Old Main Road, RD2, Te Puna

Katikati & Te Puna Ridings Road Status Map, May 1986
Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. Map 20-150

Were he to return to his former address in Te Puna today, John Munro - who lived there between 1893[1] and his death in 1924[2] - would have little difficulty negotiating the roads between the Wairoa River and his home.  This 1986 map of State Highway 2[3] and its offshoots - our fishbone road – bears a close resemblance to the original route as constructed by the Armed Constabulary over a century before.  When my family took over the Munro farm in 1955, our address was as given in the title of this essay.  Why, you might wonder, was the road already “old”?

Rough sketch plan of Tauranga District, by James Mackay, 4 May 1867
Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. Map 20-265

In 1867, before there even was a road[4], the challenges confronting the Constabulary were significant.  There was no stone, so they used the technique of laying transverse boughs of manuka across the roadway and compacting fill over it.  As this “corduroy road” broke down into sloughs and bogs and dustbowls with use, the roadway itself tended to wander over the landscape.  Horses and vehicles picked their way through fern and wetlands, fording the smaller watercourses and stopping to consider their options at the bigger rivers.  The most significant of these for John was the Wairoa River itself, where a kauri bridge had been constructed in 1874 “under the superintendence of AC Turner, Esq., District Engineer.” [5]

Wairoa River Bridge being built, 1874
Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. Photo 03-244

John’s route from the bridge still winds up the hill, whose headland, Pukewhanake, was ravaged for engineering purposes.  The terraced pa sites behind Pukewhanake, so obvious until the 1980s, have now been covered over by a modern house.   The hill climb was windier in John’s day, creeping behind and around the hilside’s southeastern edge, but the straight stretch intersected by Te Mete Road to the south and, further on, Clarke Road to the north has remained relatively unchanged.  The dip into the Hakao[6] was a vexed issue for years and we can imagine John allowing himself a wry smile as he remembers hauling stone from the Te Puna Quarry[7] to satisfy the vigorous complaints of Mr JAM Davidson, County Chairman, about the “lake” at the gateway to his farm[8].

The roundabout at the four-way intersection of Minden and Te Puna Roads might have disconcerted our time-traveller, were it not for the fact that the construction of the Takitimu Northern Link, a massive new highway leading from the Tauriko interchange south of Tauranga city, including a new bridge across the Wairoa, and another one at the “Te Hakao Minden Gully”[9], is already obvious at various points along his route.

Artist’s impression of completed Te Rangituanehu Minden interchange, Takitimu North Link
Image courtesy of Waka Kotahi

This image[10], which does not show the existence of our present State Highway 2 (it is out of shot on the left), shows the extent to which John’s – and our – Te Puna landscape is about to change forever.  The “corduroy road”, and its later improvements, adjustments, and “deviations”[11] will become a thoroughfare much more akin to that of John’s day, however.  So maybe, were he to book a Tardis for, say 2025, he may feel more at home on what would by then be the old main road.

And what about the even older, so-called, Old Main Road on Rural Delivery route number 2?  John might be gratified to find out that this road, that he objected to when it was proposed in 1920[12], is now named after his family.  He may also be amused to discover that this new main road, known on a Lands and Survey aerial photograph[13] as the “Paeroa Whakatane State Highway”, did not stay new for long.  In the early 1950’s, further works along the Te Puna stretch of the highway returned “Bledisloe Road” to its original status as the main road, eliminated Pipeclay Cutting (now enjoying two names – Ainsworth Road to its north and Munro Road East at, confusingly, its western end) altogether and created Loop Road (these days, no longer a loop).

Loop Road is, however, the currently-intended end of the Takitimu Northern Link.  Having circled the Te Puna roundabout, John will return to relatively familiar ground.  He would recognise Quarry Road, which he was paid £33 15/- for fencing in 1913[14].  And he would know his own driveway, which is still where it always was. 

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[1] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18931009.2.5

[2] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19260609.2.3

[3] May 1986 local road network, image courtesy of Pae Koroki

[4] James Mackay’s 1867 sketch plan, image courtesy of Pae Koroki

[5] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18750911.2.12

[6] Beth Bowden, “Te Puna’s Lost Watercourse” http://taurangahistorical.blogspot.com/2022/01/

[7] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19110609.2.10

[8] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19120403.2.24

[9] https://www.nzta.govt.nz/projects/sh2-waihi-to-tauranga-corridor/takitimu-north-link/

[10] Image courtesy of Waka Kotahi, takitimu-north-link-artists-impression-of-completed-te-rangituanehu-minden-interchange__ResizedImageWzYwMCwzODBd

