South Island Methodist Orphanage and Children’s Home

The South Island Methodist Orphanage and Children’s Home was opened in April 1914 on Chapel Street with 6 children residing there. It was built to hold 30 children but was expanded to be able to take 60 children. I did find an article which said that was set up in an existing house on the property. Most articles were about donations to the home and I hope that they liked eggs and jam. In 1934 the new Art Deco looking building was opened at 91 Harewood Rd. It sat on a site of 12 acres. At the jubilee in 1964 a tree was planted and Mrs J Hodgson who was one of the first girls in the home cut the jubilee cake.

The home went under several names in the media and was known as Papanui Children’s Home and Papanui Orphanage. In 1968 it was purposed to built flats for the elderly at the site being used by the Wesley Geriatric Home. From this article I got the impression that there was still a children’s home at the property and that the rooms were reconfigured into family units. The children’s home was closed in 1987 and in 1991 The Sandcastle Children’s and Family Unit was opened. Sadly this didn’t long as it was destroyed in an arson attack in 1992. This information was on a website about Methodist Homes and I couldn’t find any news articles about it. In 1996 the buildings were demolished and the Wesley Retirement Village to be built. In 2015 the Wesley Home was demolished and a new one built.

I managed to find one photo of one of the buildings that I was allowed to download. I found a second photo but it wasn’t in a format that I could download. The second photo was amazing as there were three huge Art Deco looking building on a massive section of land. A lovely set of what looked like ironwork gates.