In a country churchyard

Press, 27 June 1987, Page 22

In a country churchyard

The little St Martin’s Anglican Church at Loburn, 12km * north-west of Rangiora, was built ih 1891 when Loburn was part of the Ashley and Fernside Parochial District.

A year later, the Leithfield district was reconstituted under the Rev. H. East who administered Loburn, Ashley and Sefton for 27 years. Bishop Churchill Julius consecrated the churchyard in 1907. The first European explorers in the Loburn district found an area of shingly river terraces covered in either tussock or groves of flax, manuka and matagouri, and early Canterbury landholders were, not particularly attracted. A surveyor, John Boys, was one of the first settlers to take a serious interest. He applied for a pastoral lease covering 8000 acres at the fork of the Ashley and Okuku rivers in 1851. Because he failed to stock it by the time John Robert Godley, the founder of Canterbury, had stipulated, he was ordered to vacate the land by the end of 1852. Another surveyor, John Thomas Brown, who came to New Zealand aboard the Midlothian, took over the run. In 1851, a Scotsman, John Macfarlane, took up a block on-

the east bank of the Okuku River, including much of the Makerikeri watershed area. He named his station Lowborn, and, built a sod cottage on a small creek that drained the more moderate slopes of the Makerikeri River.

Much of Macfarlane’s 20,000acre run was considered poor land for farming, comprising mainly river shingle covered by thin layers of clay and soil. Several fires broke out in the area and Macfarlane faced hefty fines for the spread of scab disease from his sheep. In 1862, he sold the lower portion of his block and built the Whiterock homestead on the upper block.

More than 20 farms had been established along the Makerikeri River by 1867, and the spelling of Lowburn was changed to Loburn. The settlers travelled along a rough track to Rangiora, crossing the Ashley River where it met the Makerikeri River at the site of an early store.

Many of the settlers were Irish small landholders who came from the West Coast goldfields, the Heathcote railway, the Lyttelton tunnel and various roadworks. The soil on their land was poor and they found it

difficult to live off their small holdings. Since timber was relatively expensive and the district clay, was: suitable for building bricks,! many settlers built sod-and-cob houses. By 1869 there were 56 sod houses and five cob houses. The more impoverished bartered their produce for 1 goods from the Ashley Bank store. Some tried to find work in other districts and returned home to their families when they could while others simply abandoned their sod or cob homes.

The 1878 plans to build a railway from Rangiora through Loburn to Whiterock were later abandoned. \ Meanwhile, the Anglican Diocese bought the land for St Martin’s' Church in 1878. By 1882 a blacksmith shop, post office, and school had been established. The 1901 census recorded a Loburn population of 537 residents. Loburn was in the Mount Thomas riding of Ashley , County, and, the Ashley Road Board was based there. Settlers found that fruit trees

grew well in the clay-and-shin-gle soil. ■ \

In 1913, Edward Ivory visited the district and concluded, that a two-mile strip of terraces along the Whiterock-Loburn road could be Successfully converted into orchards. He bought 200 acres for that purpose and later subdivided the land. The first orchard was planted out by 1914, and a fruitgrowers’ association was z formed the following year. The first fruit from the Loburn orchards arrived bn the Christchurch markets in 1920. .

The Leithfield parish dissolved in 1922 and there was an unsuccessful attempt to make a separate cure out of Loburn, Sefton and Ashley. They were then put under the charge of the Rev. Edward Chard, the vicar of Tuahlwl,. along with Woodend and Mount Thomas in 1928. '

After the Rev. Mr Chard resigned in 1931, all those areas came under the care of the Rangiora district until 1941. They then constituted a separate parochial district under the Rev. R. F. N. Thompson.

TESSA WARD