The Clerk of the Court and Survey Office House (Former) at 41-43 Bridge Street, Reefton, built in the 1870s, is one of the town’s earliest surviving buildings and illustrates the important role of the judiciary and surveying in the mining settlements of the West Coast in the late nineteenth century. It has architectural, historical and cultural significance or value.

Te Tai Poutini - the West Coast - features prominently in the early Māori history of occupation in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Nohoanga, mahinga kai and mahinga toi were dotted along rivers and plains although only a few permanent kāinga were established at the western terminus of these long travel routes. When Pākehā began arriving in the area in nineteenth century, Māori played a key role in assisting newcomers with surveying, exploration and gold mining.
The gold rushes on the West Coast began in 1865 with quartz lodes or reefs being discovered in the Inangahua district in 1870. At the centre of this district was Reefton (the ‘Reef Town’), growing rapidly from the early 1870s. The district surveyor, George Woolley, laid out the town’s roads and drew up detailed plans of the various mine sites. In 1872 a Court House was built on the Camp Reserve of the newly formed Bridge Street. Next door, a dwelling house and Survey Office was constructed, possibly in two phases. The Survey Office component, at least, designed by Colonial Architect, W. H. Clayton, was constructed in late 1877. Just when the Clerk of the Court became associated with the building is not certain – it may have been from the start as Reefton had a Clerk of the Court from the early 1870s. However, various accounts suggest that it was the surveyor’s residence and that Woolley lived there.

The single storeyed building is T-shaped in plan and has lapped weatherboard construction and a corrugated iron roof. It comprises a long wing with gable roof running north to south and a shorter wing aligned east to west with its gable facing the street. The short wing was the survey office and contains an entrance door off-set to the north, a three-light sash window, and decorative corbels beneath the eaves of the gable that bear similarity to the corbels on the gable of the later School of Mines building nearby on Shiel Street. The front elevation of the main long wing contains two entrance doors and three sets of windows, along with a long verandah fronting Bridge Street. At the east (rear) of the dwelling wing is a lean-to.

By the late 1870s, John Ainsley Montgomerie had replaced Woolley as the district surveyor. He resided there with his family even after his retirement in around 1909, providing advice to the cadet who kept the office open for the public, until Montgomerie’s death by accident in 1911. In the mid-twentieth century, the former Survey Office component of the building was occupied by the New Zealand Forest Service. Changes made to the building over time include the removal of decorative brackets from the verandah and lowering or removal of chimneys. An early photograph showed the building had a picket fence in front of the dwelling portion of the building – this has since been removed. The building is now a private residence.