Archaeological infrastructure of Wai-te-mata () 1820–1850

John P. Adam1

“Certain styles of architecture Landscape archaeology table for improved dwelling comfort require corresponding styles My research and fi eld work and no doubt improved human and of gardening as their proper applies the practice of landscape plant health.5 accompaniments, as a archaeology which has three fi ne house require terraces key landscape objectives when A comparative study between and geometrically planned “understanding the spatial the Bay of Plenty / Waikato and gardens…” David Hay, 1863.2 relationships utilized within a Offi cial Bay If we identify the primary actions on “…the remains of pahs, and garden’s design” as “(1) establishing its boundaries, (2) fi nding its land selection for mission stations marks of cultivation chiefl y on we fi nd some interesting practices. the scoria land, and the heaps of major axis, and (3) locating other passageways through it.”4 Fruit trees – including pears – are pepe-shells everywhere, show the fi rst actions before building the country was, at no distant Plants feature in all aspects of starts. For example, in August 1834 period, highly cultivated and the design of this economic and the Reverend A. N. Brown carried thickly peopled…” Dr Andrew social landscape history. Garden fruit trees to the Maungapouri Sinclair, 1851.3 plants were, and often still are, mission site in South Waikato grown for ornament, food, medicine which were planted by him.6 These Introduction and shelter; native timbers were trees were planted before any The focus for this paper is 1820 milled locally and imported timbers building was constructed. Brown to 1850. Case studies will apply shipped for the fi rst permanent has also written of the Matamata comparative research between houses. Raupo (Typha species), Maori chief Te Waharoa’s attitudes historic landscapes in Auckland’s a common swamp plant was also about Brown’s abandoned mission ‘Offi cial Bay’, home of the fi rst used to make houses for the orchard in January 1837: permanent houses and gardens of Mechanics (skilled labourers). the government and the Te Papa Flax (Phormium tenax) and peach “Waharoa had rendered the peninsula of Tauranga City and groves marked contemporary Maori orchard ‘sacred’ by calling the several Auckland and Waikato settlements. fruit trees his head which had (Anglican) Church Mission stations deterred the natives from doing built before 1850. Trees and buildings any further injury to them, and the fruit will probably be allowed, I will argue for the use of landscape I have always been amused by as it ripens, to drop from heavily archaeology as a heritage the consistent staging of Pakeha laden branches and rot on the management tool and explain what settlement with gardens and/or ground...”.7 land use changes can be read trees planted ceremonially before from the physical environment and any permanent built structures The narrow Te Papa (Tauranga) pictorial and written records. By are placed in or on the ground. peninsula was long settled by revisiting primary archives and the Archival and physical evidence of the local Maori, with Paa located physical places with these insights the construction of an earth platform on the coastal cliff edges of the we may see the past with new for the fi rst home of Robert Graham peninsula landform.8 Cultivation understanding. at Wenderholm, north of Auckland, by Maori of parts of the area would has been discovered with a central have involved using fi re to regularly earth platform surrounded by a clear the bracken fern / manuka deep ditch to lower the local water at the required time of the year

1 Endangered Gardens, 2/32 Brighton Road, Parnell, Auckland; [email protected] 2 Hay, D. (1863). Choice of house site & laying out the grounds. Southern Monthly Magazine. 3 “At the time the site of Auckland was fi xed on for the capital of the colony, there were almost no inhabitants in the neighbourhood. Independent what [was is] known, however, of the history of the locality, the remains of pahs, and marks of cultivation chiefl y on the scoria land, and the heaps of pepe-shells everywhere, show the country was, at no distant period, highly cultivated and thickly peopled…”. Hookers Journal of Botany and Kew Garden Miscellany. Volume 3. 1851. P. 214. 4 Miller, N.F. and Gleason, K.L. (1994). The archaeology of garden and fi eld. University of Pennsylvania Press. 221 p. 5 Research undertaken in 2005 for Archfacts and the Auckland Regional Council Wenderholm Landscape and Garden Conservation Plan. 6 Journal, August 28 – “This morning, Mr Brown and myself (Rev. W. Williams) were employed in planting fruit trees we had bought with us, in a spot of ground new to my projected dwelling...” Church Missionary Society Register, 1834. P.523. [University of Auckland Library]. 7 Journal, January 19, 1837. P. 100. MS 40. Auckland Institute Museum. 8 ”Many [coastal cliff and riverbank] sites on the Te Papa peninsula and Otumoetai have been obliterated by the buildings of the City of Tauranga...” [P. 36]. See fi gure 2.2, ‘Maori Earth Works’ [opp. p. 36]. In: Stokes, E.M. (1980). A history of Tauranga County. Dunmore Press. 489 p.

