Blackball Cemetery

 

About 20 minutes outside of Greymouth is the small village of Blackball. It has a lengthy history associated with coal mining and industrial action but it was originally a gathering place for gold miners. The cemetery is alot bigger than this photo shows, this is only a small part of it overlooking the road.

Linking up with Mosaic Monday.

St Lukes Anglican Church

 

This church is a tiny little one down a quiet country road in Whataroa and was dedicated on 10th July 1919. 

These stained glass windows were apparently given to the church by Henry Burrough and his sister in memory of their brother Joseph Burrough who died on active service in France on 22 June 1917.

The inside is well maintained, tiny and looked after. Apparently it's still holding services each week and is under the umbrella of the Christchurch diocese.

I was surprised I could open the door as many country churches are locked. This building was put together from an unused church originally located in Goldsborough

There is no cemetery attached as there is a main one further into town along the main street.

Linking up with Through my lens, Tuesday Treasures, My corner of the world, Wordless Wednesday.

New Lyell Cemetery

In between Greymouth and Murchison on the side of the road in amongst bush and mountains is this little wee cemetery.  

Back in the day from 1862 there was a huge cold rush in this area after Maori prosectors started finding gold in the creek. There are many unmarked graves here and most of them have headstones that are falling apart. This one is known as the new cemetery but there is a much older one that I will need to visit.

The town grew quickly reaching to a population of approx 2000 by the 1880s and it was a stopping point on the main road through the Upper Buller Gorge. Back then I would imagine how hard it was getting a horse and cat through the dense bush.

Cliff Street was the main thoroughfare and included banks, hotels and newspaper offices. The Saint Josephs Church was built in 1876 for the large amount of Irish and Italian miners.

 

Around 1901 the population of people had gone down to about 90 and by halfway through the 20th century the town was abandoned.

The town which was located across the road is now a campsite and walkway. Some of the residents include people such as Joshua Barclay who was born in 1839 in Ireland, Catherine Byrne born 1839 in Ireland and Aveline Broderick born in 1893.

In 1869 two Italian Miners named Antonio Zala and Giorgio Zanetti discovered gold in quartz veins  and their mine was worked on from 1872 until 1912. It really is a very peaceful area with the odd car driving past on the road and the Buller Gorge is usually a very misty place.

Linking up with Through my lens, Tuesday Treasures, My corner of the world, Wordless Wednesday.

St Christopher's Church

 

I've often wondered what this building is everytime we have driven through the Otira Gorge. This is St Christopher's Anglican Church just before the railway station. It had originally been the Kumara Anglican Parish and was gifted in 1992 to be a Maori Missionary Church.

We drove through Otira on our way to Christchurch last week so the weather was a bit overcast and misty through the mountains. If you look closely at both photos you can probably see the Maori artwork just under the roof area on both sides of the eaves front and back of the building. Otira is quite an isolated quiet area with houses/farms not in close distance to one another.

Linking up with Through my lens, Tuesday Treasures, My corner of the world, Wordless Wednesday.

Denniston Incline

About a year ago when my parents visited us we took them out past Westport to visit the old historical Denniston Mines. This in particular for myself and my father was a bit nostalgic as his 3 times great grandfather was a miner here m the late 1800s. 

My father reading some of the information near the entrance. The road that is currently there leading to this site was not built until about 1902 so I imagine the trek up here was hard work by either sitting in a coal wagon and being pulled up or up a pack track.

B in the above and below photos reading more infomation in one of the old disused sheds.

For many years Denniston was the country's largest producing coal mine which was then loaded into railway wagons and lowered by a cable down a very steep sharp incline 

There actually was a village and community of people here of around 1500 and back then the amount of rain that hit the west coast was a lot more than what we get now. There is a book written called "Denniston Rose" which is a novel based on a young girl's life growing up here.

The demand for coal decreased over the years and in 1967 the railway closed and production slowly ended.

In 1995 coal mining through coalcorp here stopped completely but private mining is still going.

The view from the top - Denniston is now classed as a category 1 historic place.

So enjoy the rest of the photos I took and the video at the end of this post.

Linking up with Skywatch Friday and Tom's Signs.

Blackwater School

When we first moved to Greymouth 2 years ago we visited the old abandoned gold mining town of Waiuta (I'll share the photos in another post) and on the way there along the long country road was this old school which was in use when the town was occupied. 

Blackwater School was built in 1913 for the small mining, sawmilling and farming community in the area. When the local mines closed, the population of both Waiuta and Blackwater fell and the school eventually closed in 1949.

 

Recently the building was given to the community and the Blackwater School Restoration Group was formed to oversee the restoration and maintenance. Considering it was abandoned for many years I think it's in pretty good condition.

Linking up with Through my lens, Tuesday Treasures, My corner of the world and Wordless Wednesday.

Hall

In between Greymouth and Hokitika, in fact it's nearer to the latter is this little hall located in Stafford. It looks like a type of historical building that's in a very country like area with only a few houses around. I did manage to ask a lady walking past what the building was used for and she said it use to be the local community hall. I don't know if it is still used but as you can see on both photos it looks like wood and iron contribute to it's construction.

 his is the side of it. Now the tiny town of Stafford is one of those places that was part of the gold rush era of the 1800s. In 1870 the township contained 37 hotels and 17 stores with most of the population of people being Scandinavians but these days it's a shadow of it's former self as most of the properties there are houses and small farms.

Linking up with Weekend Reflections and the Weekend Roundup.

Kumara's main street

A nearby town to Greymouth is this one, Kumara (not the vegetable we have here and it's pronounced differently) was once a booming gold town, part of the mining era of the 1800s. These days it's a shadow of it's former self. I think from memory it has a pub, a petrol station and some streets with houses. The town got it's name from a surveyor in that area named Arthur Dobson (Dobson is also a suburb in Greymouth) after a change of Kohimara which is the Maori word for the white flowers of the bush that grow along the river.

Once upon a time, in this photo from between 1870-1879 there were once 27 hotels in the main street. In 1876 gold was found in glacial gravel so hydraulic sluicing was the only feasible way to recover it. Over a 20 year period large water races and sludge tunnels were created and most of the land behind the town was sluiced into the nearby Taramakau River. The mining eventually eased off in the late 1890s but dredging carried on until the 1960s.

Some information taken from West Coast History. 

Linking up with Blue Monday and Mosaic Monday.

Ross Hotel

 

It's not often we travel so far out of Greymouth but when we first moved here we travelled about 90 minutes south to Ross, which use to be a small gold mining town in the 1800s. Since I like taking photos of old buildings, we stopped so I could get a shot of the old Empire Hotel. 

This photo taken in 1965 shows how it use to look. The original one burned down and this one was rebuilt around the 1900s. There's been quite alot of work done to it over the years, I think it looks way better now.

Linking up with Weekend Reflections and the Weekend Roundup.

Nelson Creek

Above is the Nelson Creek pub, about 30 minutes outside of Greymouth. Such a warm Autumn day when we stopped there and hardly anyone about except an old gentleman sitting outside his cottage fixing something. This part of the West Coast, like most of it has gold mining history starting from around 1865 - people have been known to find bits and pieces in the river (below).  

B walked off to explore the swing bridge which was further up the river but I stayed down on the ground having a paddle in the water.

Linking up with Through my lens, Blue Monday, Tuesday Treasures, My corner of the world and Wordless Wednesday.