Christchurch earthquake: Famous old hotel meets it's end

Heathcote publican Dean Calvert of the Valley Inn didn't have any options when it came to making the decision about what to do with the Heathcote Valley's severely wounded 133 year old watering hole. Having sustained near mortal damage from the first Christchurch earthquake, the biggest of the aftershocks ensured that the Valley Inn's cracks became caverns and the fissures became gaping and dangerous holes.

A genial if slightly sad crowd of locals, numbering perhaps a hundred, gathered in the car park throughout Friday to say their last rites as the heavy digger cut a swathe through the remnant structure. It wasn't long before the rites turned understandably to reminisce.

First it was Gerald Deavoll telling about the time they released a weaner pig to run riot through the lounge bar, then Peter Murray and his story of the trailered-in flock of sheep spraying their droppings and wool clip among the drinkers, and Jiggs Clarke recalling the after-hours police raid in the 1960s and the deep-voiced Sargent who advised the attempting escapees that they were wasting their time as he could see all their shoes poking out from the bed they were vainly trying to hide under.

The Valley Inn (or Heathcote Valley Hotel as it was first called) was initially built in 1877 as a single-storey accommodation block for the workers constructing the huge water reservoir (perched on the ridge above Horotane Valley) to service the expanding town of Lyttelton. Its license was transferred from the original Valley hotel 'Birdsey's' which had been built near the bottom of the Bridle Path in the 1862.

Literally generations of the local community have been brought up with a view of the unusual wedge-shaped structure of the Valley Inn, constrained as it was by its triangular corner section. Those same generations formed the community that made use of the facilities,

This community sang and danced their burgeoning youth away in the Four Ships Bar or out the back in the old Barn, that attended countless post-Anzac Day get-togethers in the cold post-dawn, celebrated local weddings and old mates' funerals with equal sorrow, and laughed away a week of toil over a cold beer and an argumentative companion.

Mindful of the key role that the Valley Inn plays in bonding and entertaining the community, Calvert has initiated discussions with the local cricket club to explore the possibilities of an interim transfer of license while he rebuilds. Hopes are being kept in check at this early stage, the Community Centre and the Cricket Club, which adjoins it, haven't escaped the power of the earthquake either, with some cracks and fractures still to be analysed and the level of damage assessed. The vagaries of the Licensing Authority requirements will also be hurdles to overcome, if the taps are to be kept flowing and the renowned conviviality maintained.

Either way, Calvert appears determined that another Valley Inn will a rise on the site from the rubble of shattered bricks (bricks, incidentally, that were built on the old Maltworks site by Royce, Stead and Co in the 1870s-1880s) and mortar. He has kept the original front doors to incorporate. And no doubt it will rise, like the clichéd Phoenix out of the ashes, and a goodly portion of the Heathcote Valley community will be cheering "More power to your elbow".