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Shearman proprietor, contained fifty bedrooms and many large public rooms. Quill’s Commercial Hotel, almost at the northern end of the line of buildings, had thirty bedrooms. Williamson’s Ashburton Hotel, the one-time New Inn at the south end, realized £3900 when sold at this time. In August 1877 the Royal Hotel opened in Moore Street. These public houses catered for a rapidly increasing and itinerant population; another was planned. East Street could already boast two of the largest blocks of shops and offices ever built in the town, those of Montgomery and Company, a large Christchurch timber and coal firm, standing on the Burnett Street corner, and, near Wills Street, the handsome set of eleven shops belonging to Edward Saunders. Both have continued to serve Ashburton to the present day. These two-storey buildings, like the hotels, stood out prominently in the lowly company of ramshackle shops. Thomas Bullock’s horse bazaar may have been as large.

Across the railway line from these buildings were the first large grain stores, which were later increased in size and became the most characteristic feature of Ashburton’s architecture. They were owned by Friedlander Brothers (built by Mendleson and Company), J. P. Jameson, W. Leggatt and Bullock. The most important industrial concern was similarly linked to the rapid increase in wheat growing; the Canterbury Flour Mill, just north of the town was now run by Edward and Samuel, the sons of Alfred Saunders.

Ashburton thus already possessed some of its most distinctive features. Regrettably, it also had another prominent feature—the extreme drabness of its surroundings due to lack of green vegetation. Tussocks, however high, adorning streets and empty sections were a poor substitute for trees, shrubs and flowers. Admittedly a few clumps of trees could be seen. Some poplars and gums, planted fifteen years before by the Turtons, stood by the river bank. And trees sheltered the homes of some of the earliest settlers, including Joseph Hunt on Wakanui Creek, the Chalmers brothers and James Jameson, two miles or so from the town.

Even the domain was, until 1877, indistinguishable from the fenced but otherwise untouched countryside around. In his plan of 1864 Robert Park had provided for a recreation ground which he called ‘The Grange’; but it was ten years before the Provincial Government saw any need to appoint a domain board. Moreover this board— which consisted of John Grigg, Alfred Saunders and Robert Miller—immediately, though unsuccessfully, proposed to