Location: Caroline Bay, central memorial wall and sundial area
Access: Public
Associated years: 1929, 2008 to 2009 interpretive additions
Associated people/groups: Caroline Bay Association, New Zealand Victoria Cross recipients, New Zealand Expeditionary Force, Timaru community
Caroline Bay Memorial Wall is one of Timaru’s most important and unusual war memorial sites. A 1929 Aoraki Heritage publication records the Victoria Cross memorial and sundial at Caroline Bay, with information on New Zealand First World War VC recipients. The information panels explain that bronze plaques were installed along the wall on 30 April 1929, naming major First World War battlegrounds, and that a sundial was proposed soon after to commemorate New Zealand Victoria Cross recipients.
This wall is powerful because it does not only list local names. It lists places: Gallipoli, Chunuk Bair, Passchendaele, Messines, the Somme, Palestine, Jutland, Zeebrugge, Ostend and the Falklands. These were the names families read in newspapers and letters. The wall turns a seaside walk into a map of global war.
The sea wall might seem like it is a distance from the shore. That is because the sea used to reach this wall, in fact the sea used to be able to reach the cliff. The development at the harbour has impacted the way sediment moves up the coast. Sand was trapped and began to accumulate on what was once a stoney shore. The sand has deposit and built out as a man made sandy bay. The council leased the foreshore from the harbour board and developed it as a port resort.
Find a WuHoo: Choose one plaque and ask: was this a battlefield, a port, a river, a ridge, a naval battle, or a place of training and waiting?
1911. Section of Miscellaneous Plans - Borough of Timaru, South Canterbury. R25538727. Borough of Timaru, South Canterbury. NZ Heritage Maps Platform, https://maps.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/336