Daily Photo – The Scarfie Flat of Transit House

I found this quite by chance on one of my random strolls through the streets of Dunedin. There was a well-worn path leading off the footpath, so naturally I followed it. A minute or two later, I suddenly found myself standing in someone’s backyard.

It was immediately obvious that this had once been a residence of some note. These days, however, it is a student flat, and there were several clues to the change of ownership. The first was the several hundred empty beer bottles overflowing from a black plastic bin in the middle of what may once have been a tennis court. Around it sat several couches that had clearly seen better days, although they had been enthusiastically reclaimed by the greenery. One had even been sacrificed to the gods of academic study in what appeared to have been a rather successful backyard burning ceremony.

The house itself had also seen better days and is a long way removed from the grand Victorian villa designed in 1882 by architect John Burnside for businessman Robert Gillies. Built from bluestone and Oamaru stone, it was an impressive house for its time and even came complete with a rooftop astronomical observatory. Later it became known as Transit House and is now recognised as a place of historical significance. It was also the birthplace of Sir Harold Gillies, the pioneering plastic surgeon who went on to transform the treatment of soldiers with severe facial injuries during the First World War.

So there I was, standing in the backyard of a historically significant Dunedin house, surrounded by empty beer bottles, battered couches and the remains of a small bonfire. Somehow, it seemed very Dunedin.