Pukeahu is said to have received its name, meaning ‘sacred hill’, from Ngāi Tara, the first Māori tribal group to settle in the area. Ngāi Tara established a large pā named Te Akatarewa nearby, and used the slopes of Pukeahu for gardening. Centuries later the cultivation sites were reused by iwi from Taranaki after they had migrated to Wellington in the 1820s, displacing Ngāti Ira. When formal European settlement began in 1840 Te Ātiawa iwi were established in the area. Te Ātiawa chiefs signed a deed of purchase with the New Zealand Company that promised that Pukeahu would be held in trust for Māori as a native reserve, however this was not honoured by the colonial surveyors who instead designated it a public reserve for military purposes. The hill was renamed ‘Mount Cook’ and has since been the site for prisons, a brickworks, law enforcement stations, educational institutions, and a military base. By the turn of the twentieth century the military had taken over the site, which housed the Alexandra Barracks, the General Headquarters and the Council of Defence. After the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 the Alexandra Barracks was used to detain conscientious objectors as prisoners. The massive loss of life New Zealand suffered in the First World War affected everyone, and motivated a wave of memorial-building from 1916 onwards. Over 500 memorials were erected throughout the country, in the form of monuments, honours boards, commemorative plaques and dedications. The Government had considered a National War Memorial since 1919 and about 1928 it offered the Mount Cook site for the location of a National War Memorial, National Museum and National Art Gallery. About 1926 the Wellington War Memorial Carillon Society was formed and in May of that year raised just under £10,000 in a one week fundraising campaign for the purchase of a 49 bell carillon. The Society offered the bells to the Wellington Citizen's War Memorial Committee who declined the offer in preference of a silent memorial and the bells were then offered to the Government for inclusion in the National War Memorial. Tender for the 49 bell carillon was let in July 1927 to Gillet and Johnston Ltd of Croydon, England. In 1929 a competition was held for the design of a complex to include a museum, art gallery, carillon tower and hall of memories, the last two to form the National War Memorial. The competition was won by Gummer and Ford of Auckland and the foundation stone of the carillon tower or campanile was laid by the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. G.W. Forbes on 15 May 1931. During the planning and construction of the campanile the carillon was lent to the Newcastle-on-Tyne Exhibition. Later it was temporarily installed in Hyde Park, London, where it was heard by large crowds before being shipped to New Zealand and installed at Wellington. The National War Memorial and Carillon was dedicated on Anzac Day, 25 April 1932. It was consecrated by the Bishop of Wellington, the Rt. Rev. Dr T.H. Sprott and opened by the Governor-General, Lord Bledisloe, who switched on the lamp of remembrance at the top of the tower. The lamp was a gift of the Air Force Association of New Zealand. At this time the lower part of the south face was left unfinished, the site of the proposed Hall of Memories. Construction was delayed by the Second World War and preliminary plans were completed by Gummer and Ford in 1949. Construction did not begin until 1960. The Hall of Memories was completed in 1964 and opened on 5 April of that year by the Governor-General Sir Bernard Fergusson. Restoration of the tower began in 1981 and in 1985 a major restoration of the carillon instrument was undertaken by National Carillonist Timothy Hurd QSM. The addition of 16 treble bells brought the total to 65, while the original specification made provision for 69. Following the renovations of the tower and carillon, the National War Memorial and Carillon was formally re-dedicated by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on 26 February 1986. To mark the 75th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli, in 1990 the RNZRSA commissioned a bronze statue of Henderson and his Donkey by Paul Walshe. This was installed on the main terrace below the tower as a tribute to the heroic medical personnel at Gallipoli. Another anniversary, the 50th commemoration of the end of the Second World War, provided the opportunity to bring the carillon up to its full complement of 74 bells, which was achieved by Anzac Day 1997. Government funding and the Lottery Grants Board afforded the casting of four large bass bells, while Timothy Hurd donated five additional small treble bells. The carillon is now the third heaviest as well as the third largest in the world. The twenty-first century ushered in new developments for the National War Memorial. The installation of the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior realised an idea first raised in 1920. The remains of an unidentified New Zealand soldier who had been killed in the First World War were repatriated from Longueval, France, as a memorial to all those who had not made the journey home after serving their country in overseas wars. On Armistice Day 2004, with full military honours, the casket was borne in a procession through Wellington city and interred in a tomb designed by artist Kingsley Baird. A carillon recital played a part in the ceremony. 2012 heralded the major redevelopment of the area in front of the National War Memorial, comprising Buckle Street and the land opposite, to create a memorial park. Central Government funding and empowering legislation was secured to trench Buckle Street and build the park above the newly-created Arras Tunnel, in time for the centenary commemorations of the First World War. The National War Memorial underwent conservation at the same time. Pukeahu National War Memorial Park was officially opened on 18 April 2015 by the Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae and Prime Minister John Key, and finally provided the ceremonial plaza space conceptualised in Gummer and Ford’s original vision. The Dawn Ceremony on Anzac Day 2015 was attended by an estimated crowd of 50,000, and since then the park has seen increased focus on the National War Memorial as New Zealand’s most important site for war commemoration. The carillon instrument was also fully restored between 2015-2018.

