Metal detecting a couple of weeks ago took me to Pt Erin Park (because it is close to the pétanque club I was headed to later in the morning).

Tucked in a somewhat muddy and overgrown corner behind the restrooms, I chanced across this memorial drinking fountain. It was put up sometime after the 1914 death of Robert French, who was a big wheel in New Zealand’s Temperance Movement. Over the basin it’s inscribed “Water, Nature’s Beverage” in fading gilt letters.

I won’t publish here the web pages I’ve looked at, because this isn’t a full-scale down the rabbit hole of history post. But a) the Temperance Movement was a thing here just like it was in the USA and other places around the turn of the 20th century and b) public drinking fountains were also a thing…

I found this cool necklace on that hunt (but it’s not silver unfortunately) and it was fun to come across that water fountain.