Peninsula Hut To Be Restored

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29880, 21 July 1962, Page 15

Peninsula Hut To Be Restored

An old cocksfoot cutters’ hut at the head of Kaituna Valley (shown above), which was recently blown askew by a south-west gale, will be restored by the Canterbury regional committee of the National Historic Places Trust. The hut is between 80 and 90 years old, and is built entirely of totara, which once grew ir the area. The wood is in a good state of preservation.

The hut was put up by Edward Jenson some time in the early 1880’s. Jenson lived in the hut, and ran cattle in the valley. He made cheese, which he sledged over the hills to Port Levy and had shipped away. In 18S>6. the land on which the hut stood passed to W. J. and A. J. Field, and in 1901 to C. W. Field. The Fields did not occupy the hut, but lived in a farmhouse built

elsewhere. Jenson’s old hut was left standing, and was occupied by itinerant cocksfoot cutters each season, so it became known as “the cocksfoot cutters’ hut.”

The land passed from C. W. Field to R. Barclay in 1946, and in 1961 came into the possession of the present owner, Mr J. J. Murdoch, The Canterbury committee of the National Historic Places Trust was interested in the hut more from the point of view of its type of construction than its strict

historical associations, said the chairman, Mr C. Holdsworth, yesterday. The hut, about 20ft by 12ft, has massive corner posts of totara, and a post in the middle of each long wallmaking six post* in all. Horizontal beams of totara tie the tops of the posts together. Heavy .totara slabs, split and adzed, comprise the walls (seen in the photograph). They are sunk in the ground, and spiked to the top beams. The rafters and purlins of

the roof are again of totara. on which are placed three thicknesses of totara shingles —and still remarkably weather-tight after so many years. All the totara wood in the hut is in good condition, and will not need replacement To get the hut “on its feet again,” it is proposed to bolt the corner posts to concrete butts, to stop them “wandering.” and to cross-brace the structure. Thus restored, it should stand for many years.