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Issue 5 Volume 1, October 2012

PUKETAPAPA 

(Mt Roskill)Historical

Society

Newsletter OCTOBER UPDATENo meeting this month... as we embrace all that is on offer during theHeritage Festival.We are having a table at the Community Day atthe Pah Homestead so absolutely feel free to dropby with sustenance for the volunteers manning thetable – at this stage confirmed are: Margaret, Lisa,Joanne, Ally, Peter, Anneli and Garth. At the

moment it will be manned up until around 3.30pmand here’s hoping we get some interested localssigning up to the society to boost our numbers – not to mention edify us with their local knowledge.More on the festival on page two.

NEXT MEETINGA reminder about the end of year walk, led byPhillipa Price of the Cornwall Park InformationCentre, around Cornwall Park. It will be followedby afternoon tea, provided by Phillipa.We’ll meet outside Acacia Cottage at 2.00pmSunday, 2

ndof December 2012.

AGM Details to be advised as we have a trip planned(see above) to Cornwall Park in December, sowe’ll keep you posted. Please consider whetheryou’d like to be more involved in some way ,particularly on the committee, helping with orediting the newsletter, etc.

Articles wanted for newsletters

If you‘d like to write an article you think would

interest readers, we’d love to have it. The newsletter is not only sent to allmembers, but is available on line via Lisa

Truttman’s Scribd account and there will beone more newsletter for 2012 - December.Please contact Joanne Graves joanne.graves@gmail.com if you’d like tocontribute.

THANKS LISA!This comment about our Society appearedin ‘Keeping in Touch’, the newsletter of the NZ Federation of Historical Societies.Well done everyone.Garth.

ROSKILL/PUKETAPAPAYour Editor is at present one of the committeemembers on this new historical society here in Auckland. For a very young Society (incorporatedonly last December), I must say the team led by

Garth Houltham have hit the ground running, as itwere. The Society has appeared in articlespublished in the local community newspaper, aswell as the regional Aucklander , regarding Garth’s“Roskill’s People” database project, along with anumber of campaigns and research projectsaimed at preserving what remains of examples of Mt Roskill’s heritage. Among these: the former MtRoskill Fire Station, and former Mt RoskillBorough Council offices. The Society hasappeared before the Puketapapa Local Boardgiving presentations in support of heritageretention and acknowledgement, produce a digital

newsletter, take part in the Auckland HeritageFestival (second time this year), attend AucklandRegional Gatherings (second time this year aswell) and hold regular Society meetings in thedistrict. Just recently, they’ve also joined the NZFederation of Historical Societies. All this within just over a year.

Land History of the Fickling

Centre site, Three Kings

Based on research by LisaTruttman

Presented by Margaret Ting to the Puketapapa(Mt Roskill) Historical Societyon 5 August 2012

The Fickling Centre site was initially part of a 160acre area, Allotment 7, Section 13, Suburbs of  Auckland which was a Crown Grant to a Mr Donovan in 1848. This Mr Donovan is likely tohave been Patrick Donovan, a prominent

 Aucklander, who owned land Green Meadowsfarm in nearby Epsom.

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Page 2

In the 25 years following, the farm changed handsfour times. The years prior to the long Depressionof the 1880s and 1890s were boom times, andland speculation was rife. The first owner after Mr Donovan was Alfred Buckland, in 1861, a major land-owner and businessman, and owner of Highwic in Gillies Avenue. It was he who built themansion Dunkerron, at the top of Rowan Road,for his daughter and her husband, Henry Gorrie. At the time of the sale to Buckland the farm wasdescribed:This truly first class property (is) durably fenced with Scoria and divided into numerous Paddocks.It is in the highest State 1 of cultivation, and is now in occupation as a fattening station.

Buckland held the land until 1887, with a break of four years from 1869-1873 in which it was ownedby Alfred Dornwell. Mr Dornwell was a localidentity with a story to be told – another time!

The land was transferred back to Buckland in1873. By 1885, Allotment 7 the farm had beenincreased to some 223 acres. But boom timescame to an end in the mid 1880s and financialpressures meant that in 1887 Buckland’s farmwas transferred to The Bank of New Zealand,whose Assets Realization Board subdivided andsold the land.

By 1903 the Assets Realisation Board hadprepared a subdivision of Three Kings Town. Theone and 4/5ths acres in the north-west corner of 

the former Buckland Farm (subsequently theFickling Centre site) became Lot 1 of the Town.Sixty-two of the sites were similarly two acres or less, and 48 were small farmlets (mainly of around4 acres). It took until 1912 before Lot 1 was sold.

In fact, the plan to sell much of the farm as smallfarmlets seems to have failted. Photos from thattime right to to the 1940s show that the vastmajority of the ‘farmlets’ remained in pasture. TomGrinter (now deceased) remembered the Pecksdairy farm of 150 cows, in Dornwell Road,supplying milk to the Auckland townspeople.

Lot 1, the Fickling Centre site eventually sold in1912 to Richard Skinner, and stayed in that familyfor 50 years while the Southern King to the site’snorth was gradually quarried away. Then CarolFarnell’s uncle, as Three Kings Service Station,bought it in 1962.

The site was transferred to the Mt Roskill BoroughCouncil in 1974 and soon afterwards, in 1976, theFickling Centre was opened.

Resources used by Lisa Truttman:

1. Auckland Star -  25 Mar 1874, 26 Mar 1874, 28 Mar 1874, 13 June 1903, 14June 1916, 17 June 1922, 12 Oct 1917,20 Mar 1918, 7 June 1922, 3 Jan 1933

2. Births Deaths and Marriages Records 3. Deeds Index, LINZ records 3A, 2101 

4. LINZ Records  NA 39/70 DP 3029 (1903)NA 188/271

5. Southern Cross  28 April 184923 Nov 185525 June 1861

6. Wises Directory 1946

For more information, please contact LisaTruttman, waitemata@gmail.com  02704040804 

Heritage FestivalMain contributions of the Society will be:Puketapapa Community Day Saturday 6 Oct10.00am – 5.00pm Pah Homestead.The Society will be manning a table with Roskill’s

People files available for people who’d like us tocheck whether any of their forebears lived inRoskill.Enrolment forms for the Society to be available

too. If you’d like to help, please let Margaretknow: robert.ting@vodafone.co.nz  or 6291525.

Drama at the Pah  – Thursday 11 Oct 6.30 – 8.00pm. Talk by Garth about the Cyrus Haleyaffair at the Pah. Note, though, that it was veryclose to being booked up at time of writing.

Judging of the Research It section of the Schools

Competition. Enquires: Garth atgraph@ihug.co.nz  or 6342492.

CONTACT DETAILSPresident, Garth Houltham, garph@ihug.co.nz Secretary/Treasurer: Peter McConnell.Temporary Vice-President: Emi Steedman.Minutes Secretary, Margaret Tingrobert.ting@vodafone.co,nz  Newsletter Editor: Joanne Graves, joanne.graves@gmail.com 

Committee:John Adam, Lisa TruttmanAnneli Torrance, Basil Pinhey.

JOINING INFORMATION

One year subscription: $10Contact Garth Houltham garph@ihug.co.nz  for joining information or write to:

Puketapapa Historical Society 

Garth Houltham 15 McIlroy Street Hillsborough Auckland 1042.