The following text is from the original Proposal for Classification report presented to the Board 1 July 1993. These ruins, which are mostly intact concrete foundations, are the remains of the flax mill built by Philip Vercoe. Vercoe arrived in New Zealand in February 1842 and moved to Nelson in 1862. He built a brick works on the section in 1888 and added the flax mill in 1890. This was the largest mill in the area at that time. The mill was dismantled in the early 1920's. Vercoe's flax mill ruins provide physical evidence of one of many flax mill sites in Marlborough, flax milling being part of a nationwide industry with its largest centre of production in the Manawatu. The concrete foundations are quite extensive and are situated on Council reserve land.