Wooden Monuments – Markers of the Past

Sometimes only trees are left to remind us of human settlement. And sometimes their absence does the same. Now that a lattice of shelter-belts characterises the landscape around Tauranga, including my home locale of Te Puna, it is difficult to picture the transformation that has taken place as a consequence of both Māori and European settlement.

Google map, screenshot of Te Puna area, Snodgrass Road in the centre

About a millennium ago, when a group of ocean-voyaging waka made landfall in the sheltered waters of Tauranga Moana, the new immigrants found a remnant population, Nga Marama, and a vista of timbered hills receding to what came to be known as the Minden dome. A tiny sample of that dense bush, the reserve at Whakamarama, can be seen as a dark irregularly-shaped patch in the bottom left-hand corner of the above Google maps image[1]. But even that is not ngahere horomata (virgin forest). It was milled for timber in the early twentieth century by the Sharplins, a rival to the Gammans’ operation in Oropi[2].

Most of Tauranga was without trees for centuries before Europeans arrived. An early survey noted its countryside as “good soil, fern and tutu”[3] and the sketch made of the harbour entrance looking south from the deck of the HMS Pandora[4] offers no indication of a fuzzy, tree-lined inland horizon. Archaeological studies tell us that the local style of agriculture was a cycle of burning, cultivation and planting, moving on when the soil ceased to be productive and returning when it had recovered.This allowed no time for aboriculture. Such timber as there was was likely dedicated to building waka and important wharenui. The most venerated tree in Te Puna, a pohutukawa growing on the ravaged slopes of Pukewhanake close to the Wairoa River, is unlikely to be very ancient, although these tolerant and adaptable trees can live for half a century or more.

Old gum tree, corner of Tangitu and Te Puna Roads, 2025
Photo by Beth Bowden

The trees we see in Te Puna, therefore, were all planted after European settlement. Many of them were indeed markers of settlement, nineteenth-century examples of exotic arrivals in waves of arboreal fashion. This Australian gum has stood at the end of Te Puna Road for possibly a century. A rapid-growing species, this specimen was already huge to my five-year-old eyes in 1958.

Phoenix palms, end of Snodgrass Road Te Puna, 2025
Photo by Beth Bowden

The rusticity of this image was chosen in deliberate contrast to the sophistication of a stand of three phoenix palms that mark the end of Snodgrass Road, an area of Te Puna that was subdivided by landowner Sandy Snodgrass between 1930 and 1950.

Sutton kauri woodlot, Wallace Road Te Puna, 2025
Photo by Beth Bowden

For years after the Snodgrass homestead itself had disappeared, the Norfolk pine that marked a shady corner of its tennis lawn stood high above the surrounding rows of casuarina and matsudana willow shelter lines: cheap, mass-produced and unbeautiful trees kept trimmed for optimal economic benefit to the orchards they protect. That pine no longer pierces the skyline of Te Puna; but just along the road, on land that once was Snodgrass’s farm, a stand of kauri marks a twentieth-century investment.

Baby grey heron, Ettrick Farm, 1960
Photo by Shirley Sparks

Snodgrass Road is a name applied to a more ancient ara – a well-used pathway between the harbourside and the Minden that surveyors marked as a convenient line for a road. At its inland end, the trees changed. Farmers like John Munro preferred sturdy macrocarpas to wind-tossed fronds. Not only did a line of conifers mark his boundary with the Harper property to the north; he planted a macrocarpa near his barn and cowshed, at the bottom of wife Mary’s beautiful garden. By the time my parents took over the property, which they named Ettrick, this tree was a vast Ent-like structure.[5] Its strength and generous shade made it the ideal site for the periodic slaughter and butchering of a farm sheep for the household’s mutton. A more innocent image was caught by my mother in 1960.

Macrocarpa planted on L T Harper’s property, Te Puna
Photo taken 1970 by Shirley Sparks

The Harper farm had its signature macrocarpa too. I think Len’s father must have planted it, on the very top of the hill that was the highest point of their farm. This tree, much loved by the Harper family and ours, succumbed to disease in 2015 or so. It was a true landmark on both State Highway 2 and the horizon of the surprisingly small pastoral area that made up the productive part of the Munro’s, Sharp’s, and then the Sparks’ family farm.

