Fragile vessels 6

I'm interested in edge or marginal places - physical spaces that embody zones of transition between different eras, different mindsets, and different ways of life.

This is a stone wall at the site of "The Pines" homestead in Jubilee Park, Hutt Valley. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, wealthy Wellingtonians built large family houses along this strip of land. The houses featured landscaped gardens, orchards and tennis courts.

After the Second World War the Government took the land for public works. This involved widening the Western Hutt Road to facilitate car transport and the opening up of new areas for suburban sprawl. The houses were demolished but in the end the land wasn't used.

Now the land is covered in thick forest and undergrowth and grassy clearings. Here and there you come across stone walls, rock steps, fruit trees and rhododendrons. At the site of the Longmynd homestead, the blue concrete steps of a swimming pool can be glimpsed in the undergrowth.