Dunedin celebrates its history

1865 DUNEDIN is a heritage festival to celebrate the 150 years of buildings since Dunedin became a city.

The first European immigrants to Dunedin came from Scotland in 1848. The name Dunedin is an older version of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Dunedin was a small town until the gold rush in the 1860s. After gold was discovered in Central Otago in 1861, thousands of miners arrived in Dunedin, most of them from Scotland. Dunedin became the largest city in the South Island and looked likely to be the main city in New Zealand at that time.

Banks were built. Some fine public buildings and houses were built. Land was reclaimed from the sea as there was very little flat land around the harbour. Dunedin became the first city in New Zealand to have a mayor and city council. It had the first newspaper in New Zealand, the first university, the first tram, and the first street lights – they were gas lights.

This weekend 64 public and private buildings from the 19th century are open to the public. There are guided tours, an exhibition, a theatre performance and a walk around the original shoreline.

Vocabulary

• heritage – important buildings from history, things we value from the past
• version – a different form from an earlier one
• reclaimed land – making new land by throwing heavy material like concrete into the sea
• guided tours – a guide shows people around the building
• original shoreline – where the sea met the land in 1846
• original – the first one (the shoreline changed as more land was reclaimed in 1865 and 1889)

Questions

1. Why did Dunedin need banks in the 1860s?
2. Why were many of the buildings large and beautiful?

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