All sorts of vague legands have grown up around the ruined stone fort on Paremata beach, at the entrance to Porirua Harbour; you can see it from the railway as you approach the Paremata bridge, sixteen miles out of Wellington City. Here are some facts about “Paremata Fortress,” as it was rather grandiloquently styled in despatches eighty-odd years ago. It was major's command in 1846–47, including the posts of Jackson's Ferry and the lately captured pa at Paua-taha-nui. The British officer-in-charge had about 300 men under him. The stone redoubt was finished in 1847, and although greatly damaged by the earthquake of 1848, remained garrisoned until the early ‘Fifties. Not far away from the post “Barney” Rhodes, the trader, had a store where the soldier, the whaler, the settler and the Maori could obtain anything in reason, from “B.P. Rum” and “Best Case Gin” to shawls, calico, pilot coats, tobacco and shoes.

The ruins consist of a considerable portion of the lower walls of the fort, which was a solidly built structure of large stones, with an admixture of red bricks, firmly cemented with a mortar of sand and seashells. The walls still standing are two feet in thickness, about eight to ten feet in height. The building measures about 60 feet by 40 feet, and a stout wall divides it into two sections, which in turn were sub-divided into a number of rooms. Formerly this stone redoubt was surrounded by a stockade, which enclosed also a guard-room, a small hospital for troops, and whares which were occupied by some of the detachments. All traces of this stockade, however, have vanished. The site of this olden scene of military life is now part of a farm, and the ruined walls are a shelter for shivering sheep on the days when the blustering westerlies blow in across the sandshoals at Porirua's entrance. In the days of its youth there were some lively scenes on the Paua-taha-nui inlet, when Lieut. McKillop's gunboat (oars), gave fight to Rangihaeata's war canoes.

* * *