Hay harvesting, Ettrick 1967
Photo by Shirley Sparks

My father made his hay on paddocks that were flat enough to take the machinery. While he cut and wind-rowed the grass himself, using his trusty Fergusson tractor, Rex Williams’ baler was a large and unwieldy beast, and the bales once made were picked up on a truck. Gradient was the key factor in an efficient, mechanised harvest. And macrocarpas loomed over the whole operation.

Hand-drawn map of Ettrick by Shirley Sparks, 1964
Photo by Beth Bowden

The treeline boundary on the lower left marks an important, original survey line that dates from Theophilus Heal’s map of 1867[6]. Here it is again, running on the diagonal in a hand-drawn map done by my mother in 1964.

Shirley Sparks mock-planting with a tiny trowel on the new house site, Ettrick, 1967
Photo by Beth Bowden

Local memory is bound up in trees. They have a chancy existence amongst their human companions, being vulnerable to development pressures, carelessness and climate change; but, left to themselves, their lifetimes extending well beyond those of the people who planted them, they can command a quiet significance. My mother who turned 95 while this essay was being written, has planted many and many a tree, not all of which have lasted her distance.  But those that will survive her will carry her memory. The same is true for others who set their saplings at roadsides and on hilltops. Trees may indeed have a secret life – and they tell a public story too.

References

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[1] For an interactive scan of the extent of the thousand-year-old Kaimai bushline, go to

https://www.google.com/maps/@-37.7041192,176.0304427,7647m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDEwNy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

[2] https://taurangahistorical.blogspot.com/2020/06/

[3] Map of Otumoitai West, Parish of Te Puna, Cook County, SD 420

[4] https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ Pacific Ocean NEW ZEALAND From Surveys in HM Ships Acheron & Pandora Captn. JL Stokes, Comndrs B Drury & GH Richards Assisted by… 1848-1855

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ent

[6]  Map of Otumoetai Block, parish of Te Puna, Cook County, SD 424

Gardenhurst, aka Mullanee

by Shirley Arabin and Julie Green

Mullanee (formerly Gardenhurst), Photograph by Shirley Arabin

Recently I visited the house known as Mullanee and earlier as Gardenhurst.  It stands empty among long grass, and the trunks of old exotic trees that have been chopped down to make way for a new highway.  The doors and windows are boarded up as it awaits its fate of demolition or removal.

The house is a single storied weatherboard building with an iron roof.  It began as a cottage with a single gable and ridge line, with a brick chimney that has survived for at least 140 years. An addition with a matching gable was added at some point and then in the twentieth century further additions provided a kitchen dining area on the west side and a large living room on the east. The complete interior has been modernised, probably in the 1960s, with the interior walls lined with wall board and wallpapered. The only interior features that may have remained unchanged are the interior wooden doors. As well as additions to the house, rooms were also removed and used for other purposes. 

A member of the last family to own the land believed it began its European occupation as a Crown Grant to a militia veteran, but that is an item for further research. This house could well be one of the earliest European houses extant in Tauranga.

Richard Henry Farrar, c.1863-1864, Dublin
Image courtesy of the family

The first mention of Gardenhurst in the newspaper occurred when R H Farrer wrote to the editor concerning the supply of town milk from his dairy farm of that name. He also supplied vegetables to the town. Farrer’s occupancy ended not long after for he died in September 1883 aged 60 years. An Irishman from Queen’s County (since 1922 known as County Laois), who served with the 18^th Royal Irish Regiment, Farrer arrived in New Zealand on the Lady Jocelyn in 1878 with the George Vesey Stewart settlers. Mrs Farrer still resided in Gardenhurst in January 1884 as the newspaper acknowledged that she donated two books to the Mechanics Institute.

By 1885 William V and Charles F Tuthill and J P Whelan were partners in Gardenhurst Farm until William Tuthill withdrew from the partnership the following year.  In June 1889 R C Jordan rented 300 acres from Mr Tuthill, on 150 of which the Maori were to grow wheat. Several stock auctions were held on the property including one of Mr Jordan’s “live and dead stock” in June 1891 when he proposed to move closer to town to live and carry on his businesses. R C Jordan had a varied career in Tauranga as contractor, engineer, surveyor, founder of the Judea saleyards, and Mayor of Tauranga twice.

