User:Johnragla/Leamington, New Zealand

Leamington
Cambridge has 22,500 people represented by 5 councillors on Waipā District Council.

Ngāti Korokī Kahukura and Ngāti Hauā are the local tangata whenua. Remnants of Māori horticulture and settlement exist, mainly borrow pits on Horotiu Sandy Loams, though the date of the first occupation has not been established, but radiocarbon dating suggests a date from the mid-14th century. The invasion of the Waikato left military settlements, of which Cambridge was the one at the head of navigation on the Waikato River, to guard against attacks from south of the Puniu River. Cambridge was established in July 1864 and was the headquarters of the Third Waikato Regiment. A redoubt on the Leamington side of the river was used in 1864, until the troops were withdrawn in 1866 and the site levelled. Town allotments were laid out in rectangular grids around the redoubt.

Listed archaeological sites are S15/23 pā, S15/287 borrow pits, S15/356 pā, S15/293 flour mill. Just south of Leamington town belt, S15/771 was probably a late 1600s to early 1700s kāinga on a high point, probably a hub for horticulture.

In 1864 500 Militia soldiers were allotted acre sections in Cambridge West as part of their pay for the 3rd Waikato Militia. Many streets are named after poets and authors; Shakespeare Street was named by 1884. When settlement began Pukekura Road Board was formed and administered the district until 1908. When Victoria Bridge was built in 1907 Cambridge West, with a population of 500, established its own Town Board, first meeting on Wednesday 20 May 1908, breaking away from Pukekura Road Board. James Keeley suggested Leamington as the name, Leamington Spa being near his Warwickshire birthplace. On 12 March 1908 the New Zealand Gazette named the town Leamington, with a Board of 7 Commissioners. On 20 June 1908 a public meeting confirmed Leamington, rather than Cambridge South, Cambridge West, Keeleyville, Karangi (true love), Karangi Puke, or Pukekarangi (restless hill). Sir James Carroll rejected the Māori names and Leamington was accepted. A merger of Cambridge and Leamington was recommended in 1950 but Leamington voted 192:161 against it, over concern about rates. They amalgamated on 1 April 1958.

In 1902 Pukekura was a dairying and orchard area. Pukekura Road Board had a population of about 1000 in about 200 dwellings, and about 30 miles of roads. It had a large New Zealand Dairy Association butter factory built in 1886, with a six horse-power stationary engine driving two 300 gallons Alexandra separators.

There is seen to be an undesirable disparity between Leamington and Cambridge.

Growth is planned to the east and west of the town belt.

The polo grounds opened in 1965, though polo came to Cambridge in the early 1900s under the influence of the late Charlie Meredith, a local high school teacher. Matches were played at “Bardowie” in Victoria Road (originally on the west side of the road before the cemetery), in the front paddock of Dingley Dell, Vosper’s property at Pukekura. At the club’s dedicated field on the town belt in Vogel Street, and later in Lamb Street, Leamington. Charles Heaphy surveyed most of Leamington in 1864, including the 10 ch wide town belt. The streets are named after British poets and authors.

A track between Addison Street and Leamington Cemetery runs beside a stream (with trees planted by Cambridge Tree Trust) and over a hill with a lookout pā.

11 soldiers were buried at the cemetery between 1864 and 1866 and civilians from 1880, after Bishop Selwyn consecrated the 7 acre reserve in 1875. It was gazetted under the 1882 Cemeteries Act in 1905, when it was extended to 13.5 acre. In 1910 Leamington Recreation Reserve was on the northwest part of the Town Belt at the corner of Pope Terrace and Bracken Street. Leamington Domain Board planted shelter and ornamental trees, grassed the reserve for football grounds and tennis courts and put up a 18 ft diameter, octagonal pavilion with dressing room and tea room, with a lead floored band rotunda on top, designed by Charles Reid, using kauri, totara, ornamental cast iron friezes and a plaster patera at the centre of a tongue and groove ceiling. It was opened on 25 May 1910 by William Herries MP. A traction engine moved it to Leamington Domain in 1921. In 1983 there was opposition to a plan to demolish the lower storey and move the bandstand to Cambridge. In 1992 it was again moved, to a more visible position, to minimise vandalism. It is claimed to be unique; a similar one at Hāwera is now an observatory. The Domain now has a camping ground, tennis, netball, skating, bowls, petanque, croquet and children’s playground.

