Cass Bay/Motukauatirahi

The Cass Bay abattoir, Richard Wolfe Collection, Canterbury Museum

Cass Bay was known to Māori as Motukauatirahi, meaning ‘great fire-making tree grove’. Like Corsair Bay (Motukauatiiti) or ‘little fire-making tree grove’, the bay was home to many kaikōmako trees that were used for fire-making. 

Māui wanted to know where fire came from, so one night he went into the villages and put all the fires out. Māui's mother Taranga said that someone would have to ask Mahuika, the goddess of fire, for more. So Māui offered to go and find Mahuika who was his grandmother. Mahuika lived in a cave in a burning mountain at the end of the earth. She gave Māui one of her burning fingernails to relight the fires, but Māui extinguished fingernail after fingernail until Mahuika became angry and sent fire to pursue him. Māui transformed himself into a hawk to escape, but Mahuika set both land and sea on fire. Māui prayed to his great ancestors Tāwhirimātea, god of weather, and Whaitiri-matakataka, goddess of thunder, who answered by pouring rain to extinguish the fire. Mahuika threw her last nail at Māui, but it missed him and flew into some trees including the māhoe and the kaikōmako. Māui brought back dry sticks of these trees to his village and showed his people how to rub the sticks together and make fire.[1]

Kaikōmako, http://www.terrain.net.nz

Yorkshireman Thomas Cass first came to New Zealand in December 1841 as a surveyor for the New Zealand Company. He returned to England and was then hired by the Canterbury Association as an assistant surveyor to Joseph Thomas. Cass arrived in Lyttelton Harbour in December 1848 and set up camp at what would become known as Cass Bay. He was joined there by surveyors Charles Torlesse and Henry Cridland until all the men moved to Cavendish Bay (Lyttelton) in July 1849. In 1851 Cass became chief surveyor for the Canterbury Association. 

Thomas Cass, Barker Album, Canterbury Museum

In 1852 50 acres of freehold land, with or with out 500 acres of adjoining pasturage, was advertised for sale in Cass Bay. The landowner was the Reverend Edward Puckle of the Heathcote Parsonage, who pre-purchased his land in England and arrived as officiating minister on the Randolph in December 1860 with his wife and six children. By 1856 E. Salt of ‘Cass’s Bay Run’ was advertising in the Lyttelton Times. Salt also appears to have owned a retail warehouse in Lyttelton.

Lyttelton Times, 13 September 1956

Cass Bay was used for a variety of purposes. At some point a small jetty was constructed on the western side of the bay, probably to meet the needs of local farmers. I haven’t been able to unearth any photos of the jetty but the iron piles are still visible on the foreshore just east of the present navy boatshed. It may have been this jetty that was used in 1884 when the Christ’s College annual swimming races were held in the bay. The students were conveyed from Lyttelton by steam launch “which had its passenger carrying capacity tested to the utmost.”[2] The Lyttelton-based Martini-Henry Rifle Club opened a rifle range in Cass Bay in February 1892 on land belonging to R.M. Morten. In 1898 the Lyttelton Borough Council was considering acquiring land in Cass Bay for a public cemetery.

The last is somewhat ironic since, in October 1884, the Council gave permission to Garforth and Lee to erect a slaughterhouse in Cass Bay. By 1893 the slaughterhouse licence was held by Owen and Dyer. There was concern about the regulation of abattoirs which were multiplying to meet the needs of the growing Lyttelton and Christchurch populations. The Lyttelton Borough Council then purchased the land on which the abattoir stood, plus a surrounding acerage, and began a rebuild of the facilities. Contractor W. Scott built the slaughterhouse, sheep pens, a draughting yard for cattle and another for sheep and pigs.  Lyttelton Borough water mains were extended to the site. In July 1902 the borough abattoir was officially opened, the first public abattoir in the district. “The drainage is excellent, refuse being carried away by a pipe about a foot in diameter, which discharges into the harbour about 150 yards from the works.”[3] Charges for killing were 2s 6d per head for bullocks and 4d each for sheep.

Cass Bay abattoir on the hill by the stand of pine trees. 
WA Taylor collection, Canterbury Museum

Lyttelton locals still recall the abattoir. 

Push biked from Lytt to Governors Bay quite often in the weekends and holidays as a kid, usually stopping to watch the blood and guts flowing down to the red sea.

Used to go there on a regular basis and watch them killing etc and the sharks feeding at the bay down below, go home with fresh brains and sweetbreads for mum and dad, imagine doing that today.

Yeah used to go there most days during school holidays when staying with nan in Corsair Bay. Used to collect ear tags from the sheep to put on our belts. Butchers there then were Bones, Mac Macdonald and Charlie Wells.

The guy who ran it in the 50's lived 5 houses up from us in Sumner Road and was named Jones and my father used to call him Bones. The abattoir had a pet sheep that used to lead the others into the slaughter house but it would go straight through back out to the paddock. Bones used to bring us free meat for our pets and he would take us round there to watch a beast killed.

Abattoir Bay aka Blood Bay, now known as Sandy Bay.

Aka Flea Bay.

Aka Lady Bay![4]

The Cass Bay abattoir, with its ocean discharge, operated until 1964. 

