Clik here to view.
Long Island Submarine monitoring station
Long IslandLocated 35 kilometres from Picton, Long island guards the entrance to Queen Charlotte Sound. It is the first marine reserve in the South Island and has a long history of fortification. To...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Takaka's First Library
On 7th June 1869 the Nelson Evening Mail carried a notice that the ship Icon from London was carrying one case bound for the Takaka Public Library(1). Where this library was located is not known but it...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ben Crisp and the Band of Hope
Ben Crisp was a reformed drunkard who took an abstinence pledge in 1843, inspired by the sermons of teetotaller and Temperance Society leader Alfred Saunders.He was born in London, England, probably on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Nelson's Botanical Reserve
The Botanical Reserve was set aside by the New Zealand Company in 1858 for public use. The area comprises two distinct parts, the playing field on the corner of Milton and Hardy Streets and Botanical...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Nelson's Signal Station and the Time Gun
Britannia Heights in Nelson was once known as Signal Hill. The Songer tree, a Sequoiadendron giganteum, now marks the site from which the state of the tide was signalled to incoming vessels and the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Nelson School of Music
A Unique VisionWhen Nelson's European settlers wanted music, they had to make it themselves. By 1852, the small Nelson community, then numbering more than 2000, had formed a short lived Philharmonic...
View ArticleClik here to view.
John and Mary France
Picton, or Waitohi (Pa) to the Te Atiawa who occupied the site, was a rugged, hidden community in its early days. The area was virtually unexplored by Pākehā, even long after Cook's arrival in the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Nelson's gateway sculptures
The Novella Sculpture“Nau mai ki tōku Āhuru Mōwai” – Welcome to my safe home, to my sheltered haven. He wāhi e tau ana te wairua pai, e marino ana, e kore e taea e te kino.The Novella Sculpture....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ngawhatu Hospital, Orphanage and Valley
The Orphanage Era of Ngawhatu ValleyOrphanage stream in in Stoke takes its name from a Roman Catholic home for boys which was once sited in the Ngawhatu Valley. Commonly called the Stoke Orphanage, the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Robert Ellis and Brightwater's electricity
Ellis Street in Brightwater is named after Robert (Bobby) Ellis "a man of considerable mechanical ingenuity and business acumen”. Bobby was responsible for the first electrical streetlights in the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Brightwater's School for Girls - 1880-1889
In the late 1870s the population of Brightwater grew very quickly. Schools in the area included Spring Grove School and River Terrace School. Both schools were very overcrowded and a long way for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Brightwater's School for Boys - 1888-1889
The brick school In 1887 Spring Grove School was overcrowded and run down, it was also the only school in the Brightwater area that educated senior boys. Instead of just upgrading the existing school,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Spring Grove School
Spring Grove School and the TeeTotal GoatsIn 1845, when Brightwater was still part of Spring Grove, there were a growing number of pākeha families settling on Section 34, or the ‘TeeTotal’ section as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Thomas Maddock and Lucy Knight of Marlborough
Just an old Marlborough man and his daughterWhen the first waves of settlers landed on the beaches of Nelson many were shocked at what they saw. The promise of plenty of land seemed to have gone...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Brightwater Tuna
Waimeha HeritageBrightwater is part of the Waimeha Plains, and is along the traditional trading route for Māori between Whakatū (Nelson) and Te Tai Poutini (The West Coast). A number of pā or Kāinga...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Brightwater got its name
"Bright water for me" According to some sources, Brightwater was named after the bright, clear waters of the Wairoa River. In part this may be true, but it seems more plausible to attribute the naming...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Wairau Valley Cemeteries
Anglican Church of the Good ShepherdIn the town of Wairau Valley in Marlborough, there are two main cemeteries which have been used over the past 160 years. One is tucked neatly between the community...
View ArticleClik here to view.
1918 Influenza pandemic in Nelson
The 1918 influenza pandemic has been called "the world's biggest disaster of the twentieth century"1, and its lessons continue to be significant. The outbreak killed more people than World War I - an...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Richmond Park emergency hospital 1918
On 15 November 1918, with influenza patients crowding the fever ward and an overflow marque at Nelson Hospital, a decision was made to ask the Agricultural and Pastoral Association if they could make...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ngaire Lane
Ngaire Galloway, nee Lane, who has lived in Nelson since the 1950's, is currently New Zealand's oldest living Olympian - as a swimmer competing in the 1948 London Olympics.Ngaire Lane with M. Ingram...
View Article