Pūrau #3 - a new jetty
In 1874 the Rhodes brothers, by then the foremost run-holders in New Zealand, sold Pūrau for £20,000 to Henry Dent Gardiner. Son of an Essex farmer, Henry had done well on the Australian goldfields. He arrived in New Zealand in 1855, purchasing land at Harewood, Irwell and Leeston before acquiring Pūrau as a going concern with all stock included.
Henry and wife Mary Ann moved into the Rhodes homestead with nine of their children, leaving oldest son Herbert in charge at Irwell. The stone homestead was a bit small for such a large family so enterprisingly, Gardiner purchased timber from the old Camp Bay Quarantine Station and freighted it round to Pūrau by sea to help provide wooden additions at the rear of the house.
The Pūrau estate thrived. Henry added to his acreage by leasing the Adderley Head Reserve from the Education Department. Soon there were at least six dairies on Gardiner land. With his sons Linton, Harold and Frank, Henry also cleared bush at the head of the valley and planted cocksfoot.
Access to still relatively isolated Pūrau continued to improve. A steep stock route to Charteris Bay (present-day Bay View Road) was built by George Stinson and his team in the 1870s. In the early 1890s the old track over the hill to Port Levy was upgraded to a road and a new, deeper-water wharf was built on the Diamond Harbour side of the bay. However the only land route out of Pūrau around the harbour continued to be the old, high stock route which could be treacherous in wet weather.
The new wharf enabled better transportation of farm produce and people. A regular service from Pūrau to Lyttelton began with steam launches Pūrau, Canterbury, Waiwera, Monica, Cygnetand John Anderson all working the route.
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| Plan showing the relative position of the two jetties in Pūrau. Lyttelton Harbour Board, Archives NZ/ECan |
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| SS John Anderson at the (new) Pūrau wharf, undated. Charles Beken collection, Canterbury Museum |
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A great deal of cocksfoot was cut each summer in the Upper Gully at Pūrau and the John Anderson would bring folk across to help ... At the end of the season the little steamer would depart for Lyttelton with her decks piled high with bagged cocksfoot seed. Andrew Anderson, the boat proprietor used to bring parties over by launch for the dances in the woolshed. He would sleep on the boat at the wharf and in the early hours of the morning would return them to Lyttelton. He ran the Matariki twice a week to Pūrau in the later years when the Pūrau and the John Anderson were no longer used.[1]
On much anticipated ‘boat night’ (Wednesday and Saturday) three Pūrau gigs, plus John Hunter’s from Church Bay, would gather at the wharf to collect mail, newspapers and a variety of goods and provisions. The steam launch would return to Lyttelton with wool, cheese, sheepskins and livestock.
The steamers brought visitors to Pūrau. Big retail firms in Christchurch organized annual picnics for their staff, chartering a boat to take them to Pūrau for the day. “The large gum trees at the beach provided shade for a recreation ground and coppers and tanks to hold water were set up under the trees for these visitors.”[2]
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| The Purau Bay foreshore and the gum trees that sheltered picnickers. Undated - but likely Edwardian as women on the beach are wearing long dresses. Charles Beken photographer, Canterbury Museum
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Pūrau also a base for army manoeuvres, involving groups such as the Christchurch Volunteers, the Mounted Rifles and Naval Volunteers. The high country between Pūrau, Camp Bay and Rhodes Monument was used for reconnoitering, outpost duty and mock battles while gun practice was carried out at Fort Jervois on nearby Ripapa Island. A camp would be pitched within a chain of high water mark, on the Gardiner estate. At the 1893 Easter encampment between seventy and eighty bell tents were erected in rows with the brigade officers’ and company officers’ tents at the rear. The camp was sheltered by walnut and gum trees and had easy access to the fresh water stream.
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| Purau Camp 1893. Canterbury Regiment Association Collection. Canterbury Museum |
The logistics of getting 650 men to Pūrau (or Rhodes Bay as it was still sometimes called) were interesting. As always the tide determined access.
