The Thistle Inn

Behind the two-story wooden facade, a pub is operating, and beneath the main bar a stone cellar remains from an earlier building on the same plot. Its walls are visible through glass set into the floor; the upper part of the house was later enlarged and repaired, while the cellar was left. Sailors and workers ate here, met with companions, and gathered for common affairs; drinks are still served on this plot today.

The Scottish carpenter William Cooper leased this plot and built a one-story inn here in eighteen forty. “Thistle” means a thistle—the national emblem of Scotland. Researchers believe that Cooper used it to mark his own origins.

The site suited an inn because of Wellington’s geography at the time. The shoreline lay a few meters from here, and the road linked the settled areas of Te Aro and Thorndon. People came to The Thistle Inn on foot and by boat. For sailors and workers, it served as a dining room, a club, and a meeting hall.

By eighteen sixty-six, the founder had already left the business. Charles Brown held the lease, while Stephen Cooper managed the inn—a different person with the same surname. On a Sunday in July, the wooden building caught fire. The inquiry later concluded that it was impossible to establish the cause of the fire.

Captain Moss, commander of the volunteer fire brigade, tried to save the building, but his team did not have enough people at the pumps. Fewer than twenty firefighters could usually be assembled for a fire: they had to operate the hoses and engines, while the water was supposed to be pumped by townspeople. Moss urged the spectators to take up the work and offered five shillings an hour. Some silently refused, others replied with mockery, and only a few people agreed to help. While the pumps stood without enough hands, the fire grew stronger. The first The Thistle Inn burned to the ground.

Brown and Stephen Cooper lost the operating inn, but retained the plot and the license. Before the end of that same year, they erected a new two-story wooden pub here; Cooper may have taken part in the construction himself. This is the house standing before you, later enlarged and repaired. The name remained the same, and drinks continue to be served on this plot.

During repairs in nineteen four, the cellar of the first building was discovered beneath the main bar. You can see it through a glass insert in the floor: above ground stands the The Thistle Inn of eighteen sixty-six, while beneath the counter is part of the inn that spectators and firefighters could not save.