Remembering fallen bandsmen
City Council staff from the Christchurch Botanic Gardens this year resurrected an old tradition and made several memorial wreaths for Anzac Day.
Sue Molloy (left), the Botanical Resources Coordinator, and Horticultural Trainee Susan Sanders are pictured laying one of the wreaths against the Band Rotunda.
The beautiful little domed structure across the bridge to the south of the Botanic Gardens is a memorial to Canterbury bandsmen killed in the Great War (1914-1918). It is surrounded by Turkish oak trees, which was thought fitting for those who died at Gallipoli.
This year is the 70th anniversary of the laying of the rotunda’s foundation stone. Several Gardens staff served in the Armed Forces during the world wars. In the 1930s and 1940s, Botanic Gardens staff regularly made wreaths to be laid during memorial services and, until well into the 1950s, made wreaths for the Returned Services Association.
There is a strong early connection between the Gardens and bands, although there are few photographs. Bandsmen regularly played in the Gardens from the late 1890s, but they only played on Sundays when photography in the Gardens was banned. For the same reason, there are few photographs of the foundation stone laying or the memorial’s opening a year later. Both events took place on Sundays.
Bandsmen who enlisted had two roles, playing to lift the troops spirits and doubling up as stretcherbearers. The stretcher work in the front lines meant many died or were wounded. The idea to build a rotunda for concerts arose before the Great War but was put off when WW2 broke out.
The Riccarton Avenue entrance into Hagley Park near the Nurses’ Chapel was later made into a proper gateway so that amputee soldiers and bandsmen could be driven to the rotunda, which today has a category 2 heritage listing. |
