'A 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle'

PHIL REID/The Dominion Post

DOUBLE FIND: This unusual red-brick well was probably shared by the two grand double-storey, nine-bedroom houses that stood on the Boulcott St site in the late 1800s.

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A rare brick well has been unearthed at a central Wellington building site, but the Capital's early settlers did not just depend on water to quench their thirst they were fans of ginger beer too.

Archaeologist Mary O'Keeffe is gathering historical evidence as the site for a $100 million Telecom building is excavated in Boulcott St.

She said the Boulcott St site was interesting because it had been home to two grand houses and more modest workers' cottages and had so far yielded a collection of shoes and clothing, bottles and crockery.

"So you have this interesting juxtaposition. It's like a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle."

The well, unearthed yesterday, was made without mortar so water could seep into it through the gaps. It was probably shared by both the two-storey, nine-bedroom houses that had been on the site in the late 1800s.

"Wells certainly don't turn up every day in Wellington so I am quite excited," Ms O'Keeffe said.

She will excavate it in the hope that it was used as a dumping site for domestic rubbish after it stopped being used for water.

In another part of the construction area, she has already found ceramics, old boots and beef bones.

"It shows the kind of things they were wearing, the kind of food they were eating, the kind of china they were eating it off, and what they were drinking from. A lot of the artefacts were sitting in really wet clay so they are beautifully preserved."

She made a curious discovery earlier this week 18 ceramic ginger-beer bottles tightly grouped together and buried upside-down. Eleven of the bottles were intact and seven were broken. "I've never seen anything like it before, and I've got no idea what it means."

The bottles were made in Glasgow, Scotland, in the late 19th century, and were of historic but not huge monetary value.

"You are not going to start your retirement fund with these."

Wellington's settlers were among our earliest recyclers, often reusing the valuable ginger-beer bottles.

"Some of the guys on site have been joking it might have been an old home-brew session."

Site manager Conrad Pearce said it was part of the resource-consent conditions to have the site examined by an archaeologist.

"If something shows up, it has to be dealt with," he said.

The 12-storey Telecom building is due to be completed in 2011.

- © Fairfax NZ News