Matapiro Station – Mervyn Harper

[Background radio voice audible during first nine minutes]

James Morgan: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of the Duart House Society I welcome you to this session. It’s my privilege to introduce Mervyn Harper to you. Now Mervyn is deeply engrossed in Hawke’s Bay’s history, and has been a member of the Historic Places Trust Hawke’s Bay Branch; he’s worked in the fields of history and research for a long, long time. Mervyn has a great knowledge up there in his head, and he’s really wonderful to listen to. He’s going to talk about the Shrimpton homestead out at Matapiro and the surrounding areas, because the Harpers come from the Ohiti area adjacent to that, and Matapiro Church, so that his presentation of slides is not only confined to Matapiro Homestead, but he’s also got some interesting bits and bobs for you from around the Matapiro area. With that, what more can I say? I promised you the world – deliver it to them, won’t you?

[Laughter, applause]

Mervyn Harper: After such an introduction as that I’m feeling if I promise you the world I might fall off my axis, but never mind. [Chuckles] Thank you very much for the introduction, and I have been in Hawke’s Bay all of my life in between visits abroad etcetera; and I’m not going to start off specifically on Matapiro; I’m going to tell you a little bit about me, where I came from and my life and various moves etcetera, which I’ve had. Some of you will have heard [it] before, some of you’ve probably heard [it] from a [??], but here goes …

I was born when my parents were managing Pukehamoamoa, which our family acquired off [from] the Māori. I moved from there with my own little family to Springfield, which is near Taradale, the top part of which is the top of the Puketapu hill where the totem poles stand; that was our back paddock from that side. It extended across the Puketapu Road, right onto the back of the Mission, so it’s quite a big block. There was nine-fifty-two [nine hundred and fifty-two] acres in that block, as was Redclyffe nine-fifty-two acres; all the Dolbel blocks together – they were all put in one and cut in half for the two Dolbel sons. Unfortunately one of them died quite young. So that is Springfield. Springfield actually now belongs to the Todd Motors family in Wellington. Our family kept on it from 1944 until, I think, about 1998, and then they relinquished it. So, yes, that’s where I lived; that’s where I rode to the Puketapu School on my pony in Primer 2 and Primer 3, and then I went to the Taradale School, and then subsequently moved.

Now, having left Springfield, going over the Redclyffe Bridge heading towards Korokipo, I’m going to turn left into Links Road, because that leads to part of Matapiro. If you go round Links Road corner where the chocolate factory is, there’s a big old home there called The Rise. That was where the Harper family used to live. And it was The Rise because it was actually set up on a little rise, which I believe was quite useful at the time of some of the floods, like 1897 etcetera. And if you go along a little further there’s Franklin Road; just past that is a big two-storeyed home – that was part of what was originally seven hundred acres which Matapiro had there. And they used to use it as a hogget grazing block, and before the motorway went through, it extended right through to Allen Road, where the corner of the new Odering’s Nursery is; some of you may’ve seen that. So that’s where it was, there. Over the years it’s been reduced; after the Second World War there was a piece taken off it for Rehab soldiers [repatriated soldiers who served in world wars] for orchards. Some was sold to various other … I know Hayne’s Butchery had a piece there. But if you look across on Links Road now, that great big huge storehouse, warehouse, whatever you call it, heading towards the motorway on the left, that was part of the Matapiro Block, and of course it was whittled right down. The last of that block was sold about 1958-59, at the same time as the property which I now live on, because it adjoined our family’s at Waitio. So those two blocks went to Matapiro then. They also had another small block down Raupare Road as well, which Ron Shrimpton used to live on.

Now, carrying on ever so briefly and quickly onto the motorway, going left towards the Chesterhope Bridge … Chesterhope? No, it’s not Chesterhope … whatever that bridge is … you look down to the left there back towards Redclyffe way, all that land was part of the Tareha land, and Bella Gillies. At the time they were canvassing for money for the construction of the current marae, and she sold all that land to [??] and to Frank Gordon, who’s now at Pōrangahau Station, and the money from that she put into the construction of the current Ōmahu Marae, with its little [?] on the top who is called Huikai, the Dancing Warrior. Now, I just put that in as an aside.

