History of Maori Occupation:
The Maerewhenua area, in the Waitaki River Valley inland of Oamaru is significant in the traditions of the Ngai Tahu Whanui, and was on an ancient pathway near the Waitaki River between the mountains and the sea.
The headwaters of the Waitaki River are fed by ka roimata o Aoraki - the tears of Aoraki - the ancestral mountain of Ngai Tahu. The people of Ngai Tahu are descended from Aoraki - the most sacred of their ancestors - who was the first child of Raki (the Heavens) and Poharua Te Po (the breath of life found in the womb of darkness).
Some of the earliest traditional accounts associated with human inhabitation of the lower South Island are connected to the voyaging waka named Arai-Te-Uru. Rongo-i-tua was a voyager from Hawaiki who introduced kumara to the Kahui-tipua people of the South Island. The Kahui-tipua people assisted Rongo-i-tua in the construction of a canoe in order for him to return to Hawaiki and secure additional Kumara for cultivation in the south. On its return to the South Island, the Arai-Te-Uru encountered a fierce storm, and according to J. Herries Beattie's retelling of collected accounts, the crew member named Moko-tere-a-tarehu was lost overboard at the mouth of the Waitaki River. The canoe was blown further down the east coast of the South Island, and after losing much of its cargo of kumara at the beach known as Kai-hinaki (near Moeraki); the waka was wrecked at Matakaea (Shag Point) where it lies petrified in the landscape.
A. W. Reed's Treasury of Maori Exploration also notes that a waka named Arai-Te-Uru carried a sacred fire from Hawaiki known as Te Ahi-Tapu-a-Uenuku. This fire was buried along the Waikato River. This sacred fire was dug up by the great Maori explorer Tamatea-Pokai-Whenua prior to his circumnavigation of Aotearoa New Zealand aboard the waka Takitimu.
This tradition asserts that local limestone outcrops are the legacy of Tamatea-Pokai-Whenua. During his exploration he traversed the land, using this sacred flame for making fire as he went; as the fires cooled, mounds of pale white ash were left in their place, which became the limestone features that are so prominent in the landscape of this region.
In Johannes Andersen's discussion of the voyage of the Takitimu in his Maori Place Names, Andersen notes that Tamatea-Pokai-Whenua journeyed along the Waitaki River, and near the river.
Both iwi history and archaeological evidence show occupation by Maori in the area over an extended period, with the inhabitants utilising a wide variety of natural resources from the diverse environment of the Waitaki River catchment. The date of earliest Polynesian settlement of the Waitaki area remains unknown, but is generally thought to date from at least 1,000 years ago (Symon 2007:8). There was extensive settlement throughout the Waitaki Valley when the moa existed, as shown in the widespread archaeological remains of moa bones in cultural contexts.
While the traditional ways of Maori life had been influenced to some extent by exotic elements by the mid 19th century, many of the old ways still flourished, and valuable insights are available from surveyors and missionaries records made while travelling through the area in the 1840s. On 9 January 9 1844 Edward Shortland noted 'a ruined hut and a cultivation ground (at) a small glen in the hills, where there was plenty of wood and a stream of water' (at nearby Papakaio, also on what is now State Highway 83. The following day his group walked to Te Puna a Maru, then the next day established a camp on the banks of the river several miles downstream.
On October the 17th, 1845, the reverend Charles Creed travelled along the north bank of the river to the vicinity of Te Puna a Maru, staying at a settlement on the north bank, but giving no other details. Mantell described a kaika on the south bank about seven miles inland from Tauhinu on the north bank (almost certainly Te Puna a Maru) as having 'well stored watas and four or five broken mokihi'. No one was present at the time, as was often the case, although belongings were left in readiness for the expected return.
European Settlement:
Since the European occupation of the Maerewhenua area first began in the 1854, the area has been used for pastoral purposes. Stevenson describes the area between the Maerewhenua outcrop and the river as previously being covered by 'a dense growth of flax and toe-toe.'
