Know your town

Waihenga or Waihinga?
A surviving plan from 22nd June 1872 has the spelling of the original subdivision Waihenga – the English rather than the Maori spelling of Waihinga. Archival papers passed to me by my old aunts quote Te Waihinga as meaning The Falling Waters. The alternate Waihenga as the Meeting of Waters – the Ruamahanga and Huangarua rivers – or Spreading Waters. An old photo shows water covering right across from Tod’s to Bidwill’s cuttings.
The first subdivision was surveyed in 1870 by the Provincial Engineer, J D Baird, subdivided a 100 acre block of land just up from the Waihinga Ferry crossing on the Lower valley Road to Greytown.

His plan was for a settlement of sixty one acre sections and six five acre blocks plus streets. These were named First, Weld, Grey, Bismark and Hirschberg Streets and Ferry Road. The settlement boundaries were the G Waterhouse property ‘Huangarua (now Dublin Street Street) in the north. Wharekaka on the East side (now Jellicoe Street). To the south it was W Smith’s Waihinga Station.

The plan had sections set aside for four churches; ‘English, Scotch, Catholic and Wesleyan’. Only the Presbyterians took up their section with the first church being built in 1871. Blocks were also set aside for education, post office and blacksmith.

Ferry Road ran to the river crossing where the Ferryman, Edward Harris, also had a hotel and accommodation along with large stock holding paddocks. Old papers tell of the hotel being burned down twice, the second time just as the Martinborough Hotel was being built. The first Waihenga bridge was built in 1873 along with the new Lower Valley Road up Tod’s cutting to what is now Martinborough.