Going back down now onto the road towards Korokipo, there’s a little house on the right, which is where my grandparents lived; little two-storeyed house which Mr Reid used to live in. It was moved from the 1897 [flood] up onto the side of the hill, a little two-storey place. It was the home of Alfred Hollies, who was a dairyman. Going to Fernhill – have any of you been through Fernhill in the last few days? There’s been massive activities there; they’ve had working bees, they’ve put a new entrance in and lined it with shrubs and rocks and things. They’ve put a complete new sort of mantle into the entrance of the precept of the marae itself. It’s nicely carved, but unfortunately they’ve draped it with stuff that looks like dried seaweed, but … I don’t know what it is, I don’t think it enhances it. And they’ve put little pieces of paua along the top which you can see as you drive past; but it has had a massive facelift.

So you turn right and you go up towards … heading up towards Matapiro; you go past Old Patriarch’s, some photos of which I’ve got for you and I’m hoping I can put them out for you to have a quick peek; some of which you will see on the slides here. And then you go … recently they lifted the old church, probably about twelve [inches?] high, and I’ve got some photos of that somewhere but I haven’t got them with me unfortunately. You come to Old Patriarch and you turn left, ’cause that’s heading up towards Matapiro, and that used to be the main road to Napier, apart from the river. And in 1913 they changed the road; it used to run right round the points of Gunn’s Hill there – we call it Gunn’s Hill where the wine house is there – it used to go down there to the river. Eventually it eroded the road away, and in 1930 they put the cutting up over the top and down to where the current Ohiti Station buildings are, and that went right up the river. That access was negotiated with Cartwright Brown and Nga Upokoiri; he was the big chief, and most of that’s in this handy book here. And the idea was, he would give them a right of way and create the road provided they would assure him of his people having work on their crops further up. Cartwright now was at that point the owner of Matapiro. He subsequently went bust and his property was taken over by the bank and re-sold. So that’s where that negotiation went.

When Watty Shrimpton became the member for the Riding … and he was a member of that Riding for, I think it was something like twenty years; quite a long time … he closed that road. It was mentioned back there a bit, and he negotiated the opening of the current road from the junction of two roads down, which comes out down by the school. Now our family came along at that particular point in time, because they bought the block off [from] Matapiro. We wanted access to the back blocks to give titles to the various branches of the family, and you couldn’t get titles unless you had access to a private road. So Harpers found the survey piece, reopened the Ohiti Road, and bought a right of way which is now called Tauhara Road, which is [??] our place, and therefore it enabled the other Harpers to get title to the back blocks of Waitio on top of the [?], so that was fortuitous. Initially Matapiro weren’t very happy about that and said it wasn’t of great use to them, which turned out to be a lot of nonsense because it then made a right of way like the main road, to bring all their stock from the lower end right down by [?] Road and they could bring it up the road with fences either side, ultimately.

Matapiro was originally called … ‘a swampy headland’, I think was the translation of it, and it had quite a mixed range of owners in the early stages. In 1872 it was quoted as being twenty-two thousand acres. Earlier in the piece Ngati Ūpokoiri was leasing directly to [Edward] Tuke. Now, that was then regarded as illegal, and if you happen to’ve read Adrian Coleman’s book there was a legal aspect; and the Māori were much happier to lease to somebody, apart from how it had some money, and get the cold, hard cash; where in actual fact when McLean came along they had the partitioning system, and they’d get control of it then they would lease it back at a higher rate, or sell it to some other aspiring farmers. So there was quite a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, quite a bit of legal aspect involved in that particular period of time. You had Edward Tuke; he was mentioned in that point of time; you had Rhodes, who used to own Clive Grange, which subsequently became part of Matapiro eventually; and Mrs B M Forde, Barbara, the former Barbara Shrimpton – she was born at Clive Grange. The old Clive Grange home now, I think has been pulled down. And the other person who was involved of course was Cartwright Brown, who came from Sussex in England with a cartload of money, and of course as I mentioned before, he eventually took over [?] and Matapiro at the same time, and he went bankrupt, and in 1865 the ownership of Matapiro was surrendered to BNZ. [Bank of New Zealand] It was then sold to Joseph Rhodes, who was a wealthy man from Otago, and he came up here and he bought Clive Grange; he bought an area right through from virtually the Cape, and it was perceived then that he had too much, and the government stepped in and they reduced the amount [?], so then he came up and he bought Matapiro, and then he sold it.

