"OLD LANDMARKS"

Hutt News, Volume 1, Issue 1, 25 May 1928, Page 6

"OLD LANDMARKS"

(Written specially for "The Hutt Weekly.") To many people, and not least to those of a thoughtful turn of mind, it seems a pity that the progress of our district necessitates the abolition of our few remaining links with the past. Although it is a mere eighty-seven years since the first colonists landed on what we now know as Petone -beach, so rapid has been the growth of settlement in the Valley that few of the original buildings remain, while the desire to erect more modern structures has lead to the removal of practically all the housee which might connect the present township with that of even forty years ago. Needless to say, the huts of the first settlers have long disappeared, swept away by the passing of the years, though with some few cottages of time has dealt mxyre gently, leaving here and there a moss-covered wall to mark the site of some old homestead. Most of ! these remains are, unfortunately, of slight historical importance, for almost without exception, the more interesting buildings of an earlier day have totally disappeared. Indeed it is a matter of considerable difficulty to fix accurately even the sites of those structures which played a conspicuous part in our early history. The buildings of Boulcott's farm have entirely disappeared, and their site is variously supposed to have b«on eitheT on or near that of the present Hutt G-olf House. The changes that have taken place in the course of the river make it difficult to speak with certainty. Thus the scene of a most noble episode is unknown to the present generation, though the event itself is fittingly commemorated by a stone at the corner of Old Military Road.

The traveller of the fifties, on his way from Wellington to the Taita passed through the little village of Aglionby which stretched from the present bridge ■to the railway station, and of which the only portion, remaining is the little cemetery, part of which is buried under Bridge Street. From the main thoroughfare, our present Bailway Avenue, a bridge stretched across the river to Port Richmond. The bridge was a rus-tic-looking structure, built by the colonists themselves, and rather resembled a Japanese bridge over some lagoon, while the Fort, built of logs, was dosigned after the style of the Canadian blockhouse. The road continued North on the line of the p-resent Main Street, but instead of the bitumen surface, it was a corduroy track, and took its way through virgin bush, out of which the. courageous settlers had hewn their farms. The bridge and its attendant fort have long disappeared, swept away by the floods of 1855, and no traces of them remain. Of the bridges that followed, the piles of one are plain to see, but the second bridge has completely disappeared. Possibly those driving the piles of the present new bridge will find some traces of the first ones.

Lite the bridges, the old "Aglionby Arms" has vanished with the floods, but in its day it was a celebrated place rof call for coaches through the valley, ■ and has left its name in the vicinity. After the destruction of Fort Richmond, a further blockhouse was built nearer the present Post Office, and was moved to a site still nearer when it was found to be in danger from the floods. Its second situation was approximately that of the gates into Riddiford Park. Here the inhabitants took refuge from Maori raids, and in later years the youth of the village received that "free, secular, and compulsory education" ordained by the act of 1877. The walls of this blockhouse were loopholed and filled with rubble, while the floor of the second storey was likewise loopholed. This building was subsequently moved to Cornwall Street where it was used as a dwelling house for a while and then pulled down. It would be interesting to know whether the gentleman who lives on the site realises that the gravel on his path once acted as filling for the walls of the blockhouse. On the moving of the first schoolhouse mentioned above, the scholars were taught in what was the Aglionby Masonic Hall, a building afterwards reconstructed as the present Riverview House, and when that became too* small, the present Central School was I, begun. Probably two of the oldest buildings in the Hutt were stores. The first was a well-known place of resort for the northerly portion of the residents, and was kept by Mr J. A. Mason. The building is still in use, in spite of its

age which, cannot be less than sixty years. The second is now occupied by Mr. Twomey as a blacksmith's shop, but in 1865 it was kept by a Mr Mulling, and, being right at the end of the bridge, was a flourishing general store. "When the new bridge was built to the north of the present one in 1575, the trade gradually decayed.

And the same fate has befallen many buildings. For one cause and another they have been removed, pulled down, turned into some other sphere of usefulness, and their origin forgotten. Their connection with stirring events has been lost, and it is clear that before long, with the passing of the older generation in the valley, it will be impossible to trace' the history of our town in any detail.