Page:Picturesque Dunedin.djvu/149

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ARCHITECTURE OF DUNEDIN.
131

plan, and will have a tower and spire rising to a height of about 220 ft. The extreme length and breadth will be 222 ft. and 102 ft. respectively. The stained glass windows are from the Royal Factory at Munich, and are beautifully executed, and some of the stone carving inside is very rich, and peculiar to the style. Already, £22,000 has been expended on this building.

Of the scholastic institutions, the University building occupies the first place. Although unfinished, it looks a venerable pile. The style is Domestic Gothic, somewhat severe, being built of basalt, slightly relieved with Oamaru stone; and with the quaint-looking, Queen Anne style of dark-red brick houses for the Professors, adjoining, it looks altogether what it is intended for.

Were it not that criticism would be out of place in a semi-historical sketch like this, a hint might be given, that were a few trees planted about the site and the adjoining grounds to the south, which belong to the University, and a more becoming fence erected, with the approaches neatly laid out, its appearance would be vastly improved.

The Boys' High School, a semi-ecclesiastical building, pertaining more to the Domestic Tudor style of mediæval architecture, stands up prominently on the western outskirts, overlooking the harbour. Its interior arrangements consist of a large hall with galleries, surrounded with class-rooms providing accommodation for 450 scholars.

The other school buildings, known as Government schools, of which there are five in the city and several in the suburbs, very much resemble each other in outward appearance and in internal arrangements; and were it not for the surroundings, a stranger who has just been examining one, and coming suddenly upon another in some other part of the town, would—as a recent traveller in Holland said in describing the monotony and sameness of the buildings there—imagine he had retraced his steps, so much alike are these buildings.

The public buildings, such as the Post Office and Court House, Telegraph Office, Custom House, and Public Works buildings, and the Railway Offices, affect no style; but may be classed utilitarian. Built with little or no pretension to art, they are suitable for the purposes to which they are devoted, except, perhaps, the Supreme Court House, which is tacked on to, or