The Wairau Valley is a wide river valley with rolling hills in the upper valley, opening onto the Wairau Plain, where Renwick and Blenheim are situated. The general area around Renwick was a favoured place for Maori cultivating food plants and there were a number of scattered hamlets or families dotted about the surrounding area. Several waterways, including Mill Stream and Fairhall River, drained into an extensive lagoon that teemed with swamp and water fowl.
The farm property known as Woodbourne was established by Henry Godfrey, who had been among the first pastoralists and agriculturalists in the Wairau area. Henry Godfrey arrived in Nelson in December 1842 on the George Fyfe, a ship chartered by the New Zealand Company. Little is known about Godfrey's first five years in the new settlement, but it appears that by 1846 he was squatting on an area of land approximately 3,000 acres in the Wairau which was later to become known as Woodbourne. By 1847 he was weighing up whether to build a house on some land in his possession but plans were put on hold. It appears Godfrey then went to China and back to England then returned to Nelson by 1848 when the survey of the Wairau was being completed and licenses were granted to section holders. Elizabeth W Godfrey (Henry's mother) is noted as the original section holder for section 75 in 1848 though no section holders appear to be named at this date for section 76, the core of the existing historic farm. Henry Godfrey appears to have formally acquired a license for the land by 1850 and ultimately gained ownership through a Crown Grant process beginning in 1852. Over the following few years, Godfrey purchased several of the bordering blocks and by 1858 he had approximately 600 acres in one block.
Henry Godfrey retained interests in Nelson and also held interests in the Awatere Valley where, from circa 1850, he had a lease over 7,000 acres (known in the New Zealand Company records as Fairfield Downs, and now known as Camden).
Because of his extensive travelling, Godfrey chose his centrally placed property near Renwick to be his main base and by the early 1850s he had built a cob hut or whare there. Godfrey named this farm 'Woodbourne', purportedly after the Godfrey family home in Oxford, though various spellings have been used over time. Other cob buildings were soon built on the property including the first proper homestead which was constructed in time for Godfrey's marriage in 1852 to Eliza Jane Harley, another early Nelson settler, who moved with Godfrey to his property in the Wairau immediately after their marriage. Land records show that in 1852 Charles Harley, Eliza's father, was granted 150 acres being Rural Section 73 in the District of Omaka, this being part of the land that Godfrey added to his farm. Eliza, one of only eight Pakeha women in the Wairau, contributes to an important story of pioneer women. Her memoirs and letters record journeying with some anticipation to the residence in the Wairau and graciously coping with many unknowns. Like many settler women of the time, her life revolved around family and social considerations, cooking, improving the house, and managing servants and gardens.
The cob house that Henry and Eliza lived in was a six roomed cottage, with small bedrooms and sitting room, and with a kitchen 'of a good size'. Although she had household help, like many colonial women, Eliza actively participated in work, baking bread and learning to make butter, cheese, cornflour and haggis. The surrounds were well established by 1852 when Eliza arrived, with a garden with fruit trees and four gums (planted from seed sent from Australia), together with a cultivated five acre paddock. Nearby was a four-stalled cob stable, with two rooms at the end for men to sleep and smoke in. There was also a shearing shed and stockyard. To the south of the cob homestead a stone lined well was put down. Near to this was a cob building with a steeply pitched hip roof, the function of which is not certain. It may have been use for accommodation or as a second set of stables, or possibly it was the shearing shed referred to by Eliza Godfrey in her memoirs. These early buildings and early landscaping were established on Section 76, a parcel of land which Godfrey appears yet to have officially purchased through the Crown Grant process. To contain the property, Godfrey paid workers to follow his specifications to create a ditch and bank system around parts of the property in lieu of fences. Hawthorne or 'prick' hedges were planted atop the banks. Later, Godfrey became the first in the district to erect iron standard and steel wire fencing.
By the mid 1850s Godfrey established a flourmill, powered by a breast waterwheel, on the stream meandering through his property. Believed to have been built by John Barton, this was the first flour and grist mill established in Marlborough. The erection of the mill meant that the wheat, barley and oats could be milled directly. It was timely, not only for local residents and the Godfrey family but because the Wakamarina gold rush of the 1860s provided a ready business for Godfrey's Marlborough Mill. There were teething issues especially with the first set of mill stones as further had to be imported from England. By 10 January 1857 the farm was harvesting a large field of oats for processing in the small flourmill driven by water power. At times when the water level in the Mill Stream became too low to operate the water wheel, Godfrey used a steam engine to run the mill, being the first in the district to utilise such machinery. Godfrey's farm journal entries record aspects of the flourmill, dam and harvest. The mill house, a timber building, may have cantilevered over the river, as Godfrey's journal records flood waters of Mill Stream coming up over the floor of the mill house. Godfrey's cash book shows he made payments for some 'Maoris' who helped at harvest time.
