices and mixed commercial use.
It has changed because Timaru changed.
That is not a failure of heritage.
That is how many heritage buildings survive.
Why Quinn’s Corner matters: one address links migration, farming, fire, architecture, women’s work, rail travel and coastal memory
Quinn’s Corner matters because it gathers so many Timaru stories into one place.
Through Nicholas and William Quinn, it connects to Irish migration, Gabriel’s Gully, Makikihi farming, brickmaking, Catholic community life, Waimate enterprise and Timaru trade.
Through the 1882 fire and 1886 rebuild, it shows the town moving from more vulnerable early premises towards more permanent commercial architecture.
Through Maurice de H. Duval, Jones & Palliser, Timaru bluestone, Oamaru stone and the Godfrey carving detail, it connects architecture with local and regional materials.
Through Mary Werry, it opens up a story of women’s work, railway travellers, dining rooms, temperance accommodation and hotel management.
Through the later Meehan, bank, real estate and mixed-use chapters, it shows a building staying alive by adapting.
And through the whale bones reportedly found in the foundations, it reminds us that Timaru’s built history sits over older coastal stories.
The Quinns are the spine, but the side quests are what make the building come alive.
What to notice today: stand at 1 Cains Terrace and 9 George Street, and look up, pause for a moment.
Think of the Quinn brothers arriving from the north of Ireland, trying their luck at Gabriel’s Gully, building their lives at Makikihi, and opening a produce store in Timaru.
Think of the 1882 fire, the 1886 rebuild, the baker, the Werrys, the railway travellers, the Christmas Eve fright, the bank alterations, the modernised frontage and the building still being used today.
And then think about the whale bones under the foundations.
Because that is why I love learning about our built history, we can start with one corner looking it over to find clues to our past.
Crowds gather to watch the parade, led by a horse-drawn carriage on a street lined with commercial buildings, Timaru, to celebrate the coronation of George V. The Press (Newspaper) :Negatives. Ref: 1/1-008620-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/29942057
Timaru sits at the southern end of the Canterbury Plains and the sweeping coastline of the Canterbury Bight. Its strategic location led the town’s Victorian-era colonists to build an artificial harbour. Though it had been a stoney shore before the harbour was built, Caroline Bay soon built out with sand and became a shallow city beach. Caroline Bay soon became a beach resort, marketed as the Riviera of the South Island. The alps and mountains behind the town, snow-capped in winter, are a stunning backdrop to our coastal views from the Bay Hill.
Werry's Private Guest hotel is part of the central business districts heritage buildings that include special Bluestone buildings. Timaru lies on rolling terrain, a product of the lava that flowed here around 2.5 million years ago from near Waipouri Mt Horrible to what is now the sea. The lava flowed like fingers, coolled to basalt and quarried as the local building material called ‘bluestone’. This bluestone was used to build the colonial town.
The Timaru Landing Services building, St Mary’s Anglican Church, Former Union Bank are some of several magnificent bluestone buildings that stand strong in Timaru’s built heritage cityscape.
Timaru is still a working port, and the city has evolved around it as a hub for exchange. The town’s old church spires and landmark public buildings tend to be the tallest features on the skyline. As well as our older heritage buildings, the Central business district includes modern buildings as well including the stunning public library by notable modern architects Warren and Mahoney, of Christchurch. The library opened in 1979.
1958 Stafford Street, Timaru. New Zealand Free Lance : Photographic prints and negatives. Ref: PAColl-8983-52. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22445605