[11] The technical term for re-routing the highway, much in use over the 1920s and 1930s

[12] “A Te Puna Deviation” https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19200807.2.9

[13] NZMS 3, Sheet N.58/7 First Edition photographed February 1943 and published September 1949

[14] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19130808.2.4

Placement and Replacement - The Te Puna Memorial Hall

Until the deadline for this blog, the end of the week in which the new Te Puna Memorial Hall was opened, it had never occurred to me that I would follow in the footsteps of Mrs N. Heard (née Lochhead). At a 1948 meeting of the Te Puna branch of the Women’s Division of Federated Farmers (now known as Rural Women) she “spoke of ... the planning, building and final opening and dedicating of the district’s Hall as a memorial to those who fell in the first world war.” [1]  At the time of her address, the Hall had been in place for 26 years. And a poignant set of new memorials was required.  The granite tablet listing the names of those who fell in WWII was put alongside the WWI memorial in 1947. As she spoke, money was being collected for another, to commemorate those who served [2].

 

The original Hall was a prodigious undertaking for a district that had been in existence for just over four decades [3]. Planning for it began in 1920, and many a fundraising idea was entertained after the Armstrongs donated a corner of their land [4], the site of the Hall for the next 94 years. “Entertained” was the operative word. People were asked to dance and to sing [5] at many socials, held in the Te Puna Schoolroom; to subscribe [6]; and to purchase posts made from gum trees felled on the site [7]. By July 1922 the floor space of the Hall – 48 feet by 28 feet – had been decided and the timber had started to arrive.

Timber stacked in the course of dismantling the original Hall, September 2016

The cost of the original Hall was estimated to be about £250, most of which was materials: the labour was provided by volunteers [8]. Much reliance was placed on the expertise of master builder David Borell, but he found he had to divide his attention between overseeing the Hall building and his rugby-playing commitments [9]. It is no wonder that a number of locals feel that an ancestor of theirs can claim to be “builder” of the Hall [10].

Memorial halls are part of a beloved tradition in New Zealand, most aptly illustrated in Fiona Jack’s beautiful website that shows 65 variations on the theme [11]. The original Te Puna Memorial Hall was one of our earliest examples. Its vernacular design and the level of community contribution involved in its creation were very different from the effort required for the replacement Hall. 

Both the original Hall and the new one, however, were created from one compelling need: the “close settlement” of Te Puna as a part of “Tauranga County” (in the words of the BP Times editor on 31 July 1922 [12]). By 2016 the pressures on State Highway 2 had made the intersection, close to the old Hall, so dangerous as to require the construction of a large roundabout to manage the traffic volumes from Minden and Te Puna Roads on to the main highway.

None of what followed that decision was easy for the twenty-first century Hall Committee. And the history of the past four years is a subject for a later historian. Nevertheless, the ultimate strength of the creation of an important, and continuing, community amenity is to some extent told by the images of the original being dismantled, and the new one created. Taking the Hall down proved the quality of its workmanship and its materials. It could have stood for another century.

The last gable standing

Care was taken to preserve the clean lines and angles of the original building ...

The new Hall takes shape

... and the community base that it sprang from.

Inscription in the Hall floor, October 2019

There are some satisfactions that the first Hall users might like. Some of the timber used in the construction of the old Hall has been used to create a lectern for the stage and two finely-made tables for the meeting rooms. The old Hall had a stage, but no lectern; and it had no meeting rooms at all. The new Hall occupies a site that could not be closer to that of the original, and it has been built on what was formerly Armstrong land [13].

The new Hall, August 2020

 References

[1] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19480914.2.60.5 . Unfortunately Mrs Heard’s actual address was not reported. 
[2] This went up in 1950. Several names were added subsequently, as can be seen by the different colour of the gilded lettering.
[3] I am counting from the first meeting of the Te Puna Highway District, 18 Dec 1875, held at W G Armstrong’s house: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18751218.2.3.3
[4] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19200601.2.17
[5] ibid
[6] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19200610.2.4
[7] Anecdote from Fred Milligan, Chairman of the Tauranga RSA, who spoke at the opening of the new Hall, 16 August 2020.
[8] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19221127.2.10
[9] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19220629.2.3
[10] Comments passed to the writer at the time of the Hall’s demolition, September/October 2016
[11] https://fionajack.net/living-halls-photos-fiona-jack/
[12] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19220731.2.5?
[13] This appellation of course ignores the fact that the whenua was, until raupatu, part of the Pirirakau rohe. We are indebted to the hapū for its generosity in supporting the creation and maintenance of this local memorial to the all the whānau of the district.