6 New Zealand Garden Journal, 2007, Vol. 10(1) for horticulture and probably for The Wai-te-mata – Auckland The house construction has strategic reasons. Fire was not The “Wai te mata,” as Governor been presented as evidence of used in the husbandry of land by and his advisors architectural history by Stacpoole Northland missionaries, researched called Auckland City before they (1971). However, re-evaluating by geographer R. P. Hargreaves. chose its name was gardened by these reports in terms of a broader He says: Maori who used fi re to husband place making origin of the fi rst New the land. The fi rst eyewitness Zealand government provide new “It is signifi cant that in no accounts of the cultural landscape insights into the process of site and missionary diary is there mention reveal some surprising details. For building selection and construction of any attempt to follow the example Charles Terry who came of dwellings and landscape. Maori practice of clearing land by to make his fortune in New Zealand fi re...”.9 Colonial Surgeon, Dr John fl ax recorded near Maungawhau or Johnson, MD’s,14 timber framed Fire was used across the Mount Eden: four roomed home was built in fi ve Waitemata isthmus by surveyor “Here, although quite deserted days in early October 1840 by six Felton Mathew and his staff to by natives, there are … the carpenters and one blacksmith. clear “sight lines” for his surveying remains of a most extensive The “Mechanics” names with their equipment.10 The Church Mission Pa, with their former cultivated trade are recorded in the fi ve page houses supervised by Rev. Brown grounds, on which are now report and an eighteen page time were all built on the very end of growing wild, in luxuriant sheet under the direction of the the Te Papa Peninsula on a raised vegetation, tares (sic) [taro] “Superintendent of Works” (1840– terrace. cabbages, turnips, celery, 1845), William Mason. Mason was and grass. The [taro] were a professional architect and these in October (Spring) 1840, in dwellings were the fi rst permanent full blossom, four feet high, houses ever built in Auckland, and and there were some acres months before the fi rst wooden completely covered with them.”11 Government House (1841–1848) was constructed as a prefabricated William Hobson sent his advisors house carried aboard the ship from Russell in Northland to Platina direct from London. locate a permanent site for the new capital. His poor health kept Central to a permanent settlement him in the north but his advisors was the military and a permanent reported to him the progress on water supply, such as the springs the creation of the town with, in fl owing from Offi cial Bay and the case of the Superintendent of the Auckland Domain where Works, William Mason, two lengthy the “Government garden” was reports written by him.12 They constructed; both Maori and Pakeha chronologically document the dates gardeners cultivated plants to and names of the entire Mechanics supply the Governor and local and who built the fi rst six permanent countrywide residents.15 wooden houses in Offi cial Bay.13 Dr David Monro described the The Mechanics included: Thomas garden in the summer of 1842: Wright (carpenter); Francis Hamilton (quarryman); Thos “In this garden there was to O’Neill (carpenter); W. Kendell be seen a large variety of (?); James McGee (labourer); vegetable, fl ower, young vines Samuel Mills (carpenter); Richard and fruit trees and several Condon (carpenter); John Swanson plants and seeds of which Mr. Fig. 1 First plant sale of plants for Auckland. Source: The Southern Cross, 12 August (carpenter); R. Seale (carpenter) C. [Cleghorn, Government 1843. and Charles Hale (blacksmith). Gardener] had bought from Rio Janeiro.”16

9 Hargreaves, R.P. (1962). Waimate – pioneer New Zealand farm. Agricultural History 36: 38–45. 10 i. Felton Mathew Surveyor’s Field Book. NZ MS 99. MSS APL. Ii. Memorandum. Charles Terry to Governor W. Hobson. Compensation for burnt prefabricated house. 1840/89. G36/1. Archives New Zealand, . 11 Terry, C. (1842). New Zealand its advantages and prospects as a British Colony. London. P. 37. 12 i. IA 1. 1840/492. Reporting proceedings. 23 September, 1840. William Mason, Superintendent of Works. Archives New Zealand, Wellington. ii. IA 1. 1840/589. General report, 20 October, 1840. William Mason, Superintendent of Works. Archives New Zealand, Wellington. 13 IA 1. 1840/589. General report, Wai te Mata. Superintendent of Works to Governor, William Hobson, 10 October, 1840. 5 page report and 18 page three week timesheet. Archives New Zealand, Wellington. 14 The Anglo-Maori Warder, 3 August, 1848. P2, C4. 15 Adam, J.P. (2005). Changing places: understanding the destruction of landscape celebration. Proceedings of XXII Annual Conference of Society of Architectural Historians of Australia and New Zealand. Pp. 11–15. 16 Journal of Dr. David Monro 1842. MS 210. P29. Auckland Institute Museum.