Plan from Title Deed

In July 1892 Gardenhurst lots 78 and 83 Te Papa comprising 300 acres with an eight-room dwelling went under the hammer of D Lundon, Auctioneer at the Haymarket in Devonport Road. The purchasers were the sons of Mr John Thomas Bull the postmaster who had recently bought Topcroft.  

In 1897 the property changed hands again to a Mr Howard, formerly of Johannesburg and was described as in Omanawa Road. It was during his time that an extensive garden was planted including the exotic trees that have recently been felled. There were oaks, chestnut, cypress, the ginko, camellia, a plum tree, and a huge persimmon.

Photograph by Julie Green

Howard sold the property in 1901 to Charles Turner Wallis previously of Hokianga who called for tenders for alterations to the house immediately. In 1908 Wallis died of typhoid fever at the age of forty-eight, leaving a wife and eight children under fourteen. Mrs Wallis and her sons Roland (Roy) aged fourteen when his father died and Marshall aged nine worked the farm.  Mrs Wallis suffered a significant loss when her milking shed and equipment were destroyed by fire and she was uninsured.  The Council had engaged with Mrs Wallis concerning land to be taken for a road but when she saw the agreement did not include matters verbally suggested she withdrew from the arrangement. Mrs Margaret Wallis died aged 96 in 1957 but after being farmed by Roy and Marshall for many years the property was sold.

Photograph by Julie Green

As a returned soldier from WW2 Samuel William Gilmer, a shepherd from Gisborne qualified for a rehabilitation loan and with that he bought the farm from the Wallis family. Sam and his brother Hugh farmed the land and brought their father, also Hugh up from Gisborne. Marshall Wallis continued to live in the house and the Gilmers lived in a tent for some years. The Gilmers called the property Mullanee after the place in Ireland Mullahanee from where the family originated. In 1967 they built a brick house nearer the road for Hugh senior and that later became the home of his grandson David Gilmer and his family and their horticultural business. Later Sam and David Gilmer swapped houses with the last occupant being Sam’s grandson and his family. After Sam Gilmer gave up dairying Richard (Dick) Smith took over the farm and subdivided parcels of land that have become Westridge Views, Takitimu Toll Road, and New Zealand Transit Agency Waka Kotahi property for highway extension.

Sources:

Bay of Plenty Times through Papers Past. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/

Tauranga 1882-1982 The Centennial of the Gazetting Tauranga as a Borough. Edit. A C Bellamy. TCC 1982

Interview with David Gilmer by Julie Green

Bell Common Today

I took some pictures of the Bell Common for a previous post but decided maybe it needed its own dedicated article.

As one walks up the driveway (which formerly led to the homestead) there are many large old camellia and a rhododendron on the slope. Near the site of the original gate are a myrtle, a very substantial bay tree and the largest holly I have ever come across.

On the frontage to Cambridge Road there are a kauri and totara planted to commemorate the coronation of the present Queen’s parents, George VI and Elizabeth, on 12th May 1937. There is also a medium-sized walnut and to the west a large sweet chestnut and handsome Atlas cedar.

Moreton bay fig, planted in the 1930s

However the most handsome and spreading tree in this small arboretum is beyond the popular little playground. It is a Moreton Bay fig which fully occupies its own section of the Common and measures approximately 120 metres in circumference.

Bay of Plenty Times, 4 May 1933

Margaret Mackersey (née Bell) told me of her late father William Poole Bell arriving home in the 1930s intensely angry having witnessed the demise of the second of two large Moreton Bay figs in town. At the first opportunity he planted two more on the farm to compensate for their loss.

Moreton Bay fig, root system

Not many years passed and a tank trap was to be constructed across the farm during WW2 to stop the Japanese should they invade. The Bell family realised the matching tree down next to Cambridge Road (about opposite the present day shops) was in the way. William contacted the County Engineer who quietly came at night and moved the survey pegs to save it from destruction. Unfortunately 30 years later it really did have to be sacrificed to make way for the drainage systems when Townhead Farm was finally subdivided.

Moreton Bay fig - fruit developing
All images copyright Julie Green