Baptist Church, corner of Federal (Chapel) and Wellesley Streets
1880s (Burton Brothers) - 2025
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1880s image: Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 4_215
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The 1880s image is a James Richardson copy of a print; the Burton Brothers original plate is presumably long lost. This Baptist church (often termed chapel) on the corner of Wellesley Street West (foreground) and modern Federal Street (then called Chapel Street) had stood here since 1858.
Below: Two details from the Burton Brothers image.
The figure on horseback above appears to be a "hill-boy" whose task it was to provide a third horse to assist horse cars (horse-drawn trams) up the steep gradient of Wellesley Street West. The tram tracks are visible in the foreground of the 1880s image. For more on this, and a photograph of a hill-boy in action, see this then-and-now treatment of another Burton Brothers picture of Wellesley Street here.
Click here for then-and-now treatments of images of the church from the 1860s, and here for an image from the 1870s or '80s. A then-and-now image pair of the scene in 1925 is here.