The Lyttelton Navals and the N. Battery Artillery were the first to come into camp, they having been conveyed across the harbour in the defence launch. They marched into camp shortly before 9 p.m., and were followed an hour later by the Kaiapoi and Rangiora Rifles in the John Anderson, the main body of the troops not landing until 10 and 12 p.m. from the tug. The disembarking was somewhat delayed owing to the tide being out, which prevented the tug from getting to the wharf, and the men and baggage had to be transshipped to launches.[3]
The tide also impacted on recreational pursuits. On 16 April 1892 members of the Wharf Labourers’ and Lumpers’ Association of Lyttelton held a monster picnic on the Gardiner estate. Over 800 mostly women and children were taken across to ‘Rhodes Bay’ by the steam-tug Lyttelton (lent by the Harbour Board). “The tug had to make two trips, and upon the last was compelled to land her freight at Diamond Harbour owing to the tide being out.”[4]
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| Paddle steamer Lyttelton on the harbour in 1907. Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries |
This table gives us an idea of the movement between Lyttelton and Pūrau in about 1910.[5]
Operator
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Vessel
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Tons
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Passengers/week
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Trips
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Agar & Thomas
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Pūrau
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15
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40
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holidays & picnic parties
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Agar & Thomas
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Canterbury
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7
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included in number above
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ditto
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K. Joostan & Co
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Monica
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29
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80
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every 6 weeks
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Stevenson Stewart
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John Anderson
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33
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not available
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holidays & picnics
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A. Anderson
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Matariki
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4 ½
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ditto
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ditto
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J. Sinclair
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Zephyr
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4
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ditto
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ditto
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J.T. Hay
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Te Wharu
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3 ½
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ditto
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occasionally
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Henry Gardiner retired to Christchurch in 1890 and Pūrau was divided into three blocks. Frank took over the homestead block, Harold farmed the block known as The Kaik and Linton took the block named Fern Glen. In 1905 Harry and Henrietta Jackson (Henrietta was Henry Gardiner’s youngest daughter) went into partnership with Linton, moving to Fern Glen which they eventually purchased in 1918. Much more detail about the families living in Pūrau can be accessed in Gordon Ogilvie’s Banks Peninsula, Elisabeth Ogilvie’s Purau and Mary Stapylton-Smith’s From Adderley to Bradley.
In January 1916 Frank and Harold Gardiner approached Lyttelton Harbour Board about the possibility of installing a sheep race at the Pūrau jetty. The brothers wanted to ship their sheep by boat and train instead of driving them overland as previously.[6] At the time they were using a portable race made in sections to lay along the jetty. Whether the Harbour Board acted on this request is unclear. The advent of a truck service from Christchurch to the peninsula in the 1920s meant the end of double handling by sea and the beginning of a decline in the demand for the steam launches.
As the condition of the Pūrau jetty deteriorated the Harbour Board questioned its future usefulness. A report from the Harbour Master in October 1952 recommended that the jetty at Pūrau be demolished or its use discontinued.[7] The Mount Herbert County Council expressed its ‘dismay’ at the proposal. Pūrau residents challenged the assertion that the jetty was little used.
I can assure you that in the summer months it is a very popular spot for small craft and I am sure there would be many disappointed Sportsmen were this facility taken from them. We ourselves have at least four large parties of Scouts and Sea Cadets camping on our property each year – their gear always coming via Pūrau wharf. Hiking parties are also frequently landed or picked up there.[8]
Early the following year the Secretary for Marine informed the Mt Herbert County Council that the estimated cost of repairing the Pūrau jetty would be £1,860. The Harbour Board decided that the expenditure was not warranted and the wharf would be demolished. However, if the Council were to take over responsibility for the jetty, including ensuring the structure was safe, then its use could be continued. “It is apparent there is still quite substantial use of both wharves”[9] (the other wharf being Port Levy which was also under demolition order). Despite their dismay, the Mt Herbert County Council must have declined the offer. However no demolition occurred because a memo dated 16 January 1962 from the Harbour Board Engineer-in-Chief reads ...
Purau Jetty
The Board has confirmed its decision, made in February 1953,
that Purau jetty be demolished.
Please complete this work as early as convenient.[10]
Somewhere during 1962 the jetty gained a reprieve because in November that year plans were drawn up for repairs to be made to the Pūrau jetty.
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Sketch plan showing repairs to be made to Purau jetty, 1962. Lyttelton Harbour Board, Archives NZ/ECan
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About 1970 a concrete boat ramp was constructed, enabling boaties to launch their craft from trailers. Pūrau has also become a favoured mooring site for boats, especially after the demise of the Lyttelton marina at Magazine Bay.
Some readers will be wondering about the torpedo boat dumped on Pūrau beach and later bulldozed into a pit there. I’ll write about SS Thorneycroft later in the blog when I come round the harbour to Magazine Bay.
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| Purau 2010 (Jane Robertson) |
[1] Elisabeth Ogilvie, Purau, Christchurch: The Caxton Press, 68
[2] E. Ogilvie, Purau, 62
[3] (Lyttelton Times, 1 April, 1893)
[4] Lyttelton Times, 16 April 1892
[5] Summary of launches trading to outlying jetties in Port Lyttelton, 1910?, Archives NZ/ECan
[6] Memo from the Engineer’s Office, Lyttelton Harbour Board, 17 January 1916, Archives NZ/ECan. As an example, the day after approaching the Harbour Board, Harold Gardiner was due to ship out 600 sheep
[7] Harbour Master’s Report 23/10/52, Archives NZ/ECan
[8] Letter from Alan Jackson of Glenrowan, Pūrau to Lyttelton Harbour Board, 9 November 1952, Archives NZ/ECan
[9] Letter to the Mt Herbert County Council from the Secretary for Marine, 19 February 1953, Archives NZ/ECan
[10] Lyttelton Harbour Board, Memorandum for Resident Engineer A.J. Charman, 16 January 1962 Archives NZ/ECan
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