Pioneers to Pylons in Lansdowne Valley

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32252, 21 March 1970, Page 5

Pioneers to Pylons in Lansdowne Valley

'By

GORDON OGILVIE)

Recent controversy over the Lansdowne Valley substation has focused attention on one of the most captivating corners of the Port Hills. For not only is this valley physically desirable; it is of considerable interest as well.

Lansdowne has been the headquarters for one of Canterbury’s earliest hill runs; also the site of an elegant pioneer homestead whose owner was a key figure in the founding of our settlement and an ancestor of New Zealand’s only double Victoria Cross winner.

The first European to drive a bullock waggon through Burke’s Pass, a former Prime Minister of this country, a titled lady and one of New Zealand’s most admired editors have lived there too: not to mention an authentic Pre-Adamite and an expert on rare manuscripts

It is the most westerly of the Port Hills valley settlements. About nine miles from Christchurch on the Old Tai Tapu Road, Lansdowne Valley is situated just over two miles beyond the turn-off after Halswell. It is easy of access now, but in early times the flat land at the foot of the valley, where the HalsweU Stream meanders today, was extremely boggy. The first settlers knew this region as the Great Swamp.

Maori settlements existed nearby at Manuka, Tai Tapu and Ahuriri. Enough middens, cutting implements and fire remnants have been found in Lansdowne Valley itself to suggest that the district must have been a popular venue for hunting parties. Many small streams, including the Lansdowne Creek, wandered through the swamp and both eels and birds were plentiful. Flaxrafts were used for navigation. Maori Hunters Two caves in Lansdowne Valley were known as Te Ika i te ana (the Ellesmere. Cave) and Te Ana Pohatu Whakairo (the cave of the Rock Carvings). W. A. Taylor, a historian of the South Island Maoris, wrote that these caves were used as dwellings; but Dr Roger Duff and local residents considet they were never big enough for the purpose. Neither does the second of the caves any longer show signs of markings within it Maoris were still hunting in the area well after Europeans had settled there. At the end of 1856, Minchin, who farmed at the junction of the Halswell and Lansdowne waters, asked the Provincial Police to evict some Maoris from his land. Doubtless these were members of an eeling party who believed they had an ancestral right to be there. Twelve years later, in 1868, “Habbakuk” Kairua laid claim to this site at Judge Fenton’s land court in Christchurch, but lost the case. There have been no Maoris there since.

Lansdowne’s first European settler was William Guise Brittan, one of the principal personalities of infant Christchurch. Brittan arrived at Lyttelton in the Sir George Seymour late in 1850. A contemporary described him then as being shortish and stout with ponderous head and black hair.

Brittan had presided over that historic meeting at the Adelphi Rooms in April, 1850, when the Society of Canterbury Colonists was founded. Edward Gibbon Wakefield was impressed by him and asked Godley to give Brittan a place of trust in the new colony. Land Supervisor Godley obliged. Brittan was put in charge of the Land Office and asked to supervise the allocation of sections. In 1854 he was promoted to Commissioner of Wastelands. This work Britan did efficiently though much ill-feeling developed between himself and Godley. The aristocratic Godley was rather patronising about Brittans middle-class gram-

mar school origins and mixed background in medicine and journalism. Brittan in his turn was awkward, touchy and probably envious of some of Godley’s superior gifts. He need not have been. As he was himself fifth in order of priority on the allotment list Brittan did well from land purchases. He chose 110 acres of the Papanui Bush which were milled at a handsome profit, plus sections at Avonside and The Bricks. He was one of the first in Christchurch to build a house (at Avonside) or cultivate land, and the second home he built on Oxford Terrace was in its time the finest in the town.

In September 1851, Brittan took up the Halswell Station in partnership with Michael Burke. Burke bought further land round towards Ellesmere and the

whole was worked as one unit. The run covered about 15,000 acres and took in all the country between Hornbrook’s Mount Pleasant run and Cooper’s Knobs behind Otahuna. The Cashmere and Hoon Hay estates were then part of it Brittan now built another house, on the plains side of the Halswell Stream, and named it “Lansdowne.” He took this title from a place near Bath where the novelist Beckford built his mansion and wrote “Vathek.” The first Lansdowne House was burnt down, so Brittan built a second one over on the valley side of the Halswell Stream. Dr A. C. Barker took a photograph of this homestead in 1863 and it shows a substantial two-storeyed establishment of Halswell Stone (Brittan owned the quarry) with some wooden additions, gabled windows, slate roof and a conservatory. The surroundings are practically treeless at this stage but the proportions of the house are impressive. Brittan lived there till 1870. Run Divided Burke and Brittan dissolved their partnership in 1860. They divided the run by means of a wire running up the valley opposite Lansdowne House through Kennedy’s Bush and up to the ridge near Cass Peak overlooking Governors Bay Burke built himself a homestead over the Tai Tapu Road from Brittan and named his place “Vale Royal.” Much altered, this is now the house of Mrs E. G. Woods of Lansdowne. In Brittan’s day the sheep

