The Otago militia originally planned to build its headquarters and drill hall at the top of Dowling St, but the land was needed for the expansion of Otago Girls High School. Instead, land in lower Dowling St was allocated but, as Bell Hill was still being demolished, the militia used temporary quarters behind the Municipal Chambers until building could start. Garrison Hall was officially opened in 1879.
The area of land was greater than needed so it was subdivided and leased to Hallensteins, which built up the hill, and the Otago Daily Times and the Otago Witness, which built below.
The Dunedin Drill Shed Commissioners borrowed 5000 on the basis of the rents and the property, and another 3000 on the guarantee of the commissioners and members of the militia.
In 1893 the building was reinvested in the trustees, and in 1897 an extension added on the downhill side for orderlies' quarters, with a gunshed and stabling at the back.
There are still tethering rings on the walls of the basements, both of the main hall and the orderlies' extension, according to Mr Howell, who worked at Garrison Hall from 1957 to the late 1980s.
Military offices occupied the street frontage; behind was a large hall 98ft (30m) by 62ft (19m) wide with a mezzanine seating gallery around the sides and back and a stage with proscenium arch at the far end; there was a supper room upstairs, and in the basement an armoury, gun shed and stores.
The basement later housed a 24-position smallbore rifle range until television moved in. The big wooden pillars that hold up the floor are pockmarked with shot, according to Dave Howell, who was electronics operations manager at Garrison Hall in the 1980s.
Built of bluestone from Bell Hill itself and decorated with Oamaru stone, it was designed by N. Y. A. Wales, partner in the prominent Dunedin architectural firm Mason and Wales, and built by Port Chalmers firm Bauchop and Co.
Wales was colonel of the Dunedin Volunteers according his great-grandson, Niel Wales, also an architect. His firm still has the original drawings for the building and the extension. No doubt these were used again in the 1960s to 1980s when he designed the television studios, transmission and video-editing suites, workshops and stores within his great-grandfather's building.
By 1905 the building was too small for the militia, and new premises were planned at Bridgman St, where the army still has its HQ. Then, in 1912 under the Defence Amendment Act, the Government commandeered all military halls, to the discontent of the public.
Complaints that it should be returned to the community who had raised funds for it appeared from time to time in newspapers. According to the Historic Places Trust, the Government paid 18017 11s 6d for the property, which is now a category 2 historic place.
The Government used Garrison Hall as a military hall for two years and, from 1917 to 1936, as the chief post office while the new post office in the Exchange was being built.
When it was being converted for television, a stamped, addressed letter from the 1930s was found under the floor, and, with much fanfare on the new local news programme, handed back to the post office for final delivery, probably to a long-dead recipient, Mr Howell said.
In the 1930s various departments of the New Zealand Broadcasting Services, which then was radio, occupied the building and the Otago Old People's Welfare Council had rooms in the lower building, he said.
For many years the empty hall had been used as an echo chamber for the radio recording studios in the basement of Burns Hall across Burlington St. Wires across the street led to a speaker at one end of the empty hall and from a microphone at the other end.
Passers-by were often surprised by the ghostly music coming out of the dark hall. If a noisy truck went up the street it got on to the recording, and they had to do it again, Mr Howell said.
To discourage other government departments using the hall for storage, the regional broadcasting engineer put up a sign "Warning: safe load on this floor 60lb/sq ft."
"If anyone had given it any thought, they would have realised that merely by standing on the floor they would have exceeded the supposed safe limit," writes Russell Garbutt in It's OK leaving here: A brief history of the first 25 years of television in Dunedin (1988).
At some stage during the Government's ownership, but before television moved in during the 1960s, the turrets on the outside were truncated and the battlements were filled in.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Garrison Hall was a hub of television studio production activity.
Over the years the main studio was moved from the top floor of the orderlies' extension to the lower floor, and various alterations were made to the office and workshop spaces, gradually filling up the volume of the hall.
If you got high enough, it looked rather like a stack of large, dusty boxes under the vast, pitched roof of the hall, with its skylights and metal tie rods.
And what will happen to Garrison Hall now that NHNZ is moving out?
Mr Howell would like to see it investigated for refitting as a theatre as there has been much talk of the city needing an 800-seat live theatre.
Mr Stedman, managing director of NHNZ, has also suggested this. After all, when the interior building is removed, you are left with a large hall, he says.
"It is for sale. We haven't appointed an agent at this stage but we've been surprised and very pleased at the level of interest. There are a number people who've made multiple visits," he said.