New Zealand Garden Journal, 2007, Vol. 10(1) 7 We fi nd in a random set of possibly Johnson’s writings as “Agricultural Notes for September, 1847”20, a statement that: “…some of the Hobarton potatoes have exhibited symptoms of the dreaded rot, plant as many of the sound and excellent native sorts as possible. There is not a fi ner potato in the world than the native ‘shark’s egg’ or hua- maunga”. There was at this time concern Fig. 2 Phormium tenax plants photographed in 1870 in Offi cial Bay. Estimated age 50 years c.1820. Source: 7-A527 Special Col. APL. about both Maori and Pakeha relying too much on the potato.21 This same garden supplied rare Primary infrastructure plants In the same “Notes” appeared this trees to Auckland and North Island What food and ornamental plants warning under: public landscapes from 1840 until grew in Auckland before Governor “THE WINTER… The natives the present. Trees growing today Hobson chose that place as the predict a dry summer, and as across the UNITEC campus in in 1840? their observations are generally Auckland can be traced from this How old are the oldest trees (pear, correct, farmers and gardeners garden. In the winter of 1884, for willow, poplar) and other plants should take warning, and get example: (such as Phormium and taro) their crops in…”.22 growing in Auckland parks and “…it was agreed to supply the gardens? I contend that buildings The Government supported Lunatic Asylum with a quantity are historically important in acting the trade in what were called of Oriental plane and other as magnets for plants when “native productions”, such as fl ax trees suitable for planting as private and public buildings were processing and bark gathered ornamental specimens…”.17 constructed. Gardens cultivated from native trees such as kowhai Comparing those permanent by Pakeha required manures and for tannin. Introduced weeping houses and gardens recorded in the production of this was linked to willow, Salix babylonica, became pen and pencil built during the a political and social system that an important infrastructure plant for 23 1840s reveals the use of a singular saw the “depasturing of stock” [and both Maori and Pakeha. or a series of stepped terraces to late night ramblings of the cattle But it is the extremely early construct the dwelling space in and cows] on a range of commons reporting of plant cultivation front of the houses. Graham and across the Wai-te-mata isthmus. in Offi cial Bay such as that in Edgerley were the fi rst Pakeha Some plant histories have been December 1841 that confi rms that gardeners to advertise their practice recorded by John Johnson MD. gardens were functioning and what in Auckland.18 Most houses have For example in his Annual Report was being grown: expansive verandahs. The same of Auckland Agricultural and process can be read in the paper “…wrote a correspondent of Horticultural Society he records written by nurseryman and garden the New Zealand Herald and that “The vine plants brought maker David Hay quoted at the Auckland Gazette at the end from Sydney in October 1840…” head of this paper. This traditional of 1841 [29th December, Page and on the history of one popular mathematical design process was 2, Column 3], is to be seen vegetable he says “There have probably a convention applied a second crop of potatoes been several varieties introduced in the Mission station gardens of appearing above ground … this from North America, under the Northland and it extended well into garden [William Mason’s] and name of ‘squash’ which are very the late 19th century with the house a few others, viz: Dr Johnson’s fi ne…”19 His writing emphasized sites chosen that were potentially and Mr. Leach’s do certainly the scientifi c method of recording the previous dwelling sites of Maori. refl ect much to the credit of the change in the landscape. industrious proprietors.”24

17 Auckland Domain Board Minute Book 1860–1884. PDB 1. Auckland City Council Archives. 18 i. Edgerley, J. The Southern Cross, 12 August, 1843. P3, C2 [advertisement]. ii. Thomas Graham [obituary]. The Southern Cross, 27 July, 1852. 19 The Southern Cross, 25 November, 1843. 20 The New Zealander, 8 September, 1847. 21 The New Zealander, 22 May, 1847. 22 The New Zealander, 8 September, 1847. 23 “T. W.[Tom Walsh]” Napoleon’s Willows. New Zealand descendants. The Waitemata Post, 15 September, 1910. 24 Stacpoole, J. (1971). William Mason. The fi rst New Zealand architect. Whitcombe and Tombs. P. 36.

