Old school supplies and a locked safe – renovation reveals historic treasures

Treasures from yesteryear are being discovered in a Nelson school house dating from the 1800s, but it’s the safe that could hold the biggest mystery.

Items retrieved from the under the floorboards and inside the walls of Nelson’s Hardy Street School House give away clues to its time as a girls’ school between 1860 and 1897, including slate boards with slate pencils, English grammar books, 19th-century newspapers, and what appears to be the remains of a Victorian woman’s jacket.

Nelson resident Jason Monopoli purchased the heritage-listed building two years ago, and has been renovating the interior.

He said he was ‘‘giving another lease of life’’ to the ‘‘gorgeous old building’’, turning it into two AirBnB suites that would be perfect for hosting groups of mountainbikers taking on the nearby trails.

He was also enjoying seeing the many items regularly pulled from the inside by builders working at the site.

Dropped ceilings have been ripped out to reveal the decorative roof trusses, and a square in the floorboards can be lifted to show off the piles with a history entrenched in Nelson.

Monopoli said that after speaking with a local archaeologist and the former owner of the building, he discovered that the piles were made from rocks from Nelson’s famous Boulder Bank, and were shaped by prisoners.

He said he intended to keep the history of the old building alive by showing it off, including installing a clear lid above one of the piles, with a plaque explaining its past.

The old school house went through a number of changes in the 1900s, serving the Nelson Education Board before the Public Works Department occupied it, changing the interior from Gothic Revival style to offices.

One of the biggest enigmas of the building is the locked safe in the strongroom, entered through a heavy steel door emblazoned with the words ‘‘Kershaw Maker Nelson, NZ’’. Monopoli said the safe didn’t have a key, and according to the previous owner, it hadn’t been opened for at least 30 years.

Attempts to auction the closed box with contents unknown were rejected, so he hoped to raise money for a Nelson charity by revealing of what lay inside.

‘‘It could be totally empty’’, he said. But if there was something inside, he didn’t expect it to be ‘‘pirates’ treasure’’.

Richmond Locksmith Services operator Kris Hodgson inspected the lock, and after some research, he said it wasn’t the original lock barrel, and he might be able to get it open without using a grinder.