The great NZ pub crawl: Which is our most classic pub?

The Cardrona or the Thistle Inn? The Puhoi or Hotel De Brett? The White Hart or the Whangamomona?

Which is this country’s most classic pub?

While we’ve lost plenty, Aotearoa still provides a treasure trail of memorable historic public houses.

For his book New Zealand Pubs, author Peter Janssen has selected 170 classic pubs to visit, handily grouped by region from the top to the bottom of the country.

A dip into the book quickly reveals that history often rests within our public houses.

Many of these pubs were key watering holes and staging posts along our rivers and rail lines before state highways altered our landscapes. And before the advent of the motel, Janssen tells Culture 101, they were the country’s key places to stay en route.

“There were so many of them. I think one of the things when we think of pubs today, we just think of somewhere to eat and drink and maybe stay and that was always the case, but when you were on a stagecoach or waiting for a ferry to cross a river, there was a pub everywhere.”

Our classic pubs are often memorable pieces of colonial architecture.

Many were shifted from their original locations and some, like Rotorua’s Prince’s Gate, were moved great distances.

This is the fourth edition of Janssen’s book, due to its popularity and because public houses keep disappearing. Covid-19 didn’t help, he says, but he’s also constantly discovering great new classic pubs.

And as for New Zealand’s oldest pub? Different claims are made based on liquor licences and whether pubs had to be rebuilt due to fire - Janssen says this was common during the era when people still smoked in bed.

The Duke of Marlborough in Russell held the first licence issued by the Colonial Treasury in 1840, though a pub was first built on the site in 1827. It was then known as ‘Johnny Johnston’s Grog House’.

Often pubs had other commercial functions, he says.

“They were staging posts, and the licensee was obliged to provide horses and stables and sometimes blacksmiths, or they were obliged to have paddocks for drovers moving stock. So, the whole role of the pub is completely different.”

We think of pubs as having one large room nowadays, but back in the late 19^th century there were multiple rooms, he says.

“If you go into one of the pubs, which typically is just a big space, but if you look at the ceiling, you can actually see where the beams go and the outlines of all these little rooms.

“They were tiny, there were dining rooms, sitting rooms, a ladies' bar, the public bar.”

Woman didn’t set foot in the public bar, he says.

“Right up really into the ‘70s, they never went in a public bar and there are still signs, and I think one of the pubs still got it sitting up on their wall, keeping it as a historical reference. And it said, ‘women with escorts only’.”

It is a very rare pub that was never moved or never burnt down, he says, and they were ever-changing.

“The licensing committees at the time had a lot of power, and they would just tell a pub, 'you've got to either pull your pub down and rebuild or you won't have a license, or you've got to refurbish it'.

“And so sometimes ... in behind, that will be the heart of the old hotel, and then they just completely remodelled it.”

As the 6pm swill culture ended, and pubs became places of entertainment for all, there were some incongruous renovations, he says.

“You see a lot of older pubs in New Zealand, they have this concrete block extension that was built in the ‘70s.

“The Kaponga, where they pulled half the old hotel down and so it's got this funny, narrow, old hotel, and then this long sort of modern extension next to it, and that was all to accommodate music, going out to eat.”

So, what’s his golden rule for a classic pub?

“I have a funny little rule where two women who are not local should be able to walk into that pub and feel comfortable.”

New Zealand Pubs is published by White Cloud Books and is out now.