Cambridge Model Engineering Society runs a 7+1/4 in gauge miniature railway around the Domain twice a month. The 650 m, or 760 m track opened in 2012. Prior to that it had been at Te Amorangi Museum, Holdens Bay, Rotorua from 1975 until 2011.

A protected Indian Cedar tree is on the corner of Shakespeare and Cook Streets.

74 Shakespeare Street is a listed building, with protected trees, built in 1902. It is a bay villa originally with bullnose verandahs on three sides.

109 Shakespeare Street is a small kauri cottage built about 1879. It was the Post Office and store, with lean to accommodation added at the back. The soldier of the 3rd Waikato Militia who was granted this acre section was Robert Glover, enrolled on 9 December 1863 in Auckland.

Aotearoa Meats started to build a £400,000 abattoir on their Leamington site in 1965. The Cambridge Borough Council had established an abattoir on the 31 acre site in 1926 and this had a capacity for 500 pigs, 500 sheep and 25 beef. In 1968 the Borough Council bought the old Boiling Down property adjoining the borough rubbish tip in Leamington. Leamington was moving ahead with 20 new homes built in 1964. Shakespeare Street needed a traffic filter on the corner of Cook Street and a lot of work was carried out to drain the water. And it was found in 1969 that sewerage restrictions would limit the sub-division in southern parts of Leamington. In late 1969 the whole of Cambridge underwent a full assessment of providing finance for the sewerage reticulation for the Cambridge Borough. In 1965 the water treatment station at Karapiro was completed. This enabled water from Lake Karapiro to be filtered, chlorinated and stored in a new 500,000 gallon reservoir. The Post Office opened in Leamington in March 1968. It closed in 1988.

Leamington Town Hall was built in 1912 on the corner of Shakespeare and Thompson Streets with a hall, 2 offices and gas lighting. Leamington was the first district to get electricity from HoraHora, and on 29 April 1921 the hall was lit by 9 lamps. The old town hall had been the Methodist church, built in 1876. It was demolished in 1976.

35 Campbell Street

Whare Ora (House of Health), on the highest point in Leamington, was designed by E Mahoney and Son in 1901. Since 2009 Lauriston Park retirement village has been built around it.

Leamington Primary School has years 1 to 6 children. In recent years, Leamington has changed due to new sub-divisions, reflecting an increasingly affluent community. As a result Leamington School has grown to a roll of 600. The school, on Lamb Street, was then surrounded by ti-tree and fern. The school opened on 12 October 1880 with 46 pupils. A second room was added in 1885, with further extensions in 1920 and 1927. On 10 August 1948 the school burnt down. Classes moved to Leamington Hall, until SPND Ltd built five classrooms, a sick bay and staff room, with coal burning central heating, which opened in February 1950.

Cambridge Co-operative Dairy Co Ltd built the Leamington factory in 1902 for £151.

The Wetlands

Victorian Bay Villa

Poets Track runs along the river between Fletcher Place and Victoria Bridge and Soldiers Track from there to Fergusson Bridge.

Pope Terrace

The big house set back behind the trees by Lyndsay Park is ‘Summerleas’ – built in 1924 from the plans of Edgecombe and White, by Speight Pearce Nicoll & Davys, for A H Gascoigne.

In January 1912 F J Marfell subdivided Sunnyside Estate, near the Domain, for £1 down and 10s a month. Next month E B Hill sold 32 acres of Riverside, opposite the Domain, on similar easy terms. By July 1912 Leamington had nearly 100 houses.

Just before the Victoria Bridge is an old concrete cattle trough. This was not only used to alleviate the thirst of numerous animals on their way to the Cambridge sales but the roads were so bad that pedestrians used it to clean off their boots before proceeding into the Cambridge township.

