N.Z. House & Cottage 25. Woodside Manor, West Taieri

I wrote and illustrated ‘New Zealand House and Cottage’. It was published in 1997. It’s a snapshot of some historic New Zealand homes - both grand and modest - as they were preserved at the end of the 20th century. I have decided to share some of the entries from the book from time to time on this blog

WOODSIDE MANOR, WEST TAIERI

‘Tis distance lends enchantment…’ My first illustration of ‘The Poplars’ was for New Zealand Odyssey published in 1989. On that occasion I could get no closer than the locked gates, from which distance it had a romantic, Caledonian promise, as if it had been transported, fully built, from some remote Scottish glen. It came to mind again when I was planning New Zealand House and Cottage.

I daresay that Ray and Eve Beardsmore’s first impression was the same as mine. But they would have been under no delusions about the restoration task ahead of them when they bought the house at auction in 1974. It had been empty since 1958, vandals had broken windows, birds nested in the rafters and cattle roamed through the ground floor. The first thing the Beardsmores did was to restore its original name, ‘Woodside Manor’, then they set out to put it all back together again - a long term project upon which they are still working.

It was built by a Scot, Francis McDiarmid, in 1866. He had bought the land unseen and had come to Maungatua on the Taieri Plain in 1848 to win his farmland from forest and swamp. He and his wife Janet prospered during the Otago gold rushes and improved their accommodation from a wattle and daub cottage to this brick, limestone and slate mini-mansion. The bricks were fired from local clay, the stone came from Oamaru and the rafters and joists were of pit sawn native rimu, but from Wales came the roof slates, and the nobler timbers were of Baltic pine; a happy combination that has fought well against time’s depredations.
Woodside Manor is a treasure house: the Beardsmores have a jackdaw hunger for collectables everything from cups and saucers to Rolls Royces and Model T Fords. They intend to leave it to the people of Dunedin - not too soon, I hope.

There’s an unsolved mystery here: in the central gable there is a stone tablet which records Francis McDiarmid’s completion of the house in 1866. Above his initials are the letters: ‘PR. OF. WS.’ I’ve found nobody who knows their meaning.

(Later note: PR. OF. WS. could mean Prince of Wales - but in what context?)

© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz 
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North Western Hotel, Palmerston

I wrote and illustrated ‘The Good Old Kiwi Pub’. It was published in 1995 and was a snapshot of some New Zealand pubs as they were at the end of the 20th century. I have decided to share some of the entries from the book from time to time on this blog.

The first coach travellers from Dunedin to the Otago gold rushes in the early 1860s were treated to a terrifying trip over the flood-prone Taieri Plain and across the hostile hills and valleys of the Old Dunstan Road. Despite the legendary skills of determined coachmen it wasn’t a satisfactory route and so, around 1864, a safer, more reliable alternative was developed which saw Cobb & Co’s coaches bustling up the coast road from Dunedin to Palmerston and then following the Shag River valley ‘Pigroot’ into Central Otago. 

The first North Western which was built in 1863, described by E.M. Lovell-Smith in ‘Old Coaching Days’ as a ‘pretentious wooden building’, became the depot for Cobb & Co. But it burned down and was replaced by the hotel that still stands today.

Built of bricks from a local kiln in 1887, it prospered until 1906 when it was hit by local prohibition. The wonder of it is that the building survived for it was variously used as a boarding house, fish and chip shop and a babies’ clothing shop until a tourist licence was granted almost eighty years later.

In 1989, with a new licensing act in place, it obtained a restaurant licence, but only in 1992 did it become fully licensed once more. Today’s North Western is a handsome structure and, being the only survivor out of fourteen original hotels in Palmerston, is an important remnant - as is the town hall (above) - of this historic junction town; especially as the original stables, essential to Cobb & Co coach travel along the ‘Pigroot’ to the gold fields, are still there.

© DON DONOVAN

donovan@ihug.co.nz

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