Know your town

Land use in Wharekaka Waihinga

How the land has changed over the years. I will start with the Waihinga and Wharekaka Blocks.
At first the land was cultivated for wheat for flour and oats for fuel for the horses. The large runs and farms all had cowman gardeners who produced milk and vegetables for the workers. The first commercial crop was hops at Dry River the seed being imported by Mr Coleman Philips. The hops were supplied to the two Greytown Breweries.

The Waihinga sections are numbered from One to seventy on the Town Plan with number one being at the top of Ferry Road and Jellicoe Street and number seventy between Grey Street and the Swimming Baths.
Sections one to thirty had houses and barns connected with cartage, coaching and agricultural contractors. These were all pulled down by the 1900s replaced by dwellings. Beth and Allen Curwen had a plant nursery around 1989 and Breb Stevenson bred Narcissus bulbs on the section beside the First Church.
The next block had George Harris’s slaughter house and butcher shop along with a barn and his dwelling. Ray Sparks also established glass houses and grew vegetable on this block in 1980. These have now all gone. There are olive trees by the creek in Weld Street.
The Jellicoe street front sections between Weld and Grey Streets made up the business section. There were stores, a sweet shop, hotel, taxidermy and concrete works. Between French Street and Roberts Road was the Post Office, blacksmith Hall, school and tennis courts.
The school section included a two acre horse paddock for pupil’s ponies. The original school burned down in 1919. In the 1940s and 1950s some of the former horse paddock was used as school gardens. All children were taught the basics of gardening in those days. Each year much of the land was planted in peas for Christmas, the money from selling these provided funds for sports equipment.
In 1960 the former Post office section became Mandalay Gardens where an Adams family established a tunnel house and grew strawberries and raspberries. In the 1970s Robert and Raymond Bing grew tomatoes on Grey Street. Wendy Borman had a plant nursery on Jellicoe Street.
Between Grey and Dublin streets were larger sections. The first business established here was McLeod’s Boot factory in 1890 on what is now Radium Street. An agricultural contractor’s yard was established in 1905 and the new school in 1921. The Manse and cemetery were also in this block A large section became a market garden established by Robert Bing’s father. Another large section was also commercial garden planted out in fruit trees, gooseberries, gladiola bulbs and veges. This was later put into grapes which are now part of Nga Waka vineyards. I had vegetable gardens on sections thirty six to thirty eight Dublin Street.