were shorn, according to Acland’s “Early Canterbury Runs." in a makeshift thatched whare. The butchers used to come out from Christchurch and kill sheep for themselves, buying the mutton at 6d per lb and leaving the skins for the owner. Brittan’s Lansdowne Run was reduced by purchases to 3593 acres in 1865 and in 1870 he sold what remained to Sir Edward Stafford. Six years later Brittan died. His contribution to the life of early Christchurch had been quite outstanding. The Macdonald biographical file at the Canterbury Musuem shows that in addition to managing two sheep runs and the Land Office. Brittan was also a resident magistrate, an Anglican synodsman, a trustee of the Deans Estate, a founder of the Horticultural Society and Farmers Club, first treasurer of the Canterbury Jockey Club, a member of a Roads Board. School Committee and Philosophical Society. He helped get the Avonside and Halswell churches built and made a gift of the first Papanui Church in whose graveyard he is fittingly buried. Charles Upham, V.C. and Bar, is descended on his mother’s side from William Guisse Brittan, and Upham's farm on Rafa Downs near Hundalee is called Lansdowne in recognition of this. Michael Burke, who had come to New Zealand with Brittan in the same ship, was also a most able man. Of the Irish landed gentry, he had been both a barrister and an estate factor. Once settled here he quickly made a name for himself as a judge of horses and a breeder of quality stock. His Halswell sheep were famous for their quality and believed to be the equal of anything seen at the London show. Successful Grazier Burke also took up land further south: Lake Wanaka run in partnership with Brittan, Raincliff Station and Kakahu. He was the first man to take a bullock dray through Burke’s Pass, which is named after him. Several cadets worked for Burke on his Halswell run and two of these later did well on runs of their own, Frank Guiness and Charles Tripp. Tripp took up Mount Peel with John Acland, helped establish the first high-country run in Canterbury, then established his own at Orari Gorge. Returning to England in 1868, Michael Burke found the climate too depressing and was on ihis way back to New Zealand in the following year when he died of a heart attack in Melbourne. Burke was among the most successful of the early graziers. Amongst other claims to distinction he was enrolled as a barrister by Judge Gresson in 1861 and his wedding at St Luke’s Church, Christchurch, was the first to be entered into the register there. Befofe leaving for Britain, Burke had sold his Halswell run to Thomas Parkinson and in 1870 E. W. Stafford took over Lansdowne. So with two decades of settlement completed, fresh talent took over. Charles Stafford Charles Stafford arrived in Nelson in 1843, married the only daughter of Colonel William Wakefield and was for many years Superintendent of Nelson. He proved himself a capable and economical administrator. From 1856-78 he was involved in national politics during which time he became Premier several times for a total of 12 years. Stafford was a small man, strikingly handsome and a considerable athlete. His

special passion was horses and he was an accomplished jockey. As a politician he was, like many of his generation, a gifted amateur. He was practical, rational and moderate: but over-talkative, occasionally arrogant, and more apathetic than desirable. Professor Sinclair describes him as “giving always the impression'of wishing to be elsewhere.” Elsewhere no doubt included Lansdowne House which Stafford did much to improve. The splendid gardens and trees which even now surround the homestead were largely established by him. In 1868, Stafford had a difference of opinion with his Nelson electors and took on Timaru instead. By 1878 he had had enough of New Zealand politics altogether and returned to England where he was knighted in the following year. After dabbling a little unhappily in some financial ventures, he died in 1901.

Lansdowne house became the home of Lady Fergusson and her son Henry in 1881. These Fergussons, members of a Scottish family long distinguished for military skill and diplomacy, were related to two Govemors-General of New Zealand and a Governor. Henry Fergusson was killed after a convivial evening out, one dark night in 1907, when his gig collided with a traction engine.

