Charles Carter, the eminent businessman and philanthropist, who gave his name to Carterton and the Carter Observatory, owned the original farm. He was well-known as a strong advocate for Wairarapa’s small farm settlers, and was a member of the Wellington provincial council.
Although not a farmer himself he had a cottage built for when he came to stay on the farm.
“Mrs Robson feeding calves, 1867” is written on one of the shed walls in brown crayon among other less legible writing that includes a ewe and a lamb tally. The Robsons were among the first managers of the property, which Ross heard was a mixed farm of about 8000ha before it was divided into smaller holdings and a bequest to the Anglican Church.
In the stable some old feed bins remain and up in the loft the floor is strewn with ancient hay. Ross has been up there once in 18 years of owning his dairy farm where he runs about 400 cows.
Carter reputedly stored his coffin in the loft, which was enough to stop the children of a previous owner from going there, although a local couple spent a night in it without any spooky visitations.
The sheds are typical of farm buildings of the era, Ross said. The European style with steep-pitched roofs was designed for much colder winters.
“The people who built them didn’t realise that we don’t have the snows of Europe needed to shed the snow off the roof.”
The older building, the woolshed, was built using mortice and wooden pegs.
“There are no nails and some of the beams have been adzed,” Ross said.
“You can see they are not dead straight as in pit sawn or circular saw.”
People interested in farm history periodically visit the sheds, which Ross uses for storage, including an old car body, drums, timber and other miscellaneous items.
“They ooh and aah and take photographs of them,” he said.
“We were peering up under the iron one day and thought we could see shingles.”
Folklore has it that Carter brought some Royal Albert deer to New Zealand and housed them in the older shed. But they escaped to Durie Hill where they multiplied in the bush.
Old sheds spark memories of the people who worked in them. The first farm manager, Sam Oates, reputedly picked up a heavy wooden wheelbarrow in Wellington or Petone and pushed it, filled with tree seedlings, over the Rimutaka Hill.
“Sam and another European Richard Fairbrother, a forebear of Ross’s, and the first mayor of Carterton were the first Europeans to use the Maori track which is now where the Rimutaka Hill road runs,” he said.
“They stopped at the Rising Sun Hotel for the night in Greytown and a verger of the Anglican church stole two of the eucalyptus trees, one of which still stands outside the church today. It’s a massive tree. The other one was probably planted outside his house in one of the side streets.”
He thinks holly bushes on the property next door also came to the area on that barrow.
Some locals, including Ross and an elderly relative of Mrs Robson, would dearly love the sheds to be removed from the property and restored. Suggestions for possible reuse include offices in the middle of town, joining Cobblestones Museum in Greytown or becoming the nucleus for an early settler’s type complex at the local showgrounds.
“You get waves of enthusiasm but then people say it’s too hard or there’s not enough money so we continue to use them for storage.”
This is the last in a series of articles on historic dairy farm buildings. But if readers know of other buildings with a history worth sharing please contact us with the details.
