Sumpter's Store
8 Harbour Street
Sumpter erected a grain store on Harbour Street in February 1876 at a cost of £800. The building was approximately 22 ft (7 m) high, featuring a lantern roof and a storage capacity of 40,000 to 50,000 bushels of grain. The concrete work was completed by F. Every, with Mr Thomson responsible for the carpentry.
The original building was located in the centre of the section. Two years later, an ornately detailed two-storey building was added in connection with his concrete warehouse on the harbour block. This later structure was designed by Thomas Forrester in his favored Venetian palazzo style, featuring a rusticated ground floor, round-headed windows on the first floor, and Corinthian pilasters marking the end bays. It had the capacity to store around 20,000 sacks of grain.
The original 1876 concrete building still survives today, visible in the centre of the complex, with a low Oamaru stone extension at the rear, along side the Red Lion Mill opposite it is an important example of concrete buildings in the Heritage Precinct
Trust History
This building came into Trust ownership in 1989. The architectural drawings to reinstate the parapet decoration have been completed, this was one of the first major projects of the Trust, but unfortunately it has never been completed
