FEATURES OF DISTRICT

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29333, 12 October 1960, Page 18

FEATURES OF DISTRICT

Unique Limestone Formation There are many features of Waimate which impress visitors. Some are unique, such as the strange limestone formations in the neighbourhood of McCulloch’s bridge, and five of the memorials of the district. Near Pike’s Point, on the Waikakahi hitfiway, which branches off the State highway near Morven, a plough has been mounted on a concrete base as a memorial to the 154 pioneers who established their farms on the subdivision of the Waikakahi Estate, ait the turn of the century. An obelisk at Waihao Downs is a tribute to the memory of pioneer farmers who were the first to settle in the area between the Waihao and Waitaki rivers. Another obelisk near Victoria Park commemorates the meeting of Waimate's first white settler, Michael Studholme, with Huruhuru, tribal chief of the local Maoris, in 1854. Against a background of trees in Seddon square stands a statue of Dr. Margaret Cruickshanks. the first woman to practise medicine in New. Zealand, who died during the influenza epidemic of 1818. There is also what is in effect a memorial to a church. The bell tower of Knox Church was mounted on a concrete base at the upper end of Manse street when the old wooden church, built in the 1870’s, way, replaced in reinforced concerte, faced with river atone. The bell tower, built of hand-cut timber from the Waimate bush, remains as a memorial to the pioneer Presbyterians.