This large historic archaeological project in inner Wellington was carried out by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust in 2005; Warren Gumbley was excavation director, and Louise Furey managed the project on behalf of HPT (Now Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga).
The Inner City Bypass Project was the largest historic archaeological investigation carried out in New Zealand. The yards of 15 houses dating from the 1860s to 1900s were investigated in a well-preserved historic landscape off Upper Cuba Street in Te Aro. The project involved archaeological excavation and also buildings archaeology, where the construction techniques and the sequence of changes to buildings were recorded and interior decor documented.
Detailed research on land history and the documented history of the buildings provides information on the increasing urbanisation of central Wellington from the grazing paddocks of the town acres in the early 1860s through numerous subdivisions, house constructions, demolitions and new building developments which took place over the next 40 years.
