This intriguing diagram by G.E. Humphries dates from 1907 and proposed raising the surface level of the ground to allow trams to run straight underneath it instead of around it which they did on the eastern side until 1964 (for pictures see the book Wellington Transport Memories). One proposed use of the substantial extra space available underground not needed by the trams was for a shooting gallery. Today's vast underground shopping malls didn't exist in those days.
There was no road tunnel through Mt Victoria at that time and the notion of going to an airport to fly in a plane somewhere would have been greeted with incredulity. The grandstand is on the other side of the ground to where it was built; the domed memorial to Wakefield was built there instead. Today the name Sussex is only applied to the western side and called a Street not a square, the eastern side is Paterson and Dufferin Streets.
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