In the mid 1860s European settlements were becoming established up the Waitaki River Valley, north, and inland from Oamaru. The settlements grew around accommodation houses, set up at regular intervals up the valley. James Little established an accommodation house on the present site of Duntroon at this time.
In the late 1860s gold was discovered at nearby Maerewhenua, and by 1869 small parties were working at Otekaieke and Maerewhenua. Duntroon was on the longer, but easier route, from Oamaru to the gold workings.
The town of Duntroon was surveyed in the mid 1870s, and named after the hometown of prominent settler Robert Campbell. Town sections were offered for sale in July 1875. In 1876 the title to the land where the blacksmith's shop stands was issued to Lachlan [?] Grant, and then to Jessie Welsh shortly afterwards. The land was transferred to Walter Yardley in 1904.
According to local oral information Yardley came from the Orkney Islands, and arrived in Duntroon in the 1890s. The building fronting Campbell Street was his original purchase. Yardley added a holding yard for horses waiting to be shod, and a kiln for heating the rims of wheels was built into the bank at the rear of the building. On further investigation burn marks were found in the rocks indicating this was the place where the wheelwright work was done.
While Duntroon was formed as a town in the 1870s, it seems that it was not until the 1880s that blacksmiths were established. The first blacksmiths noted in Wises Post Office Directory were Stephen Smart and Thomas Woonton in 1880-1881. Initially trade appears intermittent as there were no blacksmiths noted in the late 1880s. By the 1890s two blacksmiths were operating in Duntroon most of the 1890s. The Cyclopedia of New Zealand published in 1904 records that Duntroon had a population of 231, with the typical infrastructure of a small rural settlement: a combined railway station and post office, 2 pubs, 2 stores, a boot maker, a tailors shop, a bakery, butchery, an agency of the National Bank and 2 blacksmiths.
Walter Yardley was working as a blacksmith from 1896 onwards, and it is possible he could have been working on the current site on an earlier smithy, although no investigation has been done to substantiate this idea.
Blacksmithing was a common trade in the nineteenth century, and one represented in most towns, and also on pastoral runs. Architect and engineer Geoffrey Thornton writes that as horses and horse-drawn vehicles were the only means of land transport, it is easy to see why the blacksmith or farrier was a key figure. Blacksmiths provided farriery (the making and fitting of horseshoes) as well a smithery services (the repairing and making of tools and equipment and items of metal work). A blacksmith needed a forge (a hearth to support the fire), regulated by bellows, an anvil, and large numbers of tools of various shapes and sizes to perform various functions, and also a large steel leg vice and floor mandrel for bending hoops, among other things.
Aidan Challis describes other blacksmiths' shops throughout New Zealand recorded by the New Zealand Archaeological Association's site recording scheme that are no longer standing. In 1993 there were sixteen small scale blacksmiths' shops or forges that were part of the archaeological record. Added to these were a number of standing blacksmiths' shops recorded throughout New Zealand dating from between 1860 and 1880. These were constructed from a variety of materials, including masonry, timber, corrugated iron or weatherboard, and were often located on isolated farm stations. He does not indicated how many were standing, but does consider them to be relatively rare survivors. Challis does not mention any historic blacksmiths still in operation.
It is difficult to identify any historic blacksmiths still in operation. Although there are 29 blacksmiths and farriers listed in the yellow pages, it is not possible to tell whether these are historic operations in an original building on its original site. A web search indicates that there is a blacksmith shop in Greytown, part of the Cobblestones Museum, but indicates that many of the buildings were shifted on site. The Buried Village site indicates that the village blacksmith was excavated sometime after 1931. The Okains Bay Museum has a working blacksmith, as does Pleasant Point. A blacksmith's shop survives in Fairlie, but is used for retail. A former Blacksmith Shop in Clevedon now functions as a engineering works. From this limited survey it would seem that the Nicol's Blacksmith Shop is a rare survivor, particularly with its chattels still with the shop.