And then there was a group set up called Calcutt, Harris and Rich. Now most of this stuff has come from what Miriam MacGregor’s had, some of which I’ve refined a wee bit. Rich was from Bushy Park, Palmerston South, Otago. Now that’s where the Shrimptons first came to New Zealand. One of them managed the Lyttelton Times. Soon after that, Shrimpton came to Hawke’s Bay as a land valuer, and I suspect that that was where he got in tow with the powers that be in the landed world [cough] amongst the gentry etcetera, and got into Matapiro.

Now, eventually we hear that Rich and Shrimpton had bought out the other two partners, Calcutt and Harris, and I don’t know very much about them at all. So then it became Shrimpton and Rich, and to enhance the deal he married Rich’s daughter, Mary, and that does help. [Chuckles] After a little while he bought Rich out. He married Mary Rich; and they were people from the South Island and came up to Hawke’s Bay, and started Matapiro going. Now Mary, his first wife, became very unwell, and she died in 1898; and then in 1900 he married Edith Maude Forster, who was a registered nurse, and I think she’s in the first twenty of the registrations of nurses in New Zealand. I have actually seen the certificate, which is around amongst the family somewhere. I imagine it’s under a large pile somewhere. She came here to nurse the first Mrs Shrimpton, and she subsequently died. And then in 1900 he married Edith Maude Forster from New Plymouth, and she became the second Mrs Shrimpton.

And Matapiro grew and was farmed. Watty introduced – they used to call him, or the family called him Watty. Anyhow, they called him Watty Shrimpton; he introduced hares for coursing; he introduced red deer, which became a pest. They were imported and brought up from the South Island, and I’m thinking in my head, ‘How on earth did you transfer deer from the South Island in the 1800s?’ But they obviously did. And at that stage they lived in the first house that was built in about 1878. Now that first little house … in ‘West to the Annie’ it’s incorrectly named; it was said to be part of the old Ōmāpere homestead, but it’s not. This is a bit premature, but never mind. The first little house was down by the river, in an area – if any of you’ve been there in recent times – where they have the new jet boat track. Some of you might’ve been there. Now this little picture here is the remnants of the first Matapiro home, not the Ōmāpere home. It was put on land that subsequently became Ōmāpere, because Shrimpton sold four thousand acres to Connors; they called it Ōmāpere, and that eventually was split in half for the two sons, Maurice Connor and John Connor. John Connor’s block has now gone to his daughter; you go up the Ohiti Road and you get to the foot of the hill, that’s the bottom end of Ōmāpere; and you come round the other way and you go to the top end past Matapiro – that’s Connors. And that happened about 1906, or 1909.

Now about the same time … no, a little sooner than that … they decided [coughing] to move the old homestead, that little whare that I’ve shown you, up to where it is [coughing] still to this day. They quote it as being part of the manager’s house; it may have been, but [cough] the [?] person remembered it in the late fifties and he said there was an old bachelor fellow that lived in it called Bill Fisk, and he lived in that there. But that is part of the original; it was sited in what was called Bullock Bay, and Tony Connor found a key for it on the site where it used to be, and I think it’s probably the key to the door or something – I’ve been trying to visualise what size of key it might’ve been, ‘cause some of those keys were pretty big. And also there’s the remnants of a well nearby.

And of course in those early days that was the first mode of transport, up the river, until they came into this area which was called Bullock Bay. Now, as an adjunct to that, in 1884, Kuripapango Bridge, which was by [the] Gentle Annie, was washed out with a big flood, and a lot of the piles were eroded away and they floated down the river, and they, I expect, accumulated in this bay here where the house was. And the Shrimptons got their horse teams and pulled these piles out and they became the basis of the first Matapiro stock yards. Now if you go past Matapiro you go down a dip like that; just before you go down that dip over Kikowhero Creek [Stream], there is an area there which the current owners have grown lucerne on. For some reason the area where the stockyards were didn’t grow very well, and they’d only just realised that that might’ve been the problem, or its compaction or whatever it had in those early days. So yes, that’s where the first Matapiro stock yards were. Tony Simmonds once told me that he reckoned that some of the timber that they used in the homestead might’ve come from upstream and various parts, but how correct it is I don’t know. I suspect he may’ve been confused with having learnt that, but that doesn’t matter, as an aside.

