Old lime kilns of Kakahu Valley

Press, 24 June 1978, Page 15

Old lime kilns of Kakahu Valley

JOHN WILSON

explores the

In the Kakahu Valley in South Canterbury, inland from Winchester, a small river flows down a peaceful valley surrounded by farming country. It seems an unlikely spot to have been the centre of a thriving industry. But in the 1870 s, the banks of the Kakahu were abustle as workers quarried local “marble” to feed into the kilns from which emerged the burnt lime that was an important building material of the day.

Canterbury enjoyed a boom in the 1870 s which culminated in an orgy of land trafficking in 1877-78. Lime-burning was a relatively easy industry to start, and a number of settlers were encouraged by the boom times to get into the business. But the bubble burst in January, 1879, and in the long depression which followed most of the Kakahu limeburners closed. Today, there are only silent relics in the quiet valley of Kakahu’s brief industrial heyday, but the two old kilns which survive are among the most interesting of Canteroury's sites of “industrial archeology.” This has been recognised by the Historic Places Trust which has secured one of the kilns as an historic reserve. This reserve, administered by the Strathallan County Council, was gazetted in March, 1978, almost seven years after the first steps had been taken by the occupiers of the land, the Morrison family, supported by the South Canterbury Regional Committee of the Historic Places Trust, to secure recognition for the kiln. The kiln standing on the reserve is the most accessible — but not the most interesting of the two survivors. The noticeboard erected by the trust in

front of it declares that it is believed to have been built in 1876 for William Langdown of Christchurch by James Walker and Charles McDougall. This information was taken from the notes of an early lime burner, George Meredith, who died in 1918 at the age of 84. But these notes were the latter-day reminiscences of an old man who understandably scrambled up dates, exact sites, and the order of events.

More recent research by Mr A. C. Loach has established that the kiln on the reserve was one of the last built in the Kakahu valley. It dates from 1881. The first kiln was erected at a site about half a mile from the present reserve in 1875. In September of that year two partners, Alexander Fergusson and George Munro (a monumental sculptor with a large business in Dunedin), advertised lime from their kiln at Kakahu.

Nothing remains of this kiln, or of two other kilns built very soon afterwards. Five months after Fergusson advertised his Kakahu lime, Robert Colville and George Meredith (who had owned land in the area since 1866 and had made a living cutting timber) were also in the business. These kilns, too — Colville’s in the Kakahu gorge and Meredith’s two miles nearer Geraldine — seem to have diss appeared without trace. Traces of the fourth kiln — a circular mound and hundreds of scattered bricks — can still oe seen on the land on the south bank of the Kakahu bought by William Gamblin in 1876. This very large kiln was apparently a short-lived venture, for in 1880 land and kiln were sold cheaply. According to Meredith,

the kiln was fed with pieces of marble which were too large and the kiln soon pulled down, the bricks being sold to settlers at three shillings a hundred. The two kilns which are still standing were the last two built — one in 1879 and the other in 1880. On Janaury 30, 1880, the “Timaru Herald” reported that McDougall and Walker had built a new kiln close to a quarry.

The kiln which still stands is recognisable from the 100-year old description, being partly cut out of a rocky hillside and completed with a thick stone wall in front. Two ruined houses stand nearby built also of rubble masonry but with quoins and door and window surrounds of finished limestone.

Walker and McDougaii lost control of the property in 1888 when a mortgagee foreclosed, but the kiln may have been used on into "the 1890 s. As late as 1896 the 20 acres on which the quarry is located were bought by a Ben Shears who is described as a lime burner. The kiln now standing on the historic reserve was the last built. Although the present noticeboard has the date wrong, it is correct in declaring that it was built for a prominent Christchurch businessman, Mr William Langdown. Langdown arrived in Christchurch in 1862 and established a thriving business in lime, coal, and timber. He had lime kilns at Heathcote, on Lyttelton Harbour, and one near the Christchurch gasworks, 45 feet high, which was built in 1873. Langdown was granted permission by the Geraldine Road Board in October, 1880, to take clay

from a road cutting to make bricks for a lime kiln. He took over the lease of the land on which the kiln stood in 1881. He almost certainly employed Walker and McDougall to build the kiln, for its construction is similar to the one they had built for themselves a year earlier. Langdown parted with the land on which the lime kiln . stands in the mid-1880s. The kiln may have been used after Langdown parted with it, but there is no evidence of this.

This last kiln built is easily accessible, for it stands right beside Halls Road, only a few miles off the main road between Geraldine and Fairlie. The other surviving kiln is some hundreds of yards off a formed road, but it can be reached along a paper road without great difficulty. At either of the two kilns, imagining the men at work producing burnt lime is not hard. In both cases there is easy access to the hole at the *op of the kiln, although the

“free-standing” kiln on the reserve must have had a wooden “bridge” from the stone platform behind it on to the top of the kiln itself. Crushed marble (breaking up the hard Kakahu marble was the most back-breaking part of the work) and coal (carted up from Winchester because the local coal was of poor quality) were tipped into the kiln on top of wood firing. When the kiln was lull, the fire was lit through the arched opening at the

bottom The burnt lime was drawn from this opening as a fine white powder when the fire had burned itself out. The kilns are interesting because they allow imaginative visitors to reconstruct how the province’s early settlers secured one of their main building materials. They are also impressive in their own right as ruins — imposing structures which add an unaccustomed point of interest to what is otherwise just a typical farming landscape.