Tawatawhiti / Mair's Landing Historic Area

Hātea Drive, WHĀNGĀREI

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Tawatawhiti / Mair’s Landing Historic Area is a well-preserved archaeological landscape, incorporating evidence of Māori horticultural practice and later waterfront activity beside the Hātea River – including that associated with probably the oldest surviving European structure in Whāngārei. The Hātea River meets the Whāngārei Harbour near the historic area and the mixing of fresh and sea water and rich volcanic soils meant that this was an environment that was conducive to human settlement. Water and stone has defined this area, and Māori and European have used these resources in differing ways. The historic area is associated with the nearby kāinga of Tawatawhiti and incorporates remnant horticultural field systems that pre-date contact with Europeans. In addition to its archaeological, technological, cultural and traditional values, Tawatawhiti / Mair’s Landing is also of considerable historical significance, being associated with the Mair family who witnessed and took part in important pre-colonial and colonial events that shaped the history of New Zealand. Tawatawhiti was a kāinga associated with the nearby maunga Parihaka. The fertile volcanic soils were used for gardening. Basalt rocks of varying sizes have been stacked to form a rock wall that is associated with a Māori horticultural field system. There are also stone faced terraces that are often specifically constructed either for gardening or habitation areas. Associated puke (stone heaps) are also horticultural in origin and were used to increase the temperature around the plant roots which assists in their growth. In and around the gardening systems are scatters of shell midden that represent the meals of those who tended the gardens. There are no confirmed archaeological dates for the field systems but they are pre-contact in form and probably hundreds of years old. Mair’s Landing dates from 1842 and was built when the Mair family moved to Whāngārei. Mair’s Landing is a stone jetty connected with early European settlement in Whāngārei – now Northland’s largest population centre. It is likely to be the earliest European stone structure surviving in Whāngārei. The landing is constructed of basalt but unlike the earlier structures some of the stone has been extensively worked so that it has a fair face. It extends into the main river channel from the shore and there is a remnant section of the road (a carriage way) which connected it to the Mair’s nearby home, ‘Deveron’. The jetty was the principal landing on the Hātea River until a wharf was built at Te Ahipupurangi-a-ihenga (Town Basin) in 1864. The western side of the river was the principal area of Pākehā settlement in the area until the 1860s. A coal chute was constructed to the north of Mair’s Landing in 1866, at a place known as Taurangahaku after two large rocks that were used for fishing to catch and land haku (Yellowtail Kingfish) on the river. It is probable that the two rocks are still in-situ and have been incorporated into the coal chute that was used to load coal from the Whau valley mines. Coal was hauled to the coal chute via a horse-drawn tramway then unloaded into waiting vessels on the river. The chute became a redundant structure in 1910 when a railway was built to transport the coal. In 1936 the Victoria Bridge was built and this effectively sealed off the Hātea River to larger vessels, preventing further marine activity and development around Mair’s Landing. Smaller recreational vessels however could pass under the bridge and so continued to make extensive use of the river. This is reflected within the historic area through the remains of small boatsheds and slipways. These are made of basalt that was mined from the nearby horticultural field system of Tawatawhiti. The Mair’s Landing area remained in private ownership until 1991, when the land was transferred to Whangarei District Council; it is currently proposed as a reserve. Now a backwater, Tawatawhiti / Mair’s Landing Historic Area contains a visible remnant landscape that informs us of people’s lives along the river since pre-European times.

Tawatawhiti / Mair's Landing Historic Area, Hātea (Hoteo) River, Whangarei | Bill Edwards | 14/07/2016 | Heritage New Zealand
Tawatawhiti / Mair's Landing Historic Area, Hātea (Hoteo) River, Whangarei | Bill Edwards | 16/09/2016 | Heritage New Zealand
Tawatawhiti / Mair's Landing Historic Area, Hātea (Hoteo) River, Whangarei | Bill Edwards | 14/07/2016 | Heritage New Zealand

Location

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List Entry Information

Overview

Detailed List Entry

Status

Listed

List Entry Status

Historic Area

Access

Able to Visit

List Number

9702

Date Entered

4th April 2018

Date of Effect

4th April 2018

City/District Council

Whangārei District

Region

Northland Region

Extent of List Entry

This historic area consists of an area of land that contains a group of inter-related historic places. The identified historic places that contribute to the values in this historic area are Tawatawhiti, Mair’s Landing, Taurangahaku -The Coal Chute and Boatsheds. The area of land that encompasses these historic places includes the land described as Pt Lot 5 DP 23650 (RT NA35A/901), part of the land described as Legal Road and part of the land described as Legal River, North Auckland Land District. (Refer to map in Appendix 1 of the List entry report for further information).

Legal description

Pt Lot 5 DP 23650 (RT NA35A/901), Legal Road and Legal River, North Auckland Land District

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