Between Bullock Bay [on] the other part of the river and [the] current Matapiro, you go over the Kikowhero Stream. Now the Kikowhero Stream is of great interest to rock hunters and archaeologists and the likes, and they’ve found many, many bits of pieces of stone, and midden and rocks, and moa bones and all sorts of things around Matapiro that are of great interest to these fossickers. But there is another little story about fossicking there … Watty Shrimpton in his early days used to ride a horse – bearing in mind he died in 1936 – fair while ago. He was riding up that creek somewhere and looked down and saw something very shiny, and he got off and picked it up. And in actual fact it was a black pearl. Now the black pearl was found and it is now in the London Museum, and the late Matthew Forde who was one of the contributors to the book here, he had been to see it about; it would have to be about 1951 or ‘52 ‘cause Matthew’s father died suddenly in Hastings about 1953, I think it was, and he had seen that and came home. So yes, it is an interesting creek, particularly if you’re interested in things very, very old.

It was decided after having moved the cottage up to the present site of the homestead, that they would build a new home, and the site was chosen as the home of Te Whakairo meeting house. Now the meeting house, I believe, was on the right, if you look at the homestead from there, on the right-hand end – on that end down there, it’s the lower piece. But that’s where Te Whakairo, very ornately carved meeting house, stood. What became of it, I don’t know; I haven’t found anybody else that knows either. He was a tohunga, and I don’t quite know what the translation … whether a soothsayer or a medicine man, or a man of predictions I’m not sure; but that’s where he was, and this meeting house was heavily carved.

So it was decided that the first storey home which was that one, would be built there about 1900. And then subsequently family started to come along; you had Ron, Wallace, Barbara and Edith. Edith was known as Babs, and she married a chap Fergus in England and sadly Edith, or Babs, was killed in a motor accident near Edinburgh. She only had one daughter, Frances, who died about seven or eight years ago in Bristol in England having never married, with no family. And she was the only daughter then, so she ended up with eight hundred and sixty-odd acres of Matapiro. The other daughter, Barbara, (BM – Barbara Muriel) had another eight hundred and sixty acres; the two girls got much the same, and she married Larry Forde, Matthew’s parents. Barbara had three children, John, Matthew and … we called Little Barb; she was little Barbara. She became Barbara Franklin. Jean was the only one of that original family who was really still living nearby, and she leases the block of hers back to the current owners; and Jean is my immediate wonderful neighbour and has been for over fifty years.

And then 1906 as the family grew, they decided they needed more room and they built the second storey. Now the second storey made the building into a place of thirty-six rooms, which is quite a large flock. The first one was designed by Tilleard Natusch. Now there were three generations of architects in Natusch; there was Tilleard, the old hand, there was René, the father, and then there’s Guy, currently still alive in Napier. Now in Hawke’s Bay there’re I think about six or seven Natusch homes. Natusch, Tilleard himself, became synonymous with Tudor style. If you saw Tudor style, that was synonymous with the name Natusch, and Matapiro is very much that style. You’ve got Silverford, Puketapu, which is another one; you’ve got Erewhon up on the Taihape Road, is another; you’ve got one in Napier, and I’m not sure where it is and I haven’t seen it. There is still one near Takapau, not a particularly big one, but it was a Natusch design. But the real cluster of Natusch homes seems to be in the Rangitīkei-Manawatū area, one or two of which I have seen. So they left quite a legacy unique in architectural design; although, having said that, Natusch also designed Tuna Nui, which is a totally different looking place, totally different. But there is a coldness about Tuna Nui – it looks as though it’s all plastered and it’s a bit sort of set down in the valley – but that was a Natusch design too, and it’s quite different from what he normally was known for.