By 1858, Godfrey had brought Woodbourne to the stage where it was described as a 'model farm' and even strangers would come to see it. He was the first local farmer to purchase and use machines for harvesting. The farm had a swim-through sheep dip, a necessity for such properties running flocks of sheep in the mid nineteenth century. Numerous Wairau sheep runs suffered from the serious issue of 'scab', the sheep disease that eventually led to ruin for many in the region. Many sheep imported from eastern Australia between the 1840s and 1860s were infected with scab, and sheep dips were quickly installed to dip sheep immediately after shearing.
In 1860 Godfrey decided to build a new timber house and engaged an architect, Mr Sloane. Carpenters came from Nelson, though it is not known who supplied the timber. Bricks used in construction were made on the farm. Slates for the roof and other fittings were imported from England. By 1863 the house (the present Woodbourne Homestead) was occupied by the Godfreys, though it had stretched their finances considerably. Nineteenth century photographs of the house show it as a substantial double gabled two storeyed structure with a trellised verandah running around the north and west sides, and with a large brick chimney on the south exterior. This chimney served the kitchen's bread oven, hot water boiler and cooker. The interior had walls of roughly dressed timber and scrim and in all there were seven fireplaces. Largely the domain of Eliza Godfrey, the logistics for running the household required attentive effort, not least to keep the fireplaces operating for heating, cooking and hot water.
After the Godfreys shifted into the new timber homestead, George Story (head farm worker) and his family moved into the original cob homestead. In the early to mid 1860s Story left to establish his own farm and he was replaced at Woodbourne by George Graham. By this time, the farm was thriving, the mill was always working and there were three married men in cottages working on the property. Woodbourne, with its relatively central location, became known as a social centre and it was here that several early settlers met their future spouses. It was some time before proper roading was developed in the area and many travellers or farmers shifting stock simply crossed over the property. Horse and carts (gigs) appear to have come in over the stream to the north of the house. A gig house, with cobbled floors, was located several metres from the west of the timber homestead.
Sadly, Godfrey did not live long to enjoy his new homestead, as he died from diphtheria at age 42 on 22 August 1868. A true epidemic that swept through the district, diphtheria also claimed the lives of three of the Godfrey children in the homestead. Godfrey's obituary noted his vast contribution to the new colony. An early settler, he successfully followed the pursuits of sheep farmer, agriculturalist and miller and he is noted as being the first to introduce the use of steam in this district, and one of the first in New Zealand. Godfrey had taken a lively interest in politics and had variously been Deputy-Superintendent of the Marlborough Province, Member of the Executive, Justice of the Peace, Member of the Nelson Provincial Council and an active worker on several local committees.
After Godfrey's death, the farm was vested in trustees, and Eliza, who was pregnant when the epidemic swept through the household, stayed on to give birth to their lastborn, Ethel. Then Eliza and family moved to Nelson for a period of 15 months in an effort to improve her spirits, before returning to live at the farm for about four years with the children. The farm continued to be run by manager, George Graham, who knew the farm and mill operations well. Eliza was involved in the farm and mill's affairs, nevertheless, and after her husband's death, invoices for flour from the Marlborough Mill were debtor to Mrs H Godfrey. In 1874 Eliza and children left Woodbourne for good and the property was leased to the Redwoods and Fairhalls. In November 1878 Eliza Godfrey remarried, this time to Evan Prichard, a chemist of Nelson, though he too died an untimely death just over one year later, in early 1880. An advertisement for leasing in 1884 gives an indication of what was at the farm:
'The property consists of sections 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, and parts of 78, 90, 92, 94, all freehold, and section 89 leasehold, running to November 1888. Substantial house of eleven rooms, and Cellar, and Stables, and Orchard attached, Woolshed, Sheep Dip, three Cottages, Sheds, and Stables. Two thousand Sheep.'
Small changes occurred at the property. It is not known when the corrugated iron was placed as roof covering on the verandah, as only slate tiles are mentioned in Eliza's memoirs of the early house. Photographs show that by the late nineteenth century, the verandah roof was striped in appearance, either because it was painted that way or possibly due to the method of creating corrugated iron in the nineteenth century whereby more zinc was used on the upside and less on the underside of the sheets. The use of corrugated iron during the nineteenth century often shows a striped appearance over time since, whether deliberate or not, the placing of sheets with the underside turned up meant that alternate sheets showed rusting.
