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Woodside Run No. 18

About 1851 this run was applied for nominally by Alphonso Clifford, a younger brother of Charles Cliiford of Clifford and Weld of Flaxbourne and Stoneyhurst and became almost immediately part of Flaxbourne Run.

This run lay between the Waima (Ure) River in the north and the Kekerengu Stream in the south and was bordered on the east by the sea while the western boundary was somewhat vague. By about the turn of the century there was 9,565 acres of freehold and 12,500 acres of leasehold land in the Woodside Run, In 1901 Clifford and Weld Estate sold the freehold to Charles Frank Murray of Rotherham and his brother-in-law, Alfred Rittson Thomas. Murray took the northern portion, 6,236 acres, which extended up the Waimea River and Rittson Thomas and easier portion to the south of 3,329 acres which he named Tirohanga; Murray called his property Wharenui. The 12,500 acres in the remainder of the Woodside Run was offered for lease by the Crown in 1902 and Murray and Rittson-Thomas secured it on mutual terms for three years. In 1905 the Crown offered two blocks off it for lease; the Benmore Run (4,740 acres) received over 250 applications; Freeborn Parsons was the lucky winner of the ballot while for the Napoleon Run Arthur Wiffen was the winner out of 275 applicants. In 1911 another parcel of land from the old Woodside run, including some land from Whernside Run, was offered for lease by ballot and Roderick Alexander Kennedy, shepherd of Kaikoura, was successful and called the property Wairewa.

The first mention of an employee from Flaxbourne taking up residence is in the late winter or early spring of 1851 when John Stanton Workman moved with his family to the Flags — a small stream near the present Wharanui homestead. Here he was to keep a boat, supply Flaxbourne with fencing and firewood, look after the rams and assist any travellers passing that way.

Another item of interest about Woodside run is a circle of old gum trees between the present Ngaionui homestead and the north side of the Waima (Ure) River. At one time this circle contained holding yards and a hut for use when stock had been mustered off Woodside and crossed the river Waima or Ure.

At one time there was a plentiful supply of flax (Phormium tenax) growing in parts of Woodside, as in other parts of Marlborough, in damp hollows and along creeks and flaxmills operated in three or four places. Water from the Flags or else the Woodside streams operated a mill at Wharanui while other mills were in Schwass's Gully and at Te Rapa.

A description by the Lands and Survey Department of 1905 of Napoleon ad Ben More says: "Some mixed bush, manuka, matapo, broadleaf and some matai and kowhai on the slopes of Woodside stream; limestone country, good soil, over half the land good tussock country."