Architectural Description The National War Memorial’s structural elements of carillon tower/campanile, Hall of Memories and Tomb of the Unknown Warrior are set centrally within symmetrical and rectilinear landscaping of ranks of steps and terraces. This is surrounded by an encircling driveway leading up to the former Dominion Museum and National Art Gallery, which forms an important backdrop and frame to the National War Memorial. Carillon tower/campanile The campanile which houses the 74 bell carillon rises to a height of 50.6 metres from base to roof top. The campanile is essentially an Art Deco design with a classical emphasis at lower levels. A lion head fountain carved by R.O. Gross forms part of the grand staircase which leads to the campanile on the north facing slope of Mount Cook. The campanile itself consists of a marble base, through which entry is obtained to the north, and a slightly tapering tower. The tower has four almost identical facades of grey marble and buff coloured cement plaster. Recessed precast concrete grilles, three to each facade, allow music from the bells to pass through the upper portion of the tower. The abstract zigzag pattern in these trellises becomes increasingly intricate as the height increases. This appears to accentuate the height of the structure. The capital of the campanile has five semi-circular copper louvres at each of the four chamfered corners, above which is a dentilled pavilion roof topped with a lamp of remembrance. Inside the campanile is the carillon of 74 (originally 49) inscribed bells. The bells are held in a stationary position and sounds are made by activating cast iron clappers from a keyboard known as the clavier. The bells cover 6 octaves, ranging from a 12.25 ton bell measuring nearly 3 metres in diameter to the smallest treble bell weighing only a few kilograms. Hall of Memories To the rear (south) of the campanile is the Hall of Memories commemorating the war dead. Completed to the design of Gummer and Ford in 1964, the Hall of Memories is an unobtrusive structure at the base of the campanile. The interior is accessed from the foyer of the campanile, and is arranged in the form of a church, with an elevated sanctuary at the south end of a tall vaulted ‘nave’ with recessed alcoves on each side. Stained glass in the ‘dalle de verre’ style, and skylights, infuse the space with light from above. The hall is decorated with relief carvings and inlaid stone, flags and banners of the armed services, remembrance plaques and the coats of arms of New Zealand provinces and the members of the Commonwealth. Lyndon Smith’s ‘Mother and Children’ statue is in the Sanctuary; the words from the fourth stanza of Laurence Binyon’s poem ‘For the Fallen’ – referred to as the Ode of Remembrance – are inlaid in bronze on the wall above. The Saint Lazarus Memorial Organ, donated in 2007 by the Military and Hospitaller Order of St Lazarus of Jerusalem in memory of New Zealand military medical personnel, is on the mezzanine floor above the main entrance. Tomb of the Unknown Warrior On the terrace in front of the entrance to the Hall of Memories is the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. This black granite rectangular tomb is partially inset into the slope so it is flanked by five steps between the upper and lower terraces. Light grey marble crosses are arranged in grids in the sides of the tomb. A karanga in both Māori and English is engraved around the base of the tomb. A rectangular bronze slab inlaid with four pounamu crosses caps the top. Pukeahu National War Memorial Park is to the north of the National War Memorial. The park was designed ‘to create a landscape for the memorial that evokes, supports and hosts commemoration’.