26 Wordsworth Street has a protected karaka, three Spanish chestnuts, rhododendron, weeping elm, oak and a Japanese cedar.

32 and 36 Wordsworth Street villas built in 1905 with ornate fretwork, bay windows, gables, chimneys and bull nose verandahs. Samuel Hampton was the 3rd Waikato Militia soldier granted this acre. He enlisted on 20 October 1864 at Cambridge.

35 Campbell Street is a well preserved square cottage with extensive gardens.

From Lamb Street, through the BMX track, are duckboards over the ‘Wetlands’. These come out at Shelley Street. Recent subdivisions have pushed the pukeko further out into the country.

19 Goldsmith Street has a Victorian bay villa with a corner entrance and two verandahs surrounded by trees including a protected magnolia.

Sewage
In September 2023 a 35-year consent was given for a new membrane bioreactor, on the site of the old works on Matos Segedin Drive, Leamington, replacing the ponds and infiltration discharge, with tanks and a discharge to the Waikato River, to be operational in 2026.

Pukekura
Pukekura and the nearby 360 m Pukekura hill are south east of Leamington. Following the invasion of the Waikato, the north west side of the hill was granted to Sergeant Isaac Morrow, the summit being on the aukati line, the boundary of confiscated land and King Country. A pā was on the hill, of which fosse and hangi pits remain. 2 well flanked and palisaded pā, 450 yards apart were on a spur of the Pukekura range, the lower 600 yards from the river, guarding the road to Mangatautari, which was ffve miles behind them. General Cameron brought 32-and 24-pound howitzers, and 8 and 10-inch mortars up the river to attack them, but they were abandoned and the 50th Regiment camped there. Tamehana decided the hill from which Te Waharoa had the victory of Taumatawiwi looked down an almost unscaleable cliff-face on to two pas still more ancient, and to the river in the gorge below them. Its weakness lay in its accessibility from the narrow plain which separated the swamp fringing the Pukekura Hills from the river. The easiest approach was a ridge which rose gently from this plain. At the top trenches, nearly a hundred rifle-pits, parapets and a heavy timber palisade around the outer ring of earthworks faced Pukerimu for enfilading fire on troops advancing up the ridge. Where the hill dropped steeply into the Waikato was a deep trench, a slight depression around the edge of the hill by 1939, and a parapet, and an outer palisade. The troops came via Ohaupo and Pukerimu. Between 1820 and 1860 several other hill tops were lined with rifle-pits at the approaches to the Pukekura and Roto-o-rangi hills from Te Awamutu and Rangiaowhia. Another steep eminence, several hundred feet above the Kairangi Valley, near the headwaters of the Mangapiko, had trenches and embrasures in 1939, suggesting that they are no more ancient than the 1860s. Some of these fortifications are so small that it seems likely that they were merely look-out posts. Pukekura Hill, now marked by a “Trig” station, is an excellent example of this. The map above shows the position of the pa at Te Tiki o te Ihingarangi in relation to the river, and the country in the immediate vicinity. It also shows the site of a smaller pa which Tamehana had constructed on a point higher up the range. This pa, which is illustrated here, stood on the site now occupied by the water reservoir, and made an ideal observation post. General Cameron, in his despatch to Sir George Grey from Te Awamutu on 25 February 1864, said, “The natives fell hurriedly back before the leading files of the 50th (regiment) could reach them and retired through a swamp in the direction of the Maungatautari road. The cavalry had an opportunity of charging them as they retreated, and did some execution. They made a further stand, but fled”. Next day they also fled from Hairini. On 3 March 1864 Koheroa steamed to the site of Cambridge, but, when Tamehana's scouts were spotted, retreated below the Narrows before turning round. A redoubt was built 6 or 7 miles below Te Tiki o te Ihingarangi, on the Pukerimu side of the river, in a direct line between the Pukerimu Cemetery and St. Peter’s School, where high sandy terraces formed an amphitheatre. On a small, triangular tableland on top of the third terrace, which rises abruptly for fifty or sixty feet, the ramparts were built. The redoubt was about 50yds square. In 1939 the parapets were weathered. Rewi preferred Te Tiki o te Ihingarangi, but Tuhoe preferred Orakau. After the defeat there Tuhoe had to defend Tauranga and the defensive sites around Pukerimu were abandoned in July 1864. A redoubt known as Crow's Nest was built on one of the pā sites. In 1874 a 2-room hut was built in the Pukekura redoubt. A road across the swamp to Rangioawhia was finished by about 1873.

