Cornish Group Planning Great Barrier Community

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30120, 2 May 1963, Page 14

Cornish Group Planning Great Barrier Community

(New, Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, May 1

Mountainous Great Barrier Island in the Hauraki Gulf could become the “get-away-from-it-all” home of a group of families from St. Ives, Cornwall. The families are interested in buying the 12,000-acre Arundel estate on the island and establishing a “fairly selfsupporting co-operative community.”

This information is contained in a letter recently received by a lecturer at Wellington Teachers’ Training College, Mr F. M. O’Brien, from a St. Ives potter, Mr Denys Valbaker. Mr O’Brien, who was a teachgr on Great Barrier for four years, said the letter had been forwarded to him from the island. While he was on the island he was secretary of the Great Barrier Island Development Association.

“Apparently about 15 couples are interested in buying the Arundel estate and setting up their own community there.” he said. They intended growing their own food, running their own cows and poultry and operating crafts, such as pottery and copperwork. Members of the St. Ives group include a farmer, a market gardener, an agricultural engineer, a potter, and a nurse.

Mr O’Brien said the letter mainly sought information about the area.

Questions included the acreage which could be brought under cultivation, the nature of standing timber.

farm machinery they could bring with them, and opportunities for buying stock. The letter concluded by saying that if negotiations could be concluded satisfactorily, it was expected that about 15 young couples and their children would come out to the island to live. Mr O’Brien said he believed the estate had been on the market for some time. The greater part of it was bush clad.

At present there are about 300 persons living on the island mainly in the Port Fitzroy, Okupu. and Tryphena areas.

The main activity on the island is sheep-raising, but at one time gold, silver and copper were worked. Miners Head on the north-west coast has been the scene of several wrecks.

Great Barrier Island is 56 miles north-eastwards from Auckland. It is about 25 miles long at its greatest and 10 miles wide.