The crown grant to the land on which Abbotsford Farm Steading was later built was issued to gentleman Alexander Rennie in 1863. Prior to issue, in April 1862 James Shand had entered into a 19-year lease with Rennie at an annual rent of £312 10s. In 1872 Rennie sold out to James Shand. Shand, who paid £4,400 for 263 acres, turned the holding into a large model farm "Abbotsford", which grew to encompass most of the land in West Taieri on the south-western riverbank. James Shand, the son of a Scottish immigrant who arrived in Otago with his two brothers and sister from Scotland in 1850. His father died soon after the family arrived, and his mother and siblings settled on a farm at Green Island, on the outskirts of Dunedin, earning money through involvement in carting supplies to the newly opened gold diggings in Central Otago. His holdings on the Taieri amounted to some 1500 acres, one of the largest farms in the area. He had a range of farming interests and also owned property near Henley (at the south-east end of the Taieri Plains), on the Dunstan Road, and a substantial holding at Edendale in Southland. He established an extensive, although unsuccessful, butchery business in High Street. Shand was one of the representatives for the Taieri on the Provincial Council from 1866 until its abolition in 1876. He took an active part in the local government of the district, and had a substantial role in getting flood banks built for the Taieri River. He was a leading member of the county council and the road board. Shand ran Abbotsford as a model farm, using imported modern machinery. After the destruction of the original farm buildings by fire, he had replacement farm buildings designed by Dunedin architectural firm Mason and Wales in September 1870. They were of concrete construction, and later praised by the Otago Witness as the finest in the colony, although it was subject to periodic flooding. He laid down vast crops, at one harvest employing eighty-two men. A nearby railway siding was named Shands after him. The small passenger shelter from the now disused siding stands adjoining the steading on Abbotsford Farm. In 1881 Shand built another concrete farm steading at his nearby holding at Henley. James Shand was a prominent player in the frozen meat industry. He was a member of the Provisional Committee of Association for the Export of Meat and Dairy Produce which was formed to arrange a trial shipment of frozen meat to England from Dunedin. The committee developed into The New Zealand Refrigerating Company (registered 19 August 1881) of which Shand was a director, the first such company formed in New Zealand. The first 150 sheep processed at New Zealand's first freezing works, built by The New Zealand Refrigerating Company, at Burnside near Dunedin, were killed at Abbotsford before being transported to the newly-operating meat works in August 1882. There is a reference in the New Zealand Refrigeration Company Minutes of a promise of 1000 sheep from James Shand for the meat shipment from his Outram (Abbotsford) farm property. Two hundred and forty nine carcasses from James Shand were noted on the cargo of the Dunedin, which sailed for London in February 1882, part of the first shipment of frozen meat to leave New Zealand. In London his heavy sheep attracted particular attention. According to the Otago Witness he extended his holdings to Edendale in Southland, spending close to £100,000, and found himself in financial difficulties. Shand was declared bankrupt in Janurary 1886. James Shand died in 1889, his death thought to be by his own hand, after his body was found a mile downstream from his hat, coat and stick, in the Taieri River close to his home. The 1889 Deed Plan 230 (Appendix 4) show the L-shaped structures, with what could be the concrete wall in its current position (see detail of Deed Plan, Appendix 4). This plan was drawn up after Shand's death, presumably to aid in the settlement of his estate. The extensive Abbotsford property was cut up into smaller farms, with the homestead block taken up by contractor John Bell Blair, who bought the Clydesdales and Border Leicester stock from the original estate. According to the Cyclopedia, Blair was born in Lanarkshire, Scotland in 1837. When he was 16 he travelled to Tasmania, and later the gold fields at Ballarat. During the 1860s he moved to Otago and kept store at the Wakatipu gold fields. He moved to the Taieri and worked as a contractor on roads and bridges, before he took up Abbotsford Farm. Several generations of the Blair family have since owned the property originally taken up by James Shand. Abbotsford Farm has been a well known breeding establishment on the Taieri Plains, noted as a model farm in competitions (as evidenced by the awards photographed in the appendices that paper the rafters in the wool shed), including best managed farm in the district in 1900. The Blairs were known for their association with Clydesdale horses, English breeds of sheep (particularly Border Lercesters) and Shorthorn cattle. It was a first choice for visiting farmers and breeders, its hospitality extending to international visitors as well as internal travellers.

Construction details: The farm steading is made up of a three sections of concrete buildings: A two-storey L-shaped implement shed with men's living quarters upstairs (now used for storage) A unit comprising of stables for twelve draughthorses, with harness room, three stalls for riding hacks and two loose boxes. At right angles to the stables - there is a wing originally having 38 stalls for cattle, but redesigned by the architects in 1888 to allow for a shearing board and catching pens. The registration includes the buildings within the surrounding concrete wall. Although reinforced concrete construction was used from the mid-1850s onwards, it was a long time before that method entered common use. Many structures were built of plain concrete (like those at Abbotsford Steading). Geoffrey Thornton considers that the use of plain concrete was more widespread than in most countries in the nineteenth century. He considered it remarkable that concrete was widely used for farm buildings. Concrete was used in New Zealand for construction in the 1840s. According to Geoffrey Thornton, the earliest recorded use still evident is at Fyffe House at Kaikoura, where there is a primitive concrete retaining wall. The pioneer colonial example of a complete monolithic building is a two-storey house built in 1862 by John Gow at Invermay, near Mosgiel. The use of concrete for farm buildings was notable from the late 1860s onwards. Another Taieri settler Alexander Campbell built a stable for their draughthorses using concrete (still standing). There were known concrete cow sheds contructed in 1868 in the Wairarapa town of Featherston. Concrete floors dating from the 1860s are also notable at Totara Estate near Oamaru. Thornton considers that the 1871 Abbotsford Farm Steading were "probably the earliest concrete farm buildings of any consequence," although noting other 1870s concrete farm buildings such as those those at The Elms, near Kaikoura, and Greenhills near Clarence Reserve. Thornton notes also that these farm buildings are relatively earlier survivors even in comparison to English concrete farm buildings, where the earliest surviving structure is a concrete barn dating from 1869. Another substantial concrete farm steading designed again by Mason and Wales, was built for James Shand at his holding Berkeley, at nearby Henley in 1881. The steading consisted of cartshed, toolsheds, cattle stalls, stables, shearing shed and a killing shed. Following severe flooding, and associated foundation failure, these buildings were demolished in 1981. The comparable Glenmark Stables at Waipara in North Canterbury is registered by the Trust as a Category I historic place (No. 277). In British farm stead antecedents, design related primarily to function, tradition and available building materials - where stock needed to be sheltered from the weather, and activities were brought under cover, and where increasingly specialised buildings were built for specialised functions, often arranged around a farmyard which served as the hub of farming activities. In addition the arrangement of buildings was reflected the connection between functions, and to enable ease of access between homestead and main buildings, with the farmyard a crucial element in the steading. This is a tradition followed with the Abbotsford Farm Steading, rather than the Australian model which had more spread out arrangement of buildings.