It had been planned to have a military settlement at Pukekura, until it was realised that navigation on the Waikato was difficult above Cambridge. On 3 November 1868, the Native Land Court at Cambridge decided the Pukekura Block belonged to Te Raihi, Hori Puao, Te Hakiriwhi, Irihia Te Kauae, Piripi Whanatangi, Horomona, Hori Wirihana, Hemi Kokako, Parakaia Te Korako, Maihi Karaka, Te Waata, Te Reweti, Te Hura, Te Ngiranira, Huka, Te Waaka Ngai, Meretana, Harete Tamehana, Reone, Wiremu Te Whitu, Ihaia Tioriori, Aperahama Te Rangipouri, Nepia Warino, Te Teria, Te Kono Hone Te One and Te Ponui of Ngāti Koroki, Ngāti Kahukura and Ngāti Haua hapu. The block was leased to Thomas Douglas in July 1870, but in 1883 the Court of Appeal allowed him to evict the owners.

Pukekura Road Board
Pukekura Road Board, or Highway Board, was formed in 1869. It started spending money in 1870 and continued to 1922, when it was merged into Waipa County. In 1875 it administered about 37000 acre, with a population of around 213.

Pukekura Butter Factory
On 3 November 1886 Henry Reynolds opened Pukekura Butter Factory, which used Burmeister & Wain separators. It was the first use of the Anchor brand, probably created when he was asked the name of the butter and saw a tattoo on a farmer’s arm. The trademark may have been registered when the factory opened, or possibly in 1887, but was established by 1888, when Reynolds & Co were experimenting with packaging, and exported 13 tons of butter. Most of the factory was demolished in 1981, leaving only a storage shed, but it is marked by 2 roadside plaques. Aerial photographs show an L-shaped building, part of which remains. On 1 September 1896 the company was bought by New Zealand Dairy Association. Photographs of the factory show very different buildings; an undated New Zealand Herald photo shows a large brick chimney, 1905 and 1941 photos, a thin metal chimney, and this undated photo, used in the Waikato Times in 1923, pictures a concrete building with no chimney. The machinery was illustrated in an 1893 article. In 1923 a casein factory opened next to the old factory, with official opening in 1924. A booklet marked the jubilee of the factory in 1936. In 1971 the Pukekura cheese factory won a prize for its quality, but it closed in 1975.

Monavale
Monavale is southwest of Leamington. About 1866 Captain (afterwards Major) Wilson entered into arrangements with the friendly portion of Ngāti Hauā to lease the Pukekura and Puahue blocks which, on 12th December, 1868, he transferred to Walker and Douglas, who built a homestead which they called after the adjacent Moana-tua-tua swamp, but later contracted to Moanavale and then Monavale. On 6 September 1870 3 of their cattle were shot at Maungatautari. On 20 July 1871 a hut near Pukekura was burned. On 24 and 25 January 1873, a meeting at Maungatautari, Mohi Purukutu objected to Walker's occupation of the Pukekura block, with Hori te Tumu Avho, with Purukutu, had opposed the survey of the Pukekura block five or six years before. Exactly a month after the Maungatautari meeting, the first serious incident occurred. Some employees on the Walker estate were cutting a ditch near Roto-o-rangi, inside the confiscation line, when Purukutu's followers, Parao Tuhua and Pere Kapereira Poutururu, attacked James Laney. In February 1873 Timothy Sullivan was shot while working just over the Aukati line, south of Pukekura summit, by Mohi Hotuhotu Purukutu and Hori Te Tumu of Ngāti Hauā, who went to Tokangamutu, near Te Kūiti. Though Ngāti Maniapoto leaders disapproved of the killing, they were given sanctuary.