Debate Arises Over Deans’ Claim To Have Christchurch’s Oldest Building – 1900

One can easily imagine the hard decision it was for Jane Deans to approve the demolition of the old Deans/Manson/Gebbie’s barn at Riccarton in 1897. It was after all the city’s oldest building – erected by Samuel Manson in 1843 – seven years before the Canterbury Association’s First Four Ships! The historic barn was now …