8 New Zealand Garden Journal, 2007, Vol. 10(1) Anon. Thomas Graham [Obituary]. The Southern Cross, 27 July, 1852. Burstall, W. and Sale, V. (1984). Great Trees of New Zealand. A. H. & A. W. Reed Ltd. Cooper, R. (1971). The Banks Lecture. Early Auckland gardens. Journal of the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture: 100–114. “Derwent Seed Potatoes, Seed Grain &c., several thousand fruit trees, and Plants…”. The Southern Cross, 12 August, 1843. P3, C2. Edgerley, J. (1843). The Southern Fig. 3 Raupo (Typha species) growing in Auckland Domain ponds late 1870s. Source C8241, Cross, 12 August. P3, C2. Auckland Institute Museum. [Advertisement]. Conclusions These errors add to considerable Hay, D. (1863). Choice of house site & Trees paradoxically protect confusion in the related design laying out the Grounds. Southern the buried historic stratigraphic disciplines of landscape architecture Monthly Magazine, Auckland. sequence from human disturbance. and urban design. The Crown Miller, N.F. and Gleason, K.L. (1994). Tree trunks can be buried at a bought trees and plants from The Archaeology of Garden and considerable depth with the base Sydney in 1840! As I have Field. University of Pennsylvania of the tree trunk marking the illustrated, Maori plantings existed Press. 221 p. original garden levels. Land can across the Isthmus before 1840. Paul, J. (1985). Artists of Hobson fi ll up over time and the raised Do any of these trees survive Album. 1. Edward Ashworth, soil levels produce multiple tree today? 1814–1896. The Turnbull Library stems sometimes caused by the Record: 22–32. In September 1840 the ship the uncontrolled grazing of animals. Shepherd, R. Winsome. “Hay, Anna Watson arrived from Russell David. 1815–1883.” Dictionary of So why do we have a problem – Korarareka with Government Biography, updated 7 July, 2005. in understanding the age of our offi cials such as Colonial Surgeon, http//www.dnzb.govt.nz/ local landscapes? Maybe it is the Architect, Surveyor, Superintendent Stacpoole, J. (1971). William Mason. legacy of the likes of dendrologist of Domain and their entourage The fi rst New Zealand architect. Bob Burstall’s Forest Mensuration of what were called “Mechanics” Whitcombe and Tombs. 198 p. studies completed throughout who were employed to create a Terry, C. (1842). New Zealand its the 1960s and 1970s for the New new settlement on an existing advantages and prospects as a Zealand Forest Service. Burstall settled cultural landscape that can British colony. London. was searching for the largest and be read from paintings and early Unpublished most perfect form of individual photographs. IA 1. 1840/492. Reporting genera, species and cultivars of I hope that detailed archaeological proceedings. 23 September, 1840. trees, or in some cases monuments examinations of gardens will William Mason, Superintendent of of Nature.25 Accurate authentication become normal practice in the Works. [Six houses: 1. Mr. Mason, of the age, origin and spatial future when understanding the [Store] 2. Four room house; 3. Two associations with dwellings and Maori and Pakeha exchange of room house; 4. Capt. Symonds; landscape was rarely described. knowledge and plants between 5. Dr. Johnson, 6. Harbour Master, As a practicing landscape historian each other and other centres of Capt. Rough.] Archives New there is a serious problem within the trade. Zealand, Wellington. practice of landscape conservation Acknowledgments IA 1. 1840/589. General Report, where social and architectural 20 October, 1840. William Mason, historians and arboriculturists tend Staff at Archives New Zealand, Wellington; Susan Sweetman, Superintendent of Works. Archives to ignore or at best understate the New Zealand, Wellington. age of our landscape infrastructure Auckland; Ann Andrews, Auckland and by association the tree cover. and Robin Skinner, Wellington. A recent example of this was John Adam is a self employed References landscape historian and his given by Wolfe who wrongly stated Adam, J.P. (1997). George Archibald that “The planting of trees [in the business ‘Endangered Gardens’ Green (1867–1935) NDH (NZ) has been operating since 1998. Auckland Domain] began in 1864… Part 1. The City Beautiful and ”26. In 2007, he received the RNZIH Countryside Beautiful. New Award in Garden History – see Zealand Garden Journal 2(4): the citation on page 20 of this 12–15. issue.

25 Burstall, W. and Sale, V. (1984). Great trees of New Zealand. A. H. & A. W. Reed Ltd. 26 Wolfe, R. (2002). Auckland Pictorial History. Random House. 124 p.

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