Coldstream
(Runs 453 and 454)

Coldstream took in the country between the Hinds and Rangitata below Maronan, which it joined about the present railway line. It ran to the sea and contained over fifty thousand acres. In the Lyttelton Times of 17th January, 1852, A. S. Collins gave notice of applying for the Rangitata side of the country, but he either abandoned it or could not stock it as we hear no more about him.

Ernest Gray applied for this country again on the 1st November, 1854, and on the same day Sefton Moorhouse applied for the country on the Hinds. Sefton Moorhouse could not stock his country and either forfeited it or sold it to Henry Gray, Ernest Gray's brother and partner, before the Grays had started their station. William Scott joined the Grays and bought Henry Gray's share within a few months. Scott and Gray named Coldstream in punning allusion to their names, Scots Greys—Coldstream Guards.

Sir Charles Bowen told me that he happened to cross the Rangitata on his way from the south on the very day that Ernest Gray arrived to start his station. He said he found him sitting amongst bags of cases beside his half-unloaded bullock dray, looking for all the world as if he had been shipwrecked.

In 1867 Scott and Gray (as the firm was called) sold Coldstream to John and Michael Studholme. When the Studholmes dissolved partnership in 1878, Coldstream fell to John Studholme's share. John Studholme made it over to his son, Lieut.-Colonel John Studholme, the father of the present owner, in 1880.

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The Studholmes made eighteen thousand acres of the run freehold. They drained two thousand acres, and few places in Canterbury are better planted. The Lowcliffe estate (in which the Studholmes also had a share) was bought out of the Coldstream run by R. H. Rhodes, William Reeves, Hassell and others.

Most of the Coldstream land has been sold from the 'nineties onwards. The property now carries less than 3000 sheep.

Of the early owners, I know nothing about Collins; Moorhouse and the Grays are well remembered in Canterbury; I have given an account of Scott and the Studholmes under Snowdon and Waimate.

C. H. Dowding managed Coldstream from 1867, when the Studholmes bought it, until 1890 when the present owner took charge.