Old Cashmere Property To Be Sold

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30586, 31 October 1964, Page 8

Old Cashmere Property To Be Sold

The Cashmere property on the outskirts of Christchurch, which has been in the hands of the Cracroft Wilson family for more than 100 years, is to be sold.

The property today covers about 1342 acres of which about 130 acres are flat. Once it comprised about 5000 acres and stretched well down into Governors Bay and included the Sugar Loaf reserve and Victoria Park and extended along to Rapaki. The pioneer Wilson, later to become Sir John Cracroft Wilson, selected this land for a run in 1954 when on extended leave from the Indian civil service in Bengal. He gave to it the name of Cashmere. He set out for Australia and New Zealand in the ship Akbar bringing with him a collection of animals including an Arab stallion, asses, deer, goats, peacocks and peahens, hares and rabbits and partridges, which caused the vessel to be described as a Noah’s ark, and plants and seeds together with two Eurasians, two Calcutta free schoolboys and some 13 natives of India. Sheep, cattle and horses were also taken on board in Australia, but apparently many of the animals died on the voyage.

Initially the Cashmere holding was only about 290 acres. This includes the land where the original homestead still stands. The present owner of Cashmere, Mr J. F. Cracroft Wilson, who is a great grandson of the pioneer, gave the old home with five acres of land to the Girl Guides’ Association. Made of sun dried bricks faced with plaster, its walls are some 2ft thick. Its age is not accurately known. The land taken up by Sir John Cracroft Wilson was originally leasehold and was subsequently freeholded. Of the 5000 acres held in the hey day of Cashmere about 1500 acres were flats but most of these were swampy and Mr J. F. Cracroft Wilson recalls his father telling him that

this country was so wet that it would not carry cattle. The outlet from the swamp, which has long since disappeared, was the stream which is now known as the Cashmere river, and part of Sir John Cracroft Wilson’s scheme for draining the swamp involved the widening, deepening and straightening of this stream. Lateral drains were then constructed in the swamp and the area subsequently swamp ploughed with the ploughs being drawn by working bullocks, of which there were apparently a substantial number in the early days. The outcome of this drainage enterprise was the production of some very favourable cattle country. Ambition Writing in his book, “Recollections,” Alfred Cox says that from the day that Sir John considered and settled the question of becoming a settler in Canterbury his ambition often and openly acknowledged was to put together a property worthy of being entailed on his eldest son, and with this uppermost in his mind, never abandoned in bad or good times, he laboured incessantly with hands and head. In fact, Cox says that ,he worked as hard with hands and head as any man who ever left England to become a colonist, and would put his hand to any sort of work that was going on.

What the work of reclaiming the swamp cost him he never cared to ask him and he never pleased to tell him, says Cox, but the system he adopted in dealing with it was not the usual method of treating swamps and was certainly not the most economical. He was not content to drain the swamp and allow

years to pass before putting it to the plough. He made up his mind that what would certainly have to be done sooner or later should be done at once. His large undertakings and improvements at Cashmere and in other parts of the province—he once also owned Culverden, Broadlands, High Peak and Cracnoft stations—offered full occupation to himself and family and to an army of workers.

After taking up land in Canterbury Sir John Cracroft Wilson returned to India in 1855 to resume his post as civil and sessions judge at Moradabad. This was in the heart of the troubled area when the Indian mutiny broke out and it was for his courage and leadership at that time that he was eventually knighted. He has been described as a civil servant of immense energy and courage and a man equal to any emergency and capable of any act of daring. In his own district where the 29th Sepoy Regiment was stationed the story is told of him passing the lines of native artillery as the native gunners laid their guns and lit their portfires. Without a sign of fear he rode towards the guns and waved his hat as a challenge to the gunners who, abashed and overawed by the bearing of this Englishman, slunk back.

It was said of him that by his courage and perseverence he saved, more Christian lives than any man in India. Retiring from the Indian civil service in 1859 he returned to New Zealand where he soon took an active part in the Canterbury provincial government and in the national government, but Cox recalls that he was too independent in outlook and too little used to the workings of representative institutions to become an eminently successful party man. In 1870 Sir John Cracroft Wilson had built in the stable yard at Cashmere a fine stone house with slate roof. Like the old homestead it is still standing. It is not included

in the sale of the property, Mr Cracroft Wilson having lately granted the use of part of it to the Student Christian Movement at Canterbury University. The old house was for use of workers on the station. At the corners there were quarters for married couples, upstairs in the central section dormitary accommodation for single men and below the men’s dining room and kitchen facilities. A new homestead was built on the property in 1905 for the father of the present owner, Mr J. C. Wilson. It was destroyed by fire only about 10 days before it was due to be returned to its owners

after being commandeered for use by the Air Force during World War 11. The present owner of Cashmere took over the property in 1930 on the death of his father. He is the fourth member of the family to farm it. Mr J. F. Cracroft Wilson served for 18 years on the Heathcote County Council and is a former chairman of the Rhodes Convalescent Home. The property today carries 1500 sheep, including 1000 fine crossbred ewes close to the Corriedale type, and 200 head of cattle. No cultivation has been done of late. The cover is mainly tussock and danthonia with surface sown ryegrass, cocksfoot and

white clover. The cattle side of the farm has been a purely fattening enterprise with the cattle being brought in as stores. In the year before last more than 300 bullocks were fattened and sold.