Inside the Semi-Sunken Garden

Back to ‘The Semi-Sunken Garden’
Back to ‘The Sunken Fernery’
Back to ‘The Ornamental Lake

The Memorial Park was built within the flood plain of the Mangaohoi Stream. The idea of ‘daylighting’ misinterprets the Semi-Sunken Garden memorial feature as being built over an open water course, but there was only boggy ground that had required a farm drain.
No water course was blocked or covered over "needing to see the light of day again" as is supposed.
The Semi-Sunken Garden was instead excavated. 'Daylighting' is not indicated here.
An open drain accross the front of the enclosure would only serve to vandalise the memorial design. In the early 1950's Harold Babbage was was referred to as “New Zealand’s foremost Golf Architect”

This aerial image of pre-memorial March 1944 is overlaid with a view from April 1966.
An open farm drain traverses the area in front of what became the Semi-Sunken Garden, towards and through what became the Sunken Fernery. Now piped and covered, the farm drain outlet emerges in the Sunken Fernery from a clay field tile pipe.
The Semi-Sunken Garden memorial to the merged ways of life of pioneers to the Waipa district is novel and noble. It embodies the ways of life, fought and died for by those named in the Sunken Cross.
Most likely being unique in New Zealand, it's heritage value includes it's original setting. It does not require a trendy ‘daylighting’ re-design involving artificially exposing groundwater that was at least 2.3 Mtrs below ground level before being excavated to form the memorial.
The same misgiving concerning excavated ground water also applies the (artificial) Ornamental Lake, initially referred to as the Boating Lake. It too was excavated from what was a low-lying area. (See excavation list below)

The Semi-Sunken Garden does not require further excavation.
Ground water excavated from over 2.3M below ground is not: (a spring)
“a natural discharge point of subterranean water at the surface of the ground” britannica.com

This video view is taken from the Scenic Drive-Way. It too was excavated, cut into the middle of a slope that borders the south edge of the park, continuing downward toward the stream.
The excavation below ground that was required for the Sunken Lily Pond, Semi-Sunken Garden and Sunken Fernery is evident. Including the excavation of the grass slope outside the Semi-Sunken Garden.
The draft plans included misinformation that the Semi-Sunken Garden was blocking a spring that needed re-connecting to the Mangaohoi stream.
The Memorial Feature was not built over an open water course. There was only boggy ground (now excavated) that had required a farm drain.
Further excavation would only serve to re-establish an even deeper farm drain to misrepresent artificially exposed ground water as ‘daylighting’

View accross the Sunken Lily Pond, Semi-Sunken Garden and Sunken Fernery excavations.

This view is taken looking staight and level across a yard stick toward the left decending path.
The path was built into the original slope of the ground.
The Semi-Sunken Garden was excavated out from that slope.

This demonstrates that the front of the enclosure's floor is 1.8M below ground at the site of the stone aperture where ground water is 0.5M further below the floor at that point. ie 2.3 Metres below ground level pre-excavation.

No water course has been blocked or covered over as has been misrepresented.
Quite the opposite.
Boffa Miskel; "needing to see the light of day again"

The Amphitheatre Folly.
Anual stage play promotions mistakenly refer to the Semi-Sunken Garden as a ‘natural amphitheatre’ But it was in fact artificially excavated along with the Sunken Lily Pond and Sunken Fernery.
All three became Sunken Memorial Features that directly surround the mound in which the Sunken Cross is set.
Despite sustained corrections, the draft plans, media coverage and Council discussions have greatly misrepresented the Semi-Sunken Garden. Its heritage value was downplayed by referring to it as an amphitheatre or as an inadequate 'function space' that needed ‘relocating’ (destroyed and a stage built elsewhere)
In August ‘51 when G Gibbs anounced Babbages adaptions to his initial memorial park design, he referred to the wide open area now north of the Pergolla as "A Natural Amphitheatre (Showground Field) bordering the northern end of the park." It became known as The Sports Area.

Two water features were removed in 2018 toward re-purposing the memorial feature as a stage. The Mercury Bay lawn, now minimised with extra paving, requires re-establishing.

1. The Stone Aperture.

2. The Rockery Fountain newly built.

The two memorial features paved over in 2018 for stage use.

The tap water Rockery Fountain within the Semi-Sunken Garden.
A favoured venue for wedding ceremony and photo's.

The Rockery Fountain water channel within the Semi-Sunken Garden.
Note: The grass area in front was also excavated.

 This significant and unique Memorial Sunken Garden feature is not a candidate for Daylighting.
A 'Daylighting' proponent recalled as a boy, floating a paper boat on spring water along a channel within the Semi-Sunken Garden.
This was a rationale given for 'Daylighting' claiming that the Semi-Sunken Garden is ‘blocking a spring’ as was stated in draft plans. This misinformation was supplied to the public and was voted on by Council.
In fact the area was excavated by memorial design.
Making an open drain across the front of here would amount to a daylighting farce.
At some point after opening day, the Stone Aperture not unlike a small well, was added to artificially reveal excavated water flow.
Images Left: The Rockery Fountain that ran tap water down and around it's base, emptying into the channel at the front wall. This was one of many water channels in the park that children loved to float twigs etc along.

1952 Excavation Begins: of the Sunken Cross, and shaping the Mound around it, the Sunken Rose Garden, the Sunken Lily Pond, the Semi-Sunken Garden, the Sunken Fernery, the Ornamental Lake and paths around it, the Scenic Drive-Way and paths along the stream.
All under the direction of New Zealand’s foremost Golf Architect; Harold Babbage.