Of course you have the saga of little Walter, who died aged six … I think diphtheria. And Watty also was very involved with the hospital board, and it was, I think, probably as a result of the little boy aged six dying that he made the money available for the construction of Shrimpton Ward. It’s interesting how the Wards of Napier [Hospital] were named after various people – you had Coleman Ward, which was named after Coleman; you had another lady, she was a nurse there a Hetty someone, I can’t think what her … Hetty …

Comment: Midgely?

Mervyn: Oh, Midgely Ward was another one, yes, that’s right. Yes, there was a number of … there was [were] the two Robjohns – I don’t know quite how they got their names, but there was an Upper and a Lower – one of them was an Opthalmic Ward, I think. Yeah, so that’s that.

There’s another question that’s come through my head at the same time; looking across the river towards the back end of Matapiro where you’re looking past Roy’s Hill, and I’d love to know who Roy was. Does anybody know after whom Roy’s Hill was named? What was he noted for? Why did he get such a substantial block of land named after him? What did he do to deserve it? [Chuckles] Does anybody know? Well, there’s a little project for you. [Chuckles] So we [cough, inaudible] quite a bit of Matapiro and the area. There was a piece set aside [??] for the construction of the Matapiro Hall.

I get very angry with the electoral roll people, because the last two elections they’ve sent my little enrolment form to say I live at Crownthorpe, and I don’t live at Crownthorpe. And when I notified them about it they eventually wrote back and said, oh, they’re sorry, they’ll put it right next time. Next time the electoral roll came round I’m still at Crownthorpe. [Chuckles] So I rang them; and they wrote back and they said, ‘Oh, well I’m very sorry, our computer won’t recognise Matapiro.’ And I’m going to tell them before very long that Matapiro was there long before Crownthorpe, and that part of the Crownthorpe settlement came from Matapiro, as did Whakamarumaru; as did various other places. Crownthorpe Settlement Road was put in in 1922, and the second one I think took place in 1923; however, Crownthorpe further up the road was a bit earlier than that. And of course the Crownthorpe church was built as a memorial of [to] Coleman’s son who was killed during the war. So, yes, there’s a lot of history that comes from Matapiro.

The current owners are Ken Syminton. He’s a really nice guy; he lives in Auckland in Campbell Bay – has a beautiful home there. And he’s got his son, Grant, and Ellie – they live in the current homestead; young couple, really delightful, down-to-earth people, but very successful. They’ve got one daughter at Woodford out here and the boy at Lindisfarne. And it’s great to see the homestead now functioning as a home, with kids running around, and bikes, and swimming pool plastic things, and lights on. For years it was shut up and sort of shrouded like a mausoleum, but now it’s alive and kicking. Fortunately, the people that have got it now – I think it’s a family trust of some sort – but there’s plenty of money and they’ve done great things with it. They’ve put a huge irrigation scheme in; Shrimptons had put a well in before the actual sale. You may remember there was an auction sale at Napier War Memorial Hall, I think it was, some years ago and every man and his dog, and some, came to see what was going to become of Matapiro, and it was passed in. It was never sold; they weren’t offered enough. The chief negotiator on behalf of the Shrimptons was Sue Peak who lives in San Francisco, and she was the sole trustee; she was Wallace’s only daughter. Wallace has since died, so Sue was in charge of it mostly, and she was at one stage president of the World Body of Psychologists. When the agents out here decided they would talk her into letting some of these deals go through, they struck a very formidable opponent, and she hung on. And eventually it was sold to Ken and his family, and I actually think it was a great move because the place is going ahead now. Subsequently, what was Mrs Forde’s block, a portion of her eight hundred and sixty-two acres I think was bought by the Todds and the Shand family. Now Sarah Shand used to be the Home Science teacher at Woodford for a number of years; she’s now teaching at Napier Girls’ High. And her elderly parents live there too, on this piece; they’ve got a vineyard there. We’ve got lots of vineyards up there, we’ve got [??]; we’ve got Morton Estate, we’ve got Monowai, we’ve got Corban’s, Delegat’s – at one stage Delegat’s vineyard was the largest developing vineyard in New Zealand. I think it’s been superseded now by some in [the] Marlborough / Nelson area. We’ve now got a winery, Monowai, just almost opposite the Crownthorpe church, so yes, it’s a developing property. The Symintons are nice people; they’re very sort of community-spirited, and the kids all went to the local school initially. And it’s just nice to have them as neighbours.

