In the footsteps of Nelson’s darkest crime

Nelson’s Bridge St is a construction zone these days.

But 160 years ago it was a thriving thoroughfare at the centre of one of the grisliest episodes in the fledgling settlement.

Now its dark past and it’s changing present are coming together in a project to bring the city’s stories to life.

As a byproduct, it aims to bring more pedestrians into the street that is closed to traffic as the $78 million Bridge to Better infrastructure replacement and street revitalisation programme is carried out.

A collaboration between Make/Shift Spaces, the Nelson Civic Trust and the Nelson City Council has created A Bridge Too Far: Maungatapu Murders that takes visitors on an audio-guided walk down Bridge St using a mobile phone app.

The app on the Pick Path platform features video, historic drawings, text, photographs and narration by actor Mark Hadlow who takes listeners back to June, 1866 when the Burgess gang robbed and murdered five men on the Maungatapu Track.

The crime shocked the young country, and made international headlines, particularly as a sensational trial featured detailed confessions. American author Mark Twain later described the confession of gang leader Richard Burgess as “perhaps without its peer in the literature of murder”.

The audio guide starts behind the current Red Art Gallery & Cafe where the gang of hardened criminals, Burgess, Philip Levy, Thomas Kelly and Joseph Sullivan, met to initially discuss plans for a bank robbery in Picton.

But their plans changed as they walked the track that provided the only link between Nelson and Picton when they heard of a party of men were headed to Nelson with gold.

The app includes stops outside the Nelson Mail – which is celebrating its 160th birthday this week – and which got a big boost in circulation from covering the case. It ends at the former Nelson Fire Brigade building which still stands in Albion Square where the victims’ bodies were laid out for a public viewing.

The audio guide’s project manager Audrey Anderson said the story also highlighted the collective efforts of Nelsonians in the fledgling town of around 5000, who realised early on that the gang were acting suspiciously when they returned after the murders.

As the men spent up on clothes, barbers, fine meals and drinks, the word got around. “They thought they would get away with it because they thought it’s just any old town and they would be anonymous, but because the town was so well connected, they caught them,” Anderson said.

Make/Shift Spaces general manager Anne Rush said the idea of telling the city’s stories better came out of its What If Nelson workshops in 2023 to help revitalise the city centre.

She said there was great potential to explore other stories, including the area’s Māori history, and the history of landmarks such as Piki mai, the hill where Nelson Cathedral was built.

She hoped the Maungatapu Murders audio guide would encourage pedestrians into the city to help retailers affected while the street was closed to traffic. People could also navigate the story in parts.

The audio-guide can be downloaded through https://makeshiftspaces.nz/ or from an QR codes on promotional posters.