NZ Visual Diary - entry 218
upper floor - Three Lamps Plaza
There’s an Auckland suburb known as Three Kings. One might be forgiven the hastily drawn conclusion that the name was an assured allusion to the three kings of the New Testament. The counterfactual is that New Zealand maintains to this day its allegiance to the British monarchy and the reference may be more a statement of monarchical history than churchly nod.
The ‘Three Lamps’ attribution for the district within the Auckland suburb of Ponsonby is impossibly obscure and requires effort, rather than sensible speculation, to determine its provenance. Some archival forensics led me to the photograph from the image collections of the National Library of New Zealand that would prove to be self-explanatory.
It appears that in the late 19th century, three lamps were mounted on a street pole which was then potted in a three-tiered stone foundation and placed oddly in the centre of the district’s thoroughfare (see the left-most photograph above). 1
Amidst much protest, the three lamps fixture was moved early in the 20th century to another location along the Ponsonby Road, but the eponymous Three Lamps block remained and evolved, at one time to be the home of the Brittania Cinema (aka Brittania Theatre). The iconic street fixture was gone, but the corner retain its pedigree, having been renamed the Three Lamps Plaza. 2
Unlike many commercial buildings whose ground floor appearance transformed over time to fit the mood of changing commercial sensibilities but whose upper floors retain an old world (albeit weathered and neglected) charm, the upper floor of the Three Lamps Plaza did receive attention in recent times after the building’s sale. Referring again to the triptych featured in this post, the middle and right-sided photographs reveal that make-over.
I leave it to the reader of this post to decide a preference, if any, but I prefer the splash of colour over the staid elegance of its current visage.
Lastly, what about the origin of the moniker for the ‘Three Kings?’ suburb? It is neither a reference to Bible or Monarchy. Rather, the name memorialises a geological feature of the area, the (once) 3 prominent peaks of the Te Tātua a Riukiuta volcano. 3
The National Library of New Zealand
< https://natlib.govt.nz/records/23192709?search%5Bi%5D%5Bplace_authority_id%5D=-330696&search%5Bpath%5D=items >
The New Zealand Herald
< https://www.nzherald.co.nz/property/historic-ponsonby-character-has-great-future-potential/5OA4IBUIN3DVGGQLXGE7IIEUUY/ >
Wikipedia
< https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Te_T%C4%81tua_a_Riukiuta >