Christ's College Big School

Christ's College Big School is a building of Christ's College in Christchurch, New Zealand. It is registered as a Category I heritage building with Heritage New Zealand.

For the BBC television show, see Big School (TV series).

Christ's College Big School
Earthquake repairs carried out at Big School
Location within the Christchurch Central City
General information
TypeSchool building, now used as a library
Architectural styleGothic
LocationChrist's College, Christchurch Central City
Address33 Rolleston Avenue
Town or cityChristchurch
CountryNew Zealand
Coordinates43°31′49″S 172°37′34″E
Completed1863
Renovated1970; 1989
OwnerChrist's College
Design and construction
ArchitectJames FitzGerald
Renovating team
ArchitectMiles Warren
Designated7 April 1983
Reference no.48
References
"Christ's College Big School". Register of Historic Places. Heritage New Zealand.

History
Entrance of Big School

Even before the first settlers came out to Canterbury on the First Four Ships, James FitzGerald had designed what became known as Big School in 1850 back in England as part of the settlement planned by the Canterbury Association.[1] The Canterbury Provincial Council, of which FitzGerald had been the first Superintendent (1853–1857),[2] voted ₤1,000 for the construction of Big School.[3] The building was constructed in 1863 and was the school's first stone building.[4] It is the only building known to have been designed by FitzGerald.[1]

The building was remodelled in 1970 by Miles Warren, an old boy of the school. It is the oldest building in the school complex.[3] It is the oldest educational building in New Zealand in continuous use.[3] Until 1989, the building was still largely in its original condition, when it was extended towards the west by five gabled wings. Sir Miles was the architect again and he won awards for the extension.[1] The view from the school's quadrangle remained the same.[5] The building is used by the school as a library.[1]

Heritage registration

The building was registered as a heritage building by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust on 7 April 1983 with registration number 48 classified as A. With the change of the classification system, the building later became a Category I listing.[1][3]

Architecture

The design of the building is relatively simple. Prior to the 1989 extension, the plan was a rectangle. From the quadrangle, the viewer sees solid buttresses, rows of lancet windows and a steeply pitched roof.[5] The roof pitch allowed for the heavy snow falls that the Canterbury Association wrongly expected in Canterbury.[1] The pattern in the roof tiles is believed to have been added in 1896. While in use as a school, the interior was gloomy, according to a 21st century source, as the windows were whitewashed.[1]

gollark: And doesn't skip basically all the frames like that one does!
gollark: It has audio!
gollark: I have a Shrek WebM file which uses AV1 and ~~codec2~~ Opus to make an actually slightly watchable Shrek in 8MiB.
gollark: There is that one Shrek GIF floating around.
gollark: Also JPEG-XL.

See also

References
  1. "Christ's College Big School". Register of Historic Places. Heritage New Zealand. Retrieved 27 May 2012.
  2. McIntyre, W. David. "FitzGerald, James Edward 1818–1896". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Retrieved 27 May 2012.
  3. Cattell, John (1988). Historic Buildings of Canterbury and South Canterbury. Wellington: Government Printing Office Publishing. p. 8. ISBN 0-477-01329-5.
  4. "History". Christ’s College. Archived from the original on 23 May 2012. Retrieved 26 May 2012.
  5. Wilson, John (2007). City and Peninsula: The Historic Places of Christchurch and Banks Peninsula (first ed.). Christchurch: The Christchurch Civic Trust / The Akaroa Civic Trust. p. 111. ISBN 978-0-473-12239-3.
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