New Zealand Heritage List no. 6421 (NZAA site V21/125) is a ridgeline pā on farmland on the eastern side of Springfield Road, located to the west of Taradale and northeast of Waiohiki. The pā has cultural, traditional and historical significance and is one of a series of archaeological sites on the high ground above the terrace of the Tūtaekurī River. This pā site is in close proximity to a pit/terrace site (NZAA V21/124) on a lower ridge to the southwest. A series of pits, with traces of terracing, lead down from the ridgeline pā to this pit/terrace site.

Local historian Pat Parsons has identified this pa as Turirau according to local Māori oral history. While Turirau (V21/125) is not rare it has important archaeological contextual and information value as an element of Māori occupation and settlement of the inland Tūtaekurī River valley area. This settlement pattern is directly related to the resources and attributes of the Tūtaekurī River. The river carries silt and gravel down a narrow valley through low hill country. In its natural state swamps on the river terrace would have absorbed floodwaters and served to provide eels and other resources to sustain the nearby settlements. The pits on the pā indicate that iwi were also cultivating the fertile soil of the area and storing their produce within the protective perimeter of the pā defences. The need to protect these crops suggests they were built during a time of conflict, or in preparation for conflict.

While the date of initial construction for the pā has not yet been determined it may have been constructed during a period of widespread pā building and occupation that was undertaken in the vicinity of Te Whanganui-a-Orotu and the Tūtaekurī area from 1550 to 1700, around the time that Ngāti Kahungunu iwi moved into the Hawkes’s Bay. Archaeological evidence and Māori oral history points to the initial settlement of Hawke’s Bay around 1250–1300 AD. Different hapū gradually settled the area from Māhia to Pōrangahau in a variety of diverse landscapes. About 1550 to 1625, Taraia, great grandson of Kahungunu, and his followers established themselves at Ōtātara, to the south of pā V21/125, to secure access to and control over Te Whanganui-a-Orotu and the Tūtaekurī River. Pā V21/125 may have been part of a chain of pā constructed in the area at this time.

This ridgeline pā is on an eastern scarp visible from Springfield Road. It appears to be an incomplete defensive site with a gap of approximately 30 paces between the scarp on the eastern side and the ditches and banks on the northwest side. The interior of the site contains two visible storage pits and one possible house site. The features of the pā are generally in fair condition and well defined.