The Teddington jetty puzzle #2

My last post, 'A short-lived long jetty in Teddington', focused on Samuel Manson’s 300ft jetty at the Head of the Bay (Teddington), built in 1862 and taken out by the tsunami of 1868.

The loss of the long jetty meant that cutters bringing stores to families at the Head of the Bay and Gebbies Valley, and taking out produce to Lyttelton on the return trip, had to run up the beach as far as they could, unload their cargo onto drays, load up again with the return cargo and wait until high tide. Cutter owners included Cameron Broths, Bill Hughes, Bill Hayders, Agar and Roberts, Agar and Thomas, Andy Briggs and Bert Deane. There must have been a brisk trade around the harbour because Agar and Thomas alone had six or more launches.

At this point the story of a jetty at Teddington becomes embroiled in politics, patch protection and intransigence. The story is incomplete since the trail, as far as I have been able to follow it to date, peters out around 1915. 

In April 1909 the Lyttelton Harbour Board received a letter from the clerk of the Mount Herbert County Council requesting that the Board receive a deputation regarding ‘a proposed small wharf at Teddington for the purpose of landing small goods.’[1] At the meeting the local men explained that many residents were using motor launches to take their produce to Lyttelton and that a small wharf would greatly facilitate loading. The distance by road was 11 miles, they explained, and cost 18s per ton, while carriage by sea cost only 7s 6d.

The Harbour Board’s engineer Cyrus Williams went up the harbour in an oil launch to survey the situation. His report, dated 15 November 1909, tells us a lot about conditions at Teddington.  He found that:

•         Oil launches and small craft up to 3ft draft could, at half tide, ‘reach the site of an old wharf near Teddington’
•         At this site the channel was 340ft from the shore, had about five foot at high water and drained almost dry at low tide
•         The channel was very narrow and tortuous but was roughly marked with stakes
•          Short boats could ascend the channel some distance above the old wharf site

Some members of the delegation suggested that the wharf be located further up the channel thereby reducing the length of the proposed wharf by 100ft and the cost by about £100. The local community would then use scoops to dig out the channel at low tide. Williams thought this was quite practicable but potentially difficult to maintain the altered conditions. He recommended that a jetty be erected at the site of the old wharf at a cost of about £250. About 250 tons of cargo would likely be passed over the jetty per annum.

The Harbour Improvement Committee accordingly recommended that a jetty be erected on condition that the Harbour Board acquire ownership of the site and that the Mount Herbert County Council contribute £10 a year towards the interest on the cost of construction. In reply the Council pointed out that wharf dues were already collected in Lyttelton, that such a tax was not levied on wharves in Governors Bay, Church Bay and Charteris Bay, that ‘goods put over the jetty at Teddington is far more than the other three put together’ and that this was likely to increase further as ‘the farmers in the immediate vicinity are going in for grain growing’.[2] They ‘strongly opposed’ paying the proposed charge. The Harbour Board then moved to apply the £10 per annum to all the outlying jetties under its jurisdiction. In retaliation for the Council’s attitude, the Harbour Board also ‘refused to contribute to the upkeep of the Governors Bay wharf the following year’.[3]

By September 1912 the Lyttelton Harbour Board was reporting that a channel to Teddington had been marked and a launch had been taken up the channel. The erection of 40 small beacons to mark out the channel was approved in December. Just what happened then is unclear because in September 1913 a letter from J. Sinclair to the Harbour Board outlined a problem.

I write to ask if your Board could do anything to assist us in any way as we are at a loss to know how to get the goods from Teddington. As you know we had to go alongside the bank at the Channel to get it. Now the owner of the property has stopped the approach [sic] on the West side. The proper road is on the East side so all trade is stoped [sic]. There is more produce brought from this bay than any bay in the harbour. And yet there is no [illegible] of any sort. We have been trading there the past 4 years and have been a great saving to the Farmers as we are able to carry the goods at half the cost they had to pay before.

Engineer Cyrus Williams reported to the Lyttelton Harbour Board...

With regard to the letter from Mr Sinclair asking for some relief in the matter of wharfage facilities at Teddington, I reported on this question on 15 February 1909, estimating the cost of a suitable jetty at £250, and that 250 tons of goods per annum would be landed or shipped from it.   

The alteration in the conditions since this are the following:-

1.     The channel has been marked with beacons at a cost of £20:9:3.

2.     The Board now collects wharfage on all its outlying jetties.

3.     The owner of the land where the flax is shipped appears to have cut off the access to the water.

The foreshore here is not vested in the Board and the Mount Herbert County Council are opposing the Board’s efforts to get it so vested; so I do not see that this Board can do anything in the matter, until the foreshore at the old wharf with access to the public road is vested in this Board, when a new jetty can be built for this trade.

I remain rather surprised that those who are interested in the trade do not use their influence in their governing body to assist this Board in providing facilities, instead of throwing obstacles in the way.

So there was a triangular stalemate involving the Harbour Board, the County Council and the owner of the land adjoining the old jetty.

The plot thickens with my recent discovery of this set of plans in the Lyttelton Harbour Board archives. The plans are (frustratingly) undated. Was this a proposed jetty that was never built? Could it be the plan for the original Manson jetty of 1862? (unlikely since that was not a publically-constructed jetty and 1862 would have been exceptionally early to have plans lodged with the Lyttelton Harbour Board). Are the piles that currently sit in the Teddington mud those of the original Manson jetty or of a later structure built according to the plan below?

 WAS THERE EVER ANOTHER JETTY/WHARF BUILT AT TEDDINGTON???

Proposed Teddington jetty, Lyttelton Harbour Board, MA50C/1/427

   Archives NZ, ECan 

Jetty piles at Teddington with remains of the rabbit-proof fence to the left (Jane Robertson)

Jetty piles at Teddington with remains of the rabbit-proof fence and the channel in the foreground, taken from the
Summit Road, March 2018 (Jane Robertson)

[1] Lyttelton Harbour Board minutes, Archives NZ
[2] Mount Herbert County Council Minute Book, 1903, 402 (Murray Radcliffe).

[3] Trainor, History of the Mount Herbert County Council, 18.