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5.4.1 Ilam
Filming was performed at the Ilam Homestead where the Hulme family had lived, as well as making extensive use of the Ilam gardens, where the real Pauline and Juliet had play-acted their fantasies forty years earlier. As the filmmakers discovered from Pauline's diary, she loved staying at Ilam. From her descriptions of their idyllic times together, they realized the gardens in particular were the backdrop to the private world inhabited by the two girls. Ilam was located in the upscale residential suburb of Upper Riccarton; it is now in the Ilam area of Christchurch. It was named after Ilam Hall, the English home of the Watts-Russell family who settled the area in the 1850s. The site of the homestead had once been one of the main social centres of early Christchurch society. The present homestead was built in 1914 after fire destroyed the first two buildings. The Ilam gardens are locally renowned and are a popular tourist attraction. Ilam was sold to the University in 1950, the year the Hulmes moved to take up residence there. Ilam was a residence for the Rector, owned by Canterbury University College, also used for College social functions. The balcony, location for several critical scenes in "Heavenly Creatures," had been glassed in since the mid 1950s, so was reconstructed on a set and digitally added to Ilam as necessary. Ilam is located on the south-west side of the spacious grounds of the present campus of the University of Canterbury, beside the Avon River where it has a meandering confluence. Now, there are student residential dormitories nearby, just south of Homestead road. Some are visible to the left side of the house, over trees, in "Heavenly Creatures". At the time shown in "Heavenly Creatures" the Ilam homestead was on the outskirts of Christchurch in a sparsely-populated part of town. There were paddocks for horses nearby on the College property, and the School of Fine Arts was the only College department on the Ilam site. The homestead is set back from Ilam Road, to the west, with a long, curving, tree-lined drive. The front of the home, with its stately white portcullis and columns, faces east and is lit from the north-east by the morning sun. The lawn and gardens at the rear of the home are lit by the afternoon sun, in the north- west.
The house itself has been changed quite significantly from the time it was a residence as it now has a bar and, upstairs, a restaurant. There is a long drive and the house is hidden from the road by a stand of trees and a large clear area. The front door is in the middle of the front under a portcullis and up three shallow steps. There is a large double door which opens into a square hallway with a large staircase at the rear and left. At the front right there is a large sitting room with a fireplace on the straight inside wall and a large, flat window at one end; to the right is a bay window. To the left of the hall, beside the stairs, there is now a bar, with two smallish rooms leading off one another. Looking from the front door, straight ahead is a glass rear door to a patio. The staircase is off to the left, and proceeds up with a small landing on which you need to make an about turn to continue up to the top. It is at the top of the stairs that the biggest changes have been made. At least three rooms have been combined into one for the dining room and, I should think, at least two others form the kitchen. [ad]
So, it sounds as if some significant interior redecorating was necessary to reconstruct the Ilam upstairs, including Juliet's, Hilda's and Mr Perry's bedrooms for "Heavenly Creatures." To get to Ilam, Pauline would probably have bicycled west from her home, cutting through North Hagley Park, then following the #21 bus line all the way. (Taking the bus from Cathedral Square was also a possibility). She would travel straight westward on Riccarton Road to Ilam Road, then right (northward) up Ilam Road, past Ilam School on her right (Juliet's elementary School) and then a left turn into the long drive of the Ilam homestead. All told, it is about 5 km (about 3 miles), door to door, over perfectly flat terrain, from 31 Gloucester St. to Ilam, so it would have taken Pauline something like 45 minutes to bike from her home to Juliet's.
