Charteris Bay/Te Wharau #3: Hays Bay and Bakers Jetty
Hays Bay
A lot of people - even harbour dwellers - don't seem to know where Hays Bay is. Perhaps because, for many years, access was really only by sea or via a cliff track from the Charteris Bay Yacht Club.
The land behind Hays Bay was farmed by James Hay (not related to the Hays of Pigeon Bay). Born in the Shetland Islands in 1838 James emigrated to Melbourne at age 20, seeking his fortune in the gold rush. He followed the gold to Gabriel’s Gully in New Zealand before returning to Shetland and then taking a passage on the Brothers Pride, arriving in Lyttelton in 1863. He and his first wife had three sons – John, Gilbert and James.[1] James Hay’s second wife Jane (or Jean), also a Shetlander, lived on after her husband’s death in Charteris Bay and then adjacent to the beach in Church Bay.
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| Hays Bay with baches and boat sheds (still there), woolshed and 'jetty' (no longer there) (Tracey Ower) |
A lot of people - even harbour dwellers - don't seem to know where Hays Bay is. Perhaps because, for many years, access was really only by sea or via a cliff track from the Charteris Bay Yacht Club.
The land behind Hays Bay was farmed by James Hay (not related to the Hays of Pigeon Bay). Born in the Shetland Islands in 1838 James emigrated to Melbourne at age 20, seeking his fortune in the gold rush. He followed the gold to Gabriel’s Gully in New Zealand before returning to Shetland and then taking a passage on the Brothers Pride, arriving in Lyttelton in 1863. He and his first wife had three sons – John, Gilbert and James.[1] James Hay’s second wife Jane (or Jean), also a Shetlander, lived on after her husband’s death in Charteris Bay and then adjacent to the beach in Church Bay.
The dangers associated with dependence on sea transport were highlighted in November 1904 when Gilbert Hay was leaving Lyttelton to return to Charteris Bay. A strong nor-wester was blowing and Hay was just out of the harbour moles when a heavy squall capsized and sank his sailing boat. Two Harbour Board employees, C. Dobson and D. Sinclair put out in their dinghy and picked up the young man. The boat disappeared without trace.[2]
To be living and farming in Hays Bay without a boat was inconceivable. Whether this was Gilbert's boat or the family boat, a decision was made to go upmarket.The following year the Press reported that “a very handsome motor launch has just been completed by Messers J. Sinclair and Son, of Lyttelton, to the order of Mr J.T. Hay, of Charteris Bay, who intends to use her on the run between the Bay and Lyttelton.”[3] The boat, 26ft (length) x 7ft (beam) x 4ft (depth), was constructed of kauri double planking. Hay then wrote to the Lyttelton Harbour Board requesting a landing place for passengers at Church Bay.[4] Whether in response to Hay's request or, more likely, as part of a spate of 'outer-jetty' building around the harbour in the first decade of the twentieth century, a jetty was duly built in Church Bay in 1907. In his diaries Oliver Hunter makes frequent reference to crossing the harbour in Hay’s boat. At this time the Hays would presumably have used either the Church Bay jetty or the Bradley jetty further round Charteris Bay.
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| Church Bay Jetty at low tide (undated). The jetty was just across the Black Point saddle dividing Charteris bay from Church Bay (Oliver Hunter archive) |
Due to ill health, John Hay (James’ son) put the farm up for auction in 1935. It was described as a “very warm, sweet piece of hill country, charmingly situated. The picturesque position of the homestead with its own little bay and beach, together with the beautiful outlook over Church Bay and its surroundings presents a unique opportunity...”[5] The one-man farm with a practically new house carried 260 sheep, 15 cattle and produced “an abundance of early potatoes up to 10 tons to the acre.”
In the 1940s Hays Bay and Charteris Bay joined the subdivision activity prompted by the building of Marine Drive in the 1930s but delayed by the war. Post 1945, surplus army huts provided an excellent basis for inexpensive baches in the southern bays of Lyttelton Harbour. One of the first baches on the eastern side of Hays Bay had two army huts at its core.
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| Early structures in Hays Bay (Tracey Ower) |
At much the same time, a structure appeared in Hays Bay that more-or-less qualified as a jetty, though not one designed for launches. According to Paul Pritchett the Hays Bay ‘jetty’ was a single plank that came from Payne’s Quarry on the north-east headland between Church Bay and Diamond Harbour. The plank had a groove running along its centre – once used by the ballast men for transporting barrows of rock from the quarry to the waiting ballast boats. Like so many structures around the harbour it was ‘repurposed’, in this case to create an access point to deeper water, enabling small craft to tie up and children to play.
Undated photos show normally quiet Hays Bay full of people and craft, enjoying one of the rowing regattas that were held out of the sheltered bay – and for which the flimsy jetty was maybe erected?
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| A busy Hays Bay during a rowing regatta. Undated but 1950s maybe? (Charteris Bay Yacht Club archive)
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Bakers Jetty
Lyttelton, in the early 20thcentury, didn’t have a suitable space for a golf course. When, in 1912, Orton Bradley offered Lyttelton golfers rent-free land in Charteris Bay, the offer was keenly accepted and a golf club formed. Within 12 months sixty men and women belonged.
The only complication was getting there. Andrew Anderson ran regular trips in the Matariki at a fixed time on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, with special trips as required. Depending on the tide, golfers would be landed at the Charteris Bay Jetty (very handy) or, if the tide was too low, at the Church Bay jetty (a long trudge with golf clubs to the golf course on the Bradley estate).
The journey could be unpredictable. In August 1921 a motor boat carrying exceptionally keen Lyttelton golfers grounded about 800 yards short of the jetty. Some club members waded ashore in freezing cold conditions and secured a dinghy in which to transport the rest of the party. An hour into play it began to snow. The game was abandoned in favour of a return home but the motor boat engine wouldn’t start. After a 3½ hour wait in heavy snow a regular harbour launch finally rescued the stranded golfers![6]
The following year yet another jetty was built in Charteris Bay, this time at Bakers Point. This would have given more frequent access by sea than the mud-bound main jetty close to the Bradley estate and lessened the long trudge from Church Bay. The new structure was known as the Golf Jetty, Half-Way Jetty or Bakers Jetty – Owen Baker owned the land and house above the structure. Long after golfers ceased accessing the Charteris Bay golf course by sea, Bakers Jetty continued to be used by the Charteris Bay Yacht Club when there were too many boats to tie up at the Club’s jetty. Today only a few piles remain.
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| Bakers Jetty in the foreground, Charteris Bay Yacht Club upper left. (Philippa Drayton) |
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The newly-built Baker house above the jetty. (Philippa Drayton)
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| Bakers Jetty in 2017 (Jane Robertson) |
Tracey Ower passed on photos of Hays Bay and Philippa Drayton has been a great help with regard to Bakers Jetty. Paul Pritchett passed on information about the Hays Bay jetty and Charteris Bay jetties in general. My thanks to all.
[1] James Hay’s obituary also mentions two daughters. Star, 25 September 1914
[1] James Hay’s obituary also mentions two daughters. Star, 25 September 1914
[2] Press, 4 November 1904
[3] Press, 16 May 1905
[4] Press, 5 July 1906
[5] Press, 3 August 1935
[6] Press, 9 August 1921
I wonder if Gilbert Hay, former Registrar at TCol and Lincoln(?) and later public defender, was a descendant of this Gilbert Hay?
ReplyDeleteI don't know John - there were Hays in Pigeon Bay and two different families in Charteris Bay. The PB Hays have produced a number of significant public figures over the years. But it is possible....
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