Thistle Hall was designed as a pair of shops and a warehouse for William Campbell, owner of the Oriental Tea Mart. Campbell, who was a grocer and tea merchant, commissioned architects Penty and Blake to design the new premises in 1907. The new building was designed to have two retail units to the ground floor, both with separate entrances to Cuba Street. The service areas included a paved ‘dock’ for Campbell’s cart, a kerosene store, two bathrooms, and a small yard. The first floor was designed for use as a large open-plan warehouse, and trapdoors gave access down to the cart dock below. The estimated cost was £1898.
Campbell sold the building to the Protestant Hall Company in 1924 but continued to rent the ground floor retail units. The Protestant Hall Company converted the first floor warehouse into a social hall. They installed a new stair to replace the original trap doors, they also built a stage, WC facilities, and a kitchen and service hatch. The hall operated as the ‘Empire’ (dance hall) but was also known as the ‘Lodge Room’ as a meeting place for the Wellington members of the Ancient Order of Foresters (a Friendly Society). Campbell moved out of the building in 1928.
The building has been threatened with demolition since 1929 when there was a proposal to widen Arthur Street (to the north). The Protestant Hall Company then offered to sell the building to the WCC, but the offer was declined. The hall company owned the building in 1942 when it was damaged by the Wairarapa earthquake and it is possible that the original verandah was lost at this time. The ornate parapet was replaced at this time with a simplified reinforced concrete beam. Ownership of the building transferred to the Equitable Building and Investment Company in 1943, and they immediately sold it to the WCC for £3,582. The WCC called for tenders to repair the earthquake damage in 1945 and the original decorative parapet was replaced by a simple concrete band.
The WCC leased the hall to the Wellington Association of Scottish Societies (WASS) in 1951 and the building was renamed “Thistle Hall’. Groups associated with WASS include the Caledonian Society, Gaelic Club, Burns Club, Clan Cameron and the Wellington Scottish Country Dance Club. The hall slowly fell into a state of disrepair due in part to uncertainty about its future. There were concerns that the building was earthquake prone and required strengthening, and that it lay in the route of the proposed motorway/extension. By 1976 WASS raised concerns about the decline in the neighbourhood at Cuba Street “Over the recent times our bookings of the Hall [are] dropping as some people are frightened to go into the area.”
Thistle Hall was sublet by WASS and from 1979 – 1981 became known as a punk music venue. It was popular as an unlicensed venue where school-aged children could perform and attend gigs (particularly punk bands). In the later years of the 1990s the legal drinking age was reduced to 18 and other licensed live music venues could then cater to late teen audiences and its significance as one of the few venues available for the under 20’s then diminished.
By 1987 Thistle Hall became the venue for the community protest meetings against the demolition of properties in upper Cuba Street. Key activists included ‘Save our City’, a group that campaigned against demolition of houses and small businesses in upper Cuba Street, Tonks Avenue, Arthur Street, Footscray Avenue and Kelvin Grove. In 1988 Mayor Jim Belich noted of Cuba Street that “At present the majority of the existing residents subsist in an informal economy fuelled by benefits, dubious activities and casual work. Incomes and costs are low; most rents are ‘peppercorn’ or non-existent. Intimidation, gang brawls, knifings and beatings are apparently not uncommon.” When six houses on Arthur Street were demolished and Landcorp sold 297 – 301 Upper Cuba Street (adjacent to Thistle Hall) to developers. it seemed likely that Thistle Hall would soon follow, but in 1989 the WCC decided that although Arthur Street would be widened, Thistle Hall would remain.
In 1989 the WASS lease was cancelled and Morehu Social Services, a group connected to the Ratana Church, leased the hall. In the mid 1990s and informal group of volunteer caretakers came together to manage bookings, cleaning, power and phone bills. On average 120 people used the hall each week and the bookings …“included Morehu Social Services’ cultural practices, jazzercise, women’s self defence, tai chi, tae kwon do, Narcotics Anonymous meetings, work training seminars, after school programmes for children living at Arlington Street flats, and school holiday programmes.” The hall also continued in use as a live music venue, albeit one with a noise curfew. In 1998 a group of local residents and business owners form a charitable trust to manage and run the Thistle Hall and when the BOC sign-writers who had leased the ground floor retail units moved out of the building in 2002 the trust obtained a Lottery Community Facilities grant of $11,000 to convert the retail units to community use as an art gallery and offices.
Various recent alterations to the building include earthquake strengthening in 1994 and an updated fire and evacuation strategy in 1996. Facilities now include a small meeting room, office, four bathrooms, a kitchenette, store rooms on the ground floor and a hall ‘licensed’ for 120 people day or night, and kitchen on the first floor. In 2007 the Thistle Hall board of trustees planned to replace the hall floor, install an elevator, build a moveable stage and install a lighting rig.