Yes – I did forget to tell you that we came past Pukehamoamoa School, which of course was built on land belonging to Ngāwhara Karauria, the same family from which Bella Gillies descended – Karauria and Tareha – they were all tied up.

Yes, I’ve just about covered most of it, I think, that’s of interest to you. I’ll probably think of three things as I go out the door, but never mind. I think that’s a good time for me to close. That’s Barbara Forde there … that’s Babs.

[Pointing out features of homestead and other photos]

This, of course, is Matapiro before the top storey went on. That’s the inside of the main stairway going upstairs; little bits of architecture in there. Now this – I’ve got a couple of photos – this is a new dam which Delegat’s built to store water in the winter time, so when we have big droughts, they’ve got a supply of water. It’s a big reservoir, and I just took those photos there. And it was built in the last ten years. And do you see those poplars there, that’s where the Kikowhero Stream goes through where Watty found his black pearl. This is Old Patriarch which I was a bit involved in, as was Lil and John Johnson; there’s John there; Lil, Mervyn, I can’t remember who the next lady is, the lady who owned the land; Pat Parsons, the late John Russell and David Hildreth. And this home was originally the manager’s home for Nelson’s place, Whakamarumaru. It’s now been sold to the Hawke’s Bay Dairies, but it was an old home there; it was originally Darraghs’ home. And that’s the children with their nurse at their homestead there. And that’s the back entrance. There’s old Watty and his wife, next door.

Watty was very involved with the army at one stage; he wasn’t a military man per se, but he became involved in enlisting people when the Hauhau rebellions were going on, and not long after, I think, the battle of Ōmarunui which of course is straight over the road from Springfield where I used to live, and you look down on [the] monument. So this canon was washed up somewhere along the way on the beach, and Watty saw it and said, “I want that.” However, they got it back from Ākitio; they brought it back and set it up. It’s been there for a long time; the only thing that’s a problem, somebody pinched the cannonball. I think maybe a young athlete might’ve got it for a shotput. [Chuckles] That’s the only thing that’s missing, but it sat there for a long time. There’s the two girls and the little fellow.

And this is the little chapel of flowers – it was built in memory of young Walter, and there it is there. Millet was the builder, but he was also the gardener. They had some very interesting gardeners; they had a fellow called Hyde, who was a gardener-cum-nurseryman in the very early days, and he propagated a lot of the trees that were planted on that area. He was quite a nurseryman. That’s the little fountain that sits outside. That’s the Crownthorpe church; that’s been redone over now, and all repainted and new roofing done, and a new spire, you see … that’s all been re-slated. It looks very good. And that’s the Shrimpton block; there’s Barbara; John Forde; they’re all in one big block there at Crownthorpe cemetery.

And that’s the view from the top verandah, and our family had this piece over here, and when we sold it eventually the next joker went and put pine trees in it, which I was really browned off about, because it certainly wasn’t pine tree country – not in my opinion anyhow. Yes, that’s quite interesting.

Oh, and that was an old marmalade jar. They had their own schoolroom there too, and a governess. Tony Connor’s father did his early education there, and it’s been left, or was left, exactly as it was when they were teaching kids there. And there was a little old piano there, which had a sort of a fretwork front on it. But you’ll notice a lot of the furniture was made for them and it’s mostly all oak. And they have this sort of symbol thing on a number of the pieces of furniture. Whether it was the symbol of the designer or not, I’m not quite sure. These are just some of the artifacts that were there.

Now, Edith Maude Shrimpton – you see it embossed on the linen there. That sign coming through there, that’s part of the clock that was actually built into that building. These are some of the paintings which they had; most of the paintings went to America, because Sue Peak inherited most of those. This was the men’s shaving stand, I suppose you’d call it – I thought that was quite an interesting piece – I guess that’s what it was.

