It's hoped a million-dollars’ worth of stabilisation work will start shortly on Dunedin's second-oldest castle. Construction on Cargill's Castle began in 1875, a few years after the city's perhaps better-known castle, Larnach, was completed.
It was gutted by fire in 1892, rebuilt, had a couple of decades as a restaurant and cabaret in the 30s and 40s and eventually fell into a state of disrepair.
The Trust managing it is hopeful, with the planned stabilisation and strengthening work, it'll allow visitors to return to the site - to be enjoyed as a ruin.
Photo: Cargill's Castle Trust
Cargill's Castle Trust member, Naomi Woods, says the trust rescued the castle from demolition in 1997.
“Part of it was already demolished when we got it and we rescued it because we knew it was a beloved icon of Dunedin and everybody has their own memories and we want to make sure people can keep coming and visiting it.”
Woods says that, unfortunately, they’ve had to divert a lot of money from the fundraising to securing the castle because of people accessing it.
“It’s very unsafe and it gets more and more unsafe every day. It’s too much of a drawcard for people, they’ll keep finding ways to get in.”
The trust plans to install steel frames to make the ruins more secure so that people can visit without risk.
“It’s unreasonable to expect we could get it restored anyway but keeping it as a ruin will allow people to come and experience it the way they want.”
She says construction began on the castle in 1875 and was finished in 1877 and it was made for Edward Cargill, a very wealthy businessman in early colonial Dunedin.
“Him and his brothers were incredibly well-known socialites and so he had this retreat built on the cliffs, it was originally called the cliffs. He built it as a family home.”
The architect, Francis Peter, built the castle and many other concrete structures around Dunedin which are still standing and occupied.
“He actually ends up marrying Edward Cargill’s daughters and they ended up living in the castle for a while as their family home.”
One of Peter’s great arguments for building with concrete is that it would be completely fire-proof which was obviously untrue given the castle suffered a major fire in 1892 and was completely gutted.
“It was really not in good shape afterwards, but they rebuilt and did it back up.”
Photo: Cargill's Castle Trust