Press, 16 June 1941

By the mid-1930s the Lyttelton Borough Council was looking for land to expand. The council eyed up Cass Bay as a possible ‘suburb’ of Lyttelton township. In 1940 the shortage of state houses in Lyttelton was discussed with the possibility of Cass Bay as a ‘model’ suburb.  However World War 2 put any development plans on hold. Lyttelton became the second major Royal New Zealand Navy base in the country from 1942-1945. The demands of wartime munition supply forced the RNZN to construct new depots, one of which was at Cass Bay – selected because it was largely uninhabited, was not visible from the Lyttelton Harbour heads and could be accessed by sea. Cass Bay was, in fact, a default location. The facility built at Tikao Bay, Akaroa Harbour 1942-43 turned out to be a white elephant. The magazine site was too far by road or sea from the port of Lyttelton which it was designed to serve and the magazines, as planned, would be only 200 or 300 yards away from the mining depot, with no natural feature to protect the one in the event of an explosion in the other.

Ten brick and concrete magazines, an ammunition processing building, camp/administration buildings, a four‐man hut, guard house, flag station and fencing were built at Cass Bay in 1943. A navy gun was mounted adjacent to the Lyttelton-Governors Bay road and passing traffic had to await a naval escort through the bay. 

Aerial view of Cass Bay, 1962, with the ammunition stores clearly visible and the abattoir still operating on the headland to the right. VC Browne & Son

Cass Bay Naval Armament Depot, Ministry of Works and Development, Archives NZ

Cass Bay Naval Armament Depot, Ministry of Works and Development, Archives NZ

One of the Cass Bay ammunition stores. Despite the 2010/11 earthquakes, the brickwork is in perfect condition. May 2019

The double brick layer constructed to send any explosion upwards through the roof. 
May 2019

After the war the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) used the Cass Bay Mine Depot, followed by the Navy League Sea Cadets. In 1929 the first Sea Cadet unit in New Zealand, TS (Training Ship) Steadfast, was formed in Christchurch as the Canterbury Division of the Navy League Sea Cadets. Units in Dunedin followed in 1938, Wellington (Petone) in 1941, and then Auckland in 1943. In 1958, a second Christchurch unit, TS Cornwell, was formed at Sumner and Redcliffs. TS Steadfast and TS Cornwell merged to form TS Godley (as a result of the Christchurch earthquakes).

In October 1965 the Sea Cadet Corps was given the go-ahead by the DSIR to use some of the buildings at Cass Bay. Six old concrete ammunition stores, an old wooden house, a large store and a garage were made available. The ammunition stores would be used for classrooms, clothing storage, recreation space and sleeping accommodation for weekend camps.  The coastal location would much enhance the unit’s scope for training. 

I think they had just completed the Cass Bay buildings when I arrived there, which were very good. They had a windlass and a nice slipway and plenty of storage space and a few buoys laid out there so they could put their boats out. Of course it became very handy to the Sea Cadets, particularly STEADFAST, because the magazines at Cass Bay and the office block there became available and they turned it into a Sea Cadet Wardroom and instructional block and accommodation and they used to go and have their camps down there.[5]

Interior of the Sea Cadet hall at Cass Bay, 2019. This building was originally part of the naval facility at Tikao Bay, Akaroa Harbour. It was dismantled and rebuilt at Cass Bay. 

TS Cornwall cadets racing on harbour in a 17 footer, 1968. https://seacadethistory.wordpress.com/author/seacadethistory/

In December 1945 the Press reported that authority would be sought from the government to subdivide council land at Cass Bay into residential sections “on modern town-planning lines.”[6] Twenty years later the first 76 sections went on the market - a direct result of the completion of the road tunnel connecting Christchurch and Lyttelton in 1964. Sections ranged from £650 to £1400.    

Raw new road for the subdivision at Cass Bay, 1965. VC Browne & Son

Publicity shot for Cass Bay development 1976, photographer R. Coad, Archives NZ

In 1970 plans were drawn up for a dinghy shelter and launching ramp at the land end of the navy boatshed and local sewerage tank. This marked the transition from ‘industrial’ to recreational use of Cass Bay, now a popular residential area, swimming spot, kayaking base and swing mooring location. As part of the Head-to-Head Walkway it has a spectacular walking track connecting it to Corsair Bay and Ōtūherekio/Pony Point Reserve.  

Remains of Cass Bay Jetty piles adjacent to the boatshed, 2019

Naval boatshed and dinghy shelter at Cass Bay, 2019

Dinghy slipway at Cass Bay, 2019

---

[1] Based on Grace, Wiremu (2016). "How Māui brought fire to the world". Te Kete Ipurangi. Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Māui_(Māori_mythology)

[2] Star, 29 February 1884

[3] Lyttelton Times, 3 June 1902

[4] Robin Dungey, Toni Robertson, Peter Butterworth, Lawson Rowe,  Rowena Laing, Kris Herbert, Samantha Warland, ‘Lyttelton Ain’t No Place I’d Rather Be’ Facebook page, 2018

[5] Interview withLieutenant Commander Victor Fifield, April 1996.

https://rnzncomms.org/memories/fifield/

[6] Press, 29 December 1945