Wains Hotel

This is 310 Princes Street

Originally this was Moirs Hotel and it faced Manse Street as the site of the hotel extends from Princes to Manse Street Job Wain purchased the hotel in 1864 and renamed it Wains Hotel.

Mr Wain was a man of some enterprise and standing serving on the City Council in 1867. He was also involved in railroad contracting principally building the Manuka Creek tunnel, and the permanent railroad from Clarksville to Lawrence. If you are familiar with the Manuka gorge section of SH 8 you will understand what an acheivement this is. The tunnel is now part of a walking track if you feel like a stoll next time you are passing.

Clearly this is not that original building with the structure having been erected somewhere between that time and 1900. It was clearly a prominent hotel at that time with many groups using it for their meetings including the establishement of the local branch of the Commercial Travelers Association and the initial formation meeting of the Early Settlers Association out of which came the Early Settlers Museum both of these groups are housed in other "cast in stone" buildings.

So in what I suspect was a very progresive and canny move by Mr Wain he combined the hotel with retail when he leased the ground floor to Brwon and Ewing who were a drapery business or more specifically a men's clothing and mercery, general drapery, Manchester and heavy goods, carpets and general house furnishing store.

Here is a different view of the same building from circa 1900.

You can see the name Wains Hotel but you can also see the store fronts in the areas that now house a bar and reception. Presumably entrance to the Hotel was view the central arch that now sports the red canopy with a retail shop either side.

Brown and Ewing also owned and operated from the building pictured besid the Wains on the corner of Manse and Princes Street (now demolished)
The Brown and Ewing Business was substainstial and an early history of Brown and Ewing can be found here http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-Cyc04Cycl-t1-body1-d2-d30-d13.html