Costley Training Institute (Former)

A late afternoon run today, with the sky threatening and occasionally delivering a bit of rain, which has since become almost wintry in its persistence and chill factor.

A couple of weeks ago Jesafly looking from our deck across the Grey Lynn valley towards Richmond Road wondered what was the big brick building we could see. I thought it was connected to Carlile House and today chose to look, confirming what I had thought. The road frontage is described by the Historic Places Trust as follows

The imposing two-storey brick building of a Classical-Italianate style and finished with limestone dressings was designed by Auckland architect Robert Jones Roberts (c.1832-1911) based on an 'H'-plan layout to encourage fresh air and adequate light. The completed building was said to offer more comforts and conveniences than those enjoyed by the sons of nine out of ten tradesmen in the city. A workshop and a gymnasium were also provided.

Mr Costley bequeathed one seventh of his estate, a sum of £12,150, to establish a training school, and this was used to build the Institute. The purpose of the Institute was established by a specific Act of the Legislature in 1885 as:

to select a certain number of boys and girls of ages fit to be apprenticed, being inmates of the schools established under the Industrial Schools Act, 1882, in or near the city of Auckland, and to apprentice such boys to suitable trades; in maintaining such boys at the institution until they were capable of being left to their own control; and in providing the girls with domestic service or other suitable employment.

The building was completed in 1886, and functioned in accord with its Act until it was closed in 1908 because it was no longer financially viable despite Government funding half the costs. It seems that this was in part due to "suitable" boys being boarded with families, and partly because (as reported in the Evening Post of 24 December 1908) of concerns that the class of boys received is frequently unfitted for apprenticeship to trades, and to withstand the temptations of city life.

After the training institution closed it became the Richmond Road Children's Home, run by the Church of England. After a brief period as a girls' school, it became the headquarters and training school of the Church Army, and evangelical outreach by the Church of England for more than 30 years. A brief period as a remand home for the Department of Social Welfare, was followed by occupancy by the Auckland Alternative School, which is my first awareness of the building. After about 20 years in that role it became abandoned and increasingly derelict.

A memorial chapel built in 1913 beside the main structure has been modified and developed into a large church by the present owners (since 1976; they were the school's landlord), a Tongan community group. Until relatively recently they were still using this rear part of the original building with later additions of a gymnasium and workshops, as a place for making Tapa cloth for sale. It is now completely abandoned.

On 15 December 2011, the Costley Training Institute (Former) was registered as a Category 1 Listed building.