Daily Photo – The Great Glasgow Pie House.

A few blocks up and along from the Law Courts Hotel is Dowling Street, a interesting wee street that has transformed into a make-shift artistic hub. Walk up Dowling Street from it’s terminus at Queens Garden, and at about halfway you’ll come across 31-33 Dowling Street. Look closely at the top of the grand, former Excelsior Hotel and you’ll spot a quirky piece of Dunedin history hidden in plain sight. High up, etched into the Victorian plasterwork, are the words: “ESTD 1862 J. DONALDSONS.” It looks like the proud mark of a high-society banker or shipping magnate, but it’s actually a monument to the humble mutton pie.

John Donaldson was a Glaswegian immigrant who arrived during the 1862 gold rush. Like thousands of others, he tried his luck panning for gold in the freezing rivers of Central Otago and like many others, he found absolutely nothing. Realising the real money was in feeding the desperate masses rather than digging in the mud, he returned to Dunedin and opened the Glasgow Pie House.

It was a stroke of genius. His hot, savoury pies and legendary multi-tiered wedding cakes (one reportedly so enormous it took three grown men to carry it through the streets) made him a fortune. By 1887, the successful baker had amassed enough wealth to buy out the ramshackled wooden hotel that previously occupied the site. He knocked it down and replaced it with the brick-and-plaster landmark we see today.

When the Excelsior Hotel finally opened its doors in 1888, Donaldson made sure his culinary empire was permanently commemorated. Instead of putting the hotel’s actual name on the main parapet, he stamped his own name instead.