Thorp’s Quarry

With the ever expanding industry of the area, roads coming in and out of the village and servicing the wharf were essential to the success of the early settlers. But without access to the machinery of today building and maintaining these roads was back-breaking work and – as has become a Clevedon tradition – complaints about the condition of the road were rife.

Theophilus Stevens wrote this poetic description of the ‘muddy track’ that was East Road (now Monument Road) in 1876:

“Ruts like ditches, deep and broad

And mud holes gaping, open-jawed

Lay hid by winter night’s dark cloak

To swallow up unwary folk”

(VB, p.232).

Throughout the years, all around the district, land was surveyed, cleared and drained, picks and shovels established the gradient, and metal was laid by hand. Under the oversight of the Wairoa Road Board, the network of roads was slowly extended across the district. By 1883 a road back to Papakura was metalled enabling an ease of travel where 25 years prior settlers had “travelled with difficulty and danger on a bullock sledge.” (VB, p. 203).

Metal was sourced as shingle from river beds or from local quarries. Here at Thorp’s Quarry Stan Street remembers having to “climb up on the quarry face with a pick, and pick the metal down and it would fall onto a metal plate on the bottom and when you thought you had enough you’d get down and shovel it into your truck.” (VB, p. 453)

In 1914 the Wairoa Road Board bought this land as a quarry reserve in an effort to secure the supply of gravel and also to preserve the surrounding land for public enjoyment and conservation. The area was gazetted in 1930 for scenic purposes and eventually became Clevedon Scenic Reserve under the control of Manukau County in 1957. Today the quarry area has been restored into a freshwater wetland.

As you return back to the bridge note the remnant kahikatea trees in the grassed area. This handful of kahikatea that you pass through were once part of a much larger population. Kahitakea timber was initially used as timber for buildings but was soon found to be unsuitable. Later it was used to make butter boxes as the timber did not taint the butter. With the Wairoa South Butter and Cheese Factory operating on Monument Road from 1884, local demand for kahikatea timber may have been high.