Title: Ngā Tohuwhenua Mai Te Rangi: A New Zealand Archeology in Aerial Photographs

Author: Kevin L. Jones

Publication details: Victoria University Press, 1994, Wellington

Digital publication kindly authorised by: Department of Conservation

Part of: New Zealand Texts Collection

Conditions of use

Nineteenth-century sites

Little remains of fortifications of the nineteenth century in the Wellington region. A blockhouse survives in the Hutt, its surrounding redoubt destroyed for car parking in recent decades, and part of a Māori (subsequently European) fortification at the head of Pauatahanui inlet. At Paremata, near the mouth of the inlet, there survive the stone walls of a barracks built in 1846-47 in the course of the fighting against Ngāti Toa and Te Rangihaeata. Built of local stone boulders and shell-lime mortar, the page 192

Storage pits above Paekākāriki, north of Wellington

The ridge has slumped off to the right leaving a distinct lower lip on which there are several groups of well-preserved pits, taking advantage of good drainage. The gardens associated with these pits would have been on the flat country between this ridge and the shoreline (out of view 400 m to the right), where a number of important archaeological sites have been recorded. On the lower slopes above the railway tracks are several groves of karaka (particularly prominent, top left).

page 193 building had little structural strength. Cannon could not be fired from the barracks as originally intended; after severe damage in an earthquake in 1848, troops were quartered elsewhere. ¹⁴ A study of these European fortifications has little to add to archaeological understanding, ¹⁵ and only the unique structure of the Paremata barracks is illustrated here.

On Mana and Kapiti Islands there survives evidence of nineteenth-century whaling, victualling and transport infrastructures. On the north-west corner of Mana Island, there was a manned lighthouse from 1865 to 1880. The household(s) there built a series of ditch and bank fenced enclosures. At the landing area of the island, there was also a ditch and bank enclosure, identified on documentary grounds as being as early as 1830. ¹⁶ -This makes it one of the earliest known European .agricultural or horticultural sites in New Zealand. These features are prominent on Mana Island because it is also well known as New Zealand's first sheep run dating from the early 1830s. The fences were needed to keep sheep out of the gardens. Sheep may also have been folded inside the enclosures, in winter through to lambing, with the sheep's droppings improving the ground's fertility for the growing season. Stone walls are also recorded at Kurukohatu on the north end of Kapiti Island. ¹⁷

Foundations of the Paremata Barracks, Plimmerton

The barracks date to the establishment of a stockade here in 1846 and were completed in 1847. The area enclosed by the stockade (about 100 by 80 m) fronted on to the water's edge, where the boat club is today, and enclosed the barracks. The foundation walls are about 18 by 11 m in plan and the view is to the south-west. Towards the camera viewpoint, this side of the boat club, was the Paremata moa-hunter site, occupying the outer estuarine margins close by a navigable channel.