The Back Cottage

Posted Wednesday, May 19 2010.

This derelict cottage was seen while travelling around the east coast and SRA have compiled this small history by Margaret Greer from the Paeroa Station who has used the “Elsthorpe Book” as a source of information.

In 1853 Alfred Chapman was granted a grazing licence and formed Te Apiti Station on about 14,500 acres to the north of Mangakuri River Gorge, Kairakau. The lease changed hands several times and was held by H Nairn, Beetham brothers and then JH Williams, who were the early farmers responsible for establishing farming on the east coast- Wellington to East Cape.

In 1916 Te Apiti was eventually split into smaller blocks and a new owner called his block Ponui, meaning “the long night” and the Back Cottage was the home for this block. He is recorded to have ‘added a floor, bedrooms and a verandah and there is a huge fireplace in the sitting room which will take three to four foot logs’.

Although most of the other blocks have been sold the Back Cottage still sits on leased land.

According to http://www.maoridictionary.co.nz - Apiti can mean a variety of things but one meaning is a “narrow gorge”. Thus Te Apiti Station may have been named as there is a fascinatingly narrow gorge called ‘the Mangakuri River Gorge’ near Kairakau Beach.