Newspaper Article 2012 – Oldest house preserves past

Oldest house preserves past

Built around 1875, Stoneycroft – a Victorian-styled colonial house at 901 Omahu Rd  – was the town house of Taihape Rd farmer W J Birch.

The original property was 19.8ha, but land sold by the various owners since the 1870’s reduced it to only 2.4ha of land now.

The photo shown of the property – then shrouded by ivy and roses – is around the late 1930s. The occupants were Dr Barcroft and his wife, Fanny (Beamish).

The last private owner of Stoneycroft, Dr D A Ballantyne, purchased the property in 1954 after he joined the Hawke’s Bay Hospital Board in 1953. That same year, his wife, Joyce, was the first woman to be elected to the then Hastings Borough Council.

Joyce Ballantyne outlived her husband, who died in 1984, by nearly 20 years. She passed away in 2003. Before she died, Joyce wanted to make sure the property would have adequate safeguards from alteration.

While Stoneycroft had received a Category II status from the New Zealand Historic Places Trust in 1993, Joyce felt Stoneycroft needed more protection, so she entered into a covenant in 1995 with the trust, which would protect the originality of the property.

In 2005, the Hastings District Council purchased the property from the Ballantyne Estate. The council wanted a green space near the Lyndhurst Estate development, and would look at future uses for the homestead.

The Hawke’s Bay Digital Archives Trust was successful in its application in December 2009 to lease the property from the council for its  Knowledge Bank facility.

It is fitting perhaps that Hastings’ oldest house, Stoneycroft, is now the site of the Knowledge Bank, which will assist in preserving the past for the future by means of computerising pictures, film, biographies and oral histories of Hawke’s Bay.

The Knowledge Bank will be opened today by Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule at Stoneycroft, and representatives from five previous owners, the Birch, Beamish, Barcroft, Edmonds and Ballantyne families, will be in attendance.

Photo caption – KNOWLEDGE BANK SITE: Stoneycroft homestead was ensured protection by Joyce Ballantyne in 1995.
PHOTO/ERIC BEAMISH