The New Zealand Historic Places Trust has six blacksmith's shops on the Register, all associated with blacksmiths on pastoral runs or in rural areas, rather than associated with small town services.
According to local sources Yardley initially worked alone taking on help when the business expanded to include a carriage building and paint workshop, which was added to the back of the original building. This area housed another forge at some time as indicated by the extra anvil, water barrel and old iron tank that matches the original forge. He was joined by Edward Bell in 1910, who worked here until 1914 leaving to go to war.
The blacksmithing trade changed with the technology of the time. As motor vehicles became more common, many blacksmith's shops added vehicle repairs and the like to their work. One rural smithy in another North Otago town even built a motor car in 1904. In Duntroon the first evidence of this comes with Samuel Clarke's listing as a motor mechanic in the Wise's Directory in 1920. Through the 1920s a garage proprietor and blacksmith coexisted in the town, with the other blacksmith's premises in Duntroon advertising itself as a motor garage, and eventually abandoning its blacksmiths role.
According to oral sources, in the mid 1920's a workshop was built on the east side of the building to cater for the growing motor trade. There were two forges going at this time which turned out to be the peak of the horse drawn era.
Nicol's Blacksmith Shop illustrates the transition between horse and motorised transport. There are few places on the NZHPT Register which provide insight into the motor industry in New Zealand, and the majority of these are purpose built motor garages. Added to its rarity as a surviving blacksmith (still with the original chattels), the building provides special insight into the early efforts to cater for motor traffic.
Yardley eventually sold the business to John Taylor and Nicol Slater Muirden, helping out at busy time, which was to prove fatal. According to local information on 8 April 1930 Yardley and Taylor headed off to Ngapara to operate a forge they had an interest in leaving Muirden to work at Duntroon. On the return journey Taylor and Yardley collided with a fully laden truck in the Ngapara Gully. Both Yardley and Taylor were killed.
While members of Yardley's family retained title to the land, Nicol Muirden took over the business, and is listed as a blacksmith through to the 1960s. According to local sources Muirden employed George Smith and then, in 1932, Arthur Smith. The latter visited Duntroon in 1995 and commented that his workbench was still there and the interior of the smithy was much the same as it had been during the time he worked there.
Nicol Muirden continued to operate the business until 1965 when he retired, selling the business to Tom Gibson who ran a small engineering concern. Locally Muirden is remembered as a quiet family man, who loved kids coming to pump the bellows for him while he took a drink of water from the white enamel billy he used to fill from the spring in the ‘Brewery Hole' at the back of the smithy; walking past the now redundant drays and the big pile of old horse shoes.
Accounts of the end of Muirden's involvement vary. According to some sources Muirden stopped working their in the mid 1960s. However it is possible that Muirden's involvement lasted longer as he was listed as a blacksmith in a 1971 business directory.
In 1975 the smithy faced the threat of demolition as part of a ‘Ministry of Work' power scheme investigation. Four local farmers Jim Harvey, John Hore, Burns Pollock and Bill Simpson stepped in to purchase the smithy and all its chattels intact.
In December 2006 the Nicol's Blacksmith Historic Trust was formed with the intention of restoring the building as a heritage attraction and providing visitors with the experience of a working forge. A nomination to register Nicol's Blacksmith Shop as a historic place was prepared. A grant application was put to Lottery Grants, and the Trust received funding for the preparation of a conservation plan. The conservation plan is under preparation in mid 2008.
The Trustees recall the importance of Nicol's Blacksmith Shop to the Duntroon community. As children these four men had spent many happy hours with Nicol Muirden at the smithy and pumped the bellows for him. They wanted to preserve an important part of their history and the history of the village. It was important to them as the smithy was a part of their lives. It was well loved and evoked many fond memories of the sight and the smell of smoke, the hot red glow of metal in the darkness and the sound of the hammer on the anvil. It was a meeting place for locals, where as the smithing was done, they caught up on news.
In 2008 Nicol's Blacksmith Shop is promoted as an historic forge, and is an attraction to visitors to Duntroon.
