Know your town

Factories
Up until the 1930s there were numerous factories operating in and around Martinborough. An early one was the timber mill at Moiki run by Greenaway and Sholes. A huge amount of timber was milled for the buildings going up in Martinborough and the surrounding district. Timber from this mill was also used for the boxing of the current Ruamahanga bridge.

There was a tannery upriver from the present Huangarua bridge, however little information is available on this factory. There was also a flax mill at Mahaki owned by F Wall.

A brick and tile works was established on W J Martin’s property at Huangarua in 1900. by a Mr J Shears. He advertised: ‘ Only best bricks manufactured. Orders by post promptly attended to. Drain pipes a specialty’.
The works manager was J Mannering who owned an acre of land on the corner of New York and Princes Streets – Now Brown’s vineyard.

There were numerous dairy factories. Pukio factory was established in 1906 by Abraham J Harris and produced fifteen tons of cheese a year. In 1907 dairy factories were established at Tawaha, Otaraia, and Dry River. The Tawaha factory burned down in 1949. Otaraia was a co-op, later renamed Elmdale, which operated until 1960. The Dry River factory, owned by J A Chesham produced fifteen ton of cheese a year.

A cordial factory ‘Wishart’s Cordials’ operated at number sixteen New York Street. This was later G Vincent Cordials and in 1928 Mr Vincent moved the operation to Featherston.