In 1900 a deep artesian well was put down close to the west side of the timber homestead. The well was astonishingly deep at 361 feet (110 metres) and was operated by a Douglas hand pump from within the house itself.
It appears that some time before 1907 the timber mill house was shifted, by traction engine, about 250 metres north of its site by the dam walls to sit just south of the cob stables. In 1928 a concrete horse trough, surmounted by water tanks, was built near a present stone lined well. An interesting link with the Walsh family who later became owners, the horse trough was constructed by Irish immigrant, Dick Dermody, Mahon Walsh's uncle.
In 1907 the Godfrey family finally sold the last of the Woodbourne estate to Edward Fairhall. An interesting series of aviation and military events occurred at the property, which at this time was often referred to as Fairhall's Farm, during the Fairhall family's time at Woodbourne.
In the 1920s the Marlborough Aero Club, the first such club formed in New Zealand, began using an area of Woodbourne for a flying field. Charles Kingsford Smith used these large paddocks for his return to Australia in the 'Southern Cross' in 1928 following his historic first non-stop flight across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand. Kingsford Smith required a particularly long runway for take-off so fences were removed between paddocks to allow more than 200 acres for take-off. 'Smithy's' flight from Woodbourne to Sydney was made in 22 hours 51 minutes, nearly double the time it had taken him to cross eastward the first time. It was itself an historic event, being the first flight made from New Zealand to Australia. The decision to make the return trip from the Woodbourne property, near Blenheim, instead of Christchurch was made after it had been estimated that by avoiding the Southern Alps, the flying time would be reduced by about two hours. In 1935 a terminal building was built and used by Union Airways and Cook Strait Airways.
As well as the aviation developments at the property, military camps had been held on the site. Between 1920 and 1930 the Nelson-Marlborough mounted rifles used the forest and large fields of Woodbourne as the site of regular camps. In 1936 there was a particularly large camp of these mounted rifles which drew huge crowds and the Governor General of the time attended. In 1939, at the start of the Second World War, the Government took part of Woodbourne, by proclamation, for defence and training purposes, and the area at the far north and north-east of the property became RNZAF Base Woodbourne, a permanent military base that remains to this day. The core of the Woodbourne (Fairhall) Farm was leased by the government to become a satellite station, Fairhall Satellite Aerodrome. Between August 1942 and June 1943 Airforce Fighter squadrons 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 were based around the Woodbourne Homestead and farm site (RNZAF Fairhall). Fighter Squadron 16 was the first to arrive, the others following sometimes only for a short time as they prepared for operational tours in the Pacific.
Here airmen trained for operational flying in the Pacific, whilst providing defence for the Wellington and Marlborough regions. A flying off strip was located to the north and west of Woodbourne Homestead. The airforce utilised some of the existing buildings on the farm. The pilot officers lived in the timber house, Woodbourne Homestead, as it became the officers' mess between 1942 and 1943. During this time the house saw an intense period of social activity, and it suffered considerable wear as a result. The predominant fighter squadron initially was the Sixteenth Fighter Squadron, but both the seventeenth and eighteenth fighter squadrons were also present for a time, as evidenced by the names of airmen from each of these three squadrons scratched on the living room door of the homestead. A 1940s photograph shows approximately sixteen little Japanese flags hanging from an upper window on the north elevation, representing 'kills' made by airmen while flying overseas.
While some of the existing farm building were utilised by the airforce, some were altered or destroyed during this period. It appears that the original cob homestead built by Godfrey was flattened to make way for an aircraft maintenance hangar. The original miller's house, constructed of timber possibly in the 1860s, located about 70 metres north of the dam site and had in its latter years been used as a singlemen's quarters, was also demolished by the airforce.
Many other temporary structures were constructed by the airforce on the farm, almost all being demolished after the Second World War, as was the arrangement between government and the Fairhalls. While pilot officers lived in the Woodbourne Homestead, others lived in huts amongst Godfrey's original tree plantation area (the 'forest'), as it provided natural camouflage. Other temporary buildings included fifteen timber-framed Nissen hangars for kittyhawk aircraft, a dining hall (dining mess), concrete food safe, a bridge to the east of the timber homestead, a new well, and 'foxholes' (military pits) on the north edge of the property.
The Nissen hangars, also called Nissen huts, a commonly used type of simple half-barrel structure named after Canadian engineer Lt Col Peter N Nissen, were constructed around the property as hangars for the aircraft. Three of the Nissen hangars were situated at the northern end of the property, around Godfrey's original homestead site. While fourteen of the original fifteen Nissen hangars were demolished after the airmen left, one was allowed to remain and this survives to this day as one of only about four in New Zealand surviving in situ. This Nissen hangar, the design being a parabolic shelter and sometimes referred to as a blister hangar, was used during the Second World War as a maintenance hangar. Aeroplanes would be wheeled in through sliding doors on the east elevation and propped up to allow engine change. Documentation associated with the Fairhall Aerodrome refers to the Nissen hangars as 'pens', noting that some aircraft pens were covered only with netting (camouflage) while others were weatherproofed.