An interesting neighbour of the Fergussons was William Birdling of Birdling’s Flat, who took up Moffatt’s farm near Lansdowne in 1896. Birdling, one of the last of the pre-1850 originals, was then 74 and retired. Though his homestead (close by the ruins of Brittain's first one at Lansdowne) was burnt down in the 19405, his fine old barn may still be seen among old trees on the property of Mr G. B. Harty. House Rebuilt After Lady Fergusson sold Lansdowne House it was bought by the Sharps who owned it until 1959. Mr John Harris bought the homestead in the following year and found that the Virginia creeper covering it had begun to play havoc with the claymortared stone work- So under the direction of the late Heathcote Helmore the whole building was dismantled and splendidly reconstructed to a more modern design, using the original stone slabs and roof slates in the process. So Lansdowne House survives into these times more elegant than ever. The hills behind Lansdowne Valley changed hands several times in those days > />

and were subdivided into smaller hill runs as the new century proceeded. Lansdowne Valley itself, which had hitherto been grazed as part of the hill run, was opened up for more intensive farming in the early 19205. For promotion purposes the valley was temporarily renamed “Early Valley.” At that time there was something of a boom in land and the small valley subdivisions were sold at £lOO £l5O an acre. Excluded from this carve-up was some excellent flat land at the mouth of the , valley which was retained as an assembly area for sheep from the surrounding high country. Most of this land is now being cropped or grazed by Mrs E. G. Woods and Mr I. J. D. Minson. Early Farmers Further into the hills the steep slopes of the valley flanks limit the area available for orchard and market garden work Of the first intake of farmers, Bill Mehrtens had a small sheepdairy farm: Bob Hanna grew early potatoes and ran pigs up on the hills behind to keep down the fem: Guss Gutsleg trapped rabbits; William Hickling built the first glass houses in 1924 but had to give the farm up because of the water shortage. Jim Plunket, Ray English, Harry Ford and Bob Harley grew peas, lettuces, cabbages, tomatoes and potatoes. Stone and pip fruits were also established. Much of the hillside brought into cultivation at this time, about 40 acres all told, has now been returned to grazing. Several of the properties changed hands fairly frequently and their fertility rapidly declined because of poor husbandry and erosion.

Water has always been a problem in the valley and the early growers would have had a much easier time of it if adequate supplies had been available, when needed, to nourish their crops. Rabbits, hares and opossums also caused much damage. Added to this’ was the problem of getting labour in such a remote spot. Even now, fruit pickers have frequently to be transported from church to do the harw* ng. During the depression, most of the farmers left. One who did not. was Mr P. W. M. Townsend who came to the valley in 1928 and has been there ever since. Phil Townsend’s fruit farm is the only one left of any consequence. He grows raspberries, peaches, plums, apricots and apples, and has substantially increased the size and pro-

ductivity of his holding in recent years.

Residential Future

But as fruitgrowers in other Port Hills valleys confirm, it is becoming increasingly difficult to make a reasonable living from this type of farming. While production costs have quadrupled, market prices for fruit are not much higher than they were in the mid-forties. It is clear that Lansdowne Valley will eventually go residential. As it is, only three properties out of about 39 in the Lansdowne district support full time farmers. One of these is Mr I. J. D. Minson who owns 250 acres in the lower half of the valley but is disposing of some of it at the moment in 10 acre residential sections. Mr Minson is the “Jim” of “Sundowners” calendar. Oliver Duff, former editor of “The Press” and “Listener,” spent the many happy years of his retirement pottering about on a steep hillside farm over the road from the Minsons. “Sundowner” owned this farm from 1931 until his death in 1967, and many of his humane and whimsical observations dealt with life in Lansdowne Valley. His widow, Mrs N. A. Duff, still lives there. Another literary resident is the Rev. David Taylor, author of a definitive work “The Oldest Manuscripts in New Zealand,” a former vice-principal of College House and now General Secretary for the National Council of Churches in New Zealand. It is not hard to see why Lansdowne Valley is gaining in popularity as a residential area. It is isolated, warm, sheltered, picturesque and largely unspoilt. A row of power pylons marching over the hills mutilates any view of the middle distance. But few parts of the Port Hills are spared this affliction nowadays. / And though nearby residents are scarcely delighted at the prospect of a substation in their midst, they are assured that it should be little embarrassment to them. The plan seems to be to tuck the station away out of sight behind a small hillock and landscape the surroundings with trees. We can only hope that this is so.

Power paraphernalia or no, Phil Townsend for one could not imagine living anywhere other than in Lansdowne Valley. Did he miss the city amenities? “Delightful not to have them,” was the prompt reply. Few who know this attractive spot would disagree.