Clarendon Tower

The river here flows pretty quietly now. You can see the Scott Statue right there on the riverbank in front of where the Clarendon Tower used to be. This spot has a long history, starting in 1851 when Guise Brittan, the land agent for the Canterbury Association, had his first home here on Worcester Street, at the corner of Oxford Terrace. He ran the Christchurch land office from here.

Brittan sold his building in 1859 to Rowland Davis, an Irish migrant, who got a liquor license and expanded the house, turning it into a public house. In 1866, a later owner, George Oram, renamed it the Clarendon after the British foreign secretary at the time. The hotel gained a reputation for quality, and in 1869, the Duke of Edinburgh stayed here, granting Oram the title of 'Hotel Keeper by Appointment to His Royal Highness Prince Alfred the Duke of Edinburgh'. Because of its location on the Avon River, the Clarendon Hotel was often used for inquests into drownings, and it was also the departure point for Cobb and Co coaches heading to the West Coast.

The original building was eventually demolished. In 1902 or 1903, the Crown Brewery Company built a new three-story hotel designed in Renaissance Revival style by Joseph Clarkson Maddison, a notable architect who designed 14 hotels in Christchurch during his career. Many famous people stayed in this hotel, including Lee Kuan Yew, King George VI, Queen Elizabeth II, and the Queen Mother. The biggest crowd gathered when The Beatles stayed here during their 1964 tour.

In 1981, there was talk of demolishing the hotel, which caused a lot of controversy. The Christchurch City Council suggested keeping the façade when the site was redeveloped into an office high-rise. So, in 1986, the hotel was demolished, but two-thirds of the Oxford Terrace façade and all of the Worcester Street façade were kept.

The 17-story Clarendon Towers, standing 67.7 meters tall, was built here in 1986 and 1987. It was an early example of facadism in Christchurch, where the old façade is incorporated into a new building. The historic façade was officially registered as a Category II historic place in 2005.

Then came the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake. The high-rise was badly damaged; internal staircases collapsed, and floors disconnected from the concrete frames. People were trapped inside for hours. The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority ordered its demolition. They decided on a 'cut and crane' method, where the building was cut into pieces and removed by crane. The demolition finished in February 2013.

In 2019, a competition was held for a new design to replace the tower and bring back the historic façade. The winner was an architecture firm called FourFourSixSix, but nothing has started on the site since then.