In 1946 following the Second World War, G H M Fairhall Estate sold the core of the historic property to T M (Mahon) Walsh. Evan Fairhall retained the property (named Fairview) fronting Godfrey and Middle Renwick Road. Mahon Walsh and his family were interested in both the history of the property and expanding its farming pursuits. Even prior to ownership, the Walshs had a long association with the property, as Mahon's father and grandfather had worked on the farm. Mahon became a major grower of lucerne seed in the years 1950 to 1960, producing over 100 dressed sacks annually. In October 1959 a vintage farm machinery show was held at Woodbourne, a fitting venue since the fields there had been among the first in Marlborough to be cultivated utilising some of the first agricultural farm machinery in the district. Organised by the Marlborough District Federation of Young Farmers Clubs as part of the Marlborough Centennial year celebrations, this was the first show of vintage machinery to be held in Marlborough and one of the first in New Zealand. This vintage farm machinery show, recorded by photographer and historian Norman Brayshaw, was the catalyst for the creation of Brayshaw Heritage Park in Blenheim. During the 1950s and 1960s the 'forest' area was used for scout jamboree camps. In 1962 a memorial was erected by the New Renwick Road entrance to Woodbourne Farm, comprising components of Godfrey's Marlborough Mill and a plaque with a brief outline of the historic farm and mill. In 1973, part of the land was sold to Montana Wines and grape vines were planted. Mahon's son, John R Walsh, the present owner, who has lived his entire life on the property, with his wife, Lynne, became a pioneer deer farmer at Woodbourne in 1977. In 1989 John and Lynne Walsh and family planted their first grape vines, showing viticulture becoming a common trend in Marlborough.
As with previous owners, a number of changes have occurred to the structures at the property since the Walshs took over. The timber Woodbourne Homestead has seen almost constant small-scale change. Almost immediately after purchasing the property, Mahon removed the slate tiles from the roof of the timber homestead, as they were in poor condition, and replaced them with reused corrugated iron taken from the cob building that is now in ruins near the well at the north end of the property. The verandah posts were replaced and gradually the verandah trellis has been removed. Chimneys were reduced in height in the 1970s. The chimney associated with the kitchen's bread oven and cooker was dismantled, and the original bread oven door was relocated for use as a wood box door for the log burner in the sitting room. Single storey additions have been built at the south-west and north-west corners of the house in stages from around the 1970s. The corrugated iron roofing of the verandah was replaced with decramastic style tiling in the 1980s.
Some changes occurred near to the house. Mahon built a detached garage to the north-east of the house but this burnt down in 1998. The gig house several metres to the south-west was derelict, having been crushed by limbs of large trees in the area, and was demolished by Mahon. He then built a concrete tennis court in this area, covering over the deep well of 1900. In the late 1990s John Walsh pulled up the old tennis court and found the well, confirming that it is indeed of a significant depth. Also in the late 1990s, John Walsh built a single storeyed double garage a few metres to the north-east of the homestead to replace the one that had recently burnt down.
By the time Mahon Walsh purchased the property in 1946, the defence department had either already removed most of the military buildings or was in the process of doing so. Mahon was eager to purchase and retain at least one of the Nissen hangars and he successfully negotiated with the Public Works Department for the retention of the Nissen hangar located immediately to the west of the stables. Mahon clad it with iron over the original malfoid covered plywood and used it as an implement shed. Nissen hut type buildings were commonly relocated or destroyed, but the survival of this parabolic shelter type of Nissen building (also known as a blister hangar) is believed now to be one of only four surviving in situ in New Zealand, the others being two at Ardmore Aerodrome and one at Ashburton Aerodrome.
It is not clear if the relocated timber mill building had been used by the airforce, as it was derelict by the time the Walsh family took over the property in 1946, so Mahon burnt it down.
A sheep yard and adjacent woolshed were built roughly on the site of another of the Nissen hangars, being the approximate site of Godfrey's original cob house.
The present owner, John Walsh, collects vintage farm machinery, much of which does not originate from the property, although a number of implements are parts are from Woodbourne farm, such as remains of a seven blade windmill (which may date from the 1880s and was an addition to the early stone lined well), a single furrow Gray plough, and parts of the original flourmill machinery.
