Untitled

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 18084, 11 June 1924, Page 21 (Supplement)

A Forgotten Industry. The road across the Washdyke Flat from the Smithfield ridge to the creek bridge is difficult to keep in good order, because, it is said, the foundation, the land beneath it, is soft and water-logged. Bad as it may be at times, it is far less unpleasant to have a bad road beneath than a bad atmosphere about one. The latter was the condition in the ’seventies and ’eighties, while the Boiling-down Works were in full swing. The works were situated on the rocky knoll in the left angle of the road and Washdyke creek, with a large set of buildings, which have since been removed. Over 100,000 sheep were tinned or boiled down in some years. The works were therefore of great importance to sheep-owners, as a moons of profitably disposing of surplus stock. A village grew up to accommodate the workmen, most of their small cottages being on the north side of the road. The works were kept clean by sluicing with water pumped from the creek above, and the foul drainage was discharged into the creek below' the works. This is stagnant w r ater except during rare floods, and therefore became extremely offensive. When the prevalent northerly winds blew across the creek the stench encountered along the road on the flat was declared to be “thick enough to cut with a knife.” It vms abominable to travellers. Yet the villagers declared that it was healthful. ‘We are all in good health, and see 'vnai blooming - children there are running about. Someone, imitating’ a "well-known quatrain about the Rhine and Cologne, said: “The Washdyke creek, as is well-known, doth cleanse the Balfour Boiling Down. But where shall sanitarians seek a means of sweet’ning Washdyke Creek.” The establishing of the freezing works in 1886, shut down the Washdyke works as no longer necessary.