Now this was a W G Baker painting. Jean Forde has this little old radio now.

That’s Edith Maude. This fellow … I don’t know who he is, but I’d like to find out because it’s a very good action shot. It’s taken a long time [ago] ‘cause there’s no hard hat being worn. He’s jumping wire; I think it might be the Hawke’s Bay Show. I would like to know a little bit about him, because it’s a very good action shot. It’s not quite sharp, but never mind. That’s the early manager’s home, and the little initial ‘Y’ that came up from here, it was sited just along here still, but that has been substantially changed since then. That’s the woolshed before they put another portion onto it, on the side. That’s as it is now, soon after they painted it, and that was when they were stripping it down. It’s a big shed; built in the 1880s.

James: This is in the schoolroom?

Mervyn: Yes, the little babies playing [coughing] in the schoolroom there. I’m waiting to see that shower one come in, James. That was dug in a posthole, that pistol, they found it when they were digging. Somebody made a little box for it; I don’t know where it is now. That’s on beginning of the stairs – I don’t know what you call those little lights when you’re going up the stairway. That’s in the garden: ‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may’, and I don’t know the rest of it; it’s in here somewhere.

Question: Excuse me – do you know who any of the people are standing in that military photograph?

Mervyn: No, I don’t, apart from Watty and his wife. Somebody that’s done research into the military may know, but I don’t know. Walter, or Watty, he was only a little man … short fellow.

Question: Well, what year was he born?

Mervyn: 1846, I think. You can argue with me if you like.

Comment: I’ve got an A & P [Agricultural & Pastoral Society] Medal that was awarded to him in 1876, so that’ll be about right.

Mervyn: Treasure it, ‘cause there’s such a lot of stuff gets lost in the years of time.

Comment: And about four or five years ago … must’ve been when the place was sold, a lot of stuff came into Maiden & Fosters [Auctioneers] from there. And I managed to get a school hat and vest with W Shrimpton’s name, and I ended up donating it to Hereworth [School]. That’d be the younger one, would it? Would it be Wallace? Is he the one that died?

Mervyn: No, Wallace was the last of the whole family to die.

Some of you may remember at the Waitangi celebrations, they had a group of people in period costume, and I was the fellow wearing Watty’s top hat, [chuckles] a beard; and somebody wrote a letter to the paper ‘cause at that stage I had these tinted lenses, and somebody wrote a little facetiously to the paper that they doubted that those spectacles would’ve been [??] for that period of time [laughter] to which I did not respond.

Well, it seems like we’ve just about come to the end. Thank you for being such a good audience.

[Applause]

Rose Mohi: On behalf of the Society, I’d like to say it was the most fascinating talk we’ve just had. I’m sure we’ve all learnt the most wonderful things, and can’t wait to look up things. Couple of things I was going to say about Ōmāhu Marae … you mentioned that they had a DIY last weekend, so I will be on Māori TV this weekend on Ōmāhu Marae; I’ll explain … you said something about seaweed?

Mervyn: Yes, I wondered what that was; I don’t know whether it enhances it or not.

Rose: Well, in Maori legend, when Hinenui [?] runs away from her husband and goes into the underground, she has another man waiting for her, and he dresses up a cave for her, and he decorates it with seaweed. That’s what you see with greenery used at funerals and things …

Mervyn: It was seaweed?

Rose: Yes.

Mervyn: That was a good guess, wasn’t it?

Rose: So that’s the reference that you see when people are wearing the greenery. The other thing I was going to say is the carved meeting house – I presume it’s Pawhakairo, and it got burnt.

Mervyn: I never knew what became of it; I’ve never seen a picture of it either.

Rose: But there are some – it was photographed by … who’s that photographer at Massey …

Mervyn: Palmerston North? Go away!

Rose: Ronald Smith. Anyway, they went out and photographed it, and they brought some of the carvings out, so they were kept. It was burnt deliberately ‘cause they said it had fleas [??] – it was unsanitary anyway, so that was the end of it. But anyway, we’ll all go home with the task of finding out who Roy is. Thank you very much on behalf of the Duart House Society, for an interesting talk.

Mervyn: It’s been great.

[Applause]