My Taranaki Anniversary Day 8

Wartime

The dig at Oropuriri, Bell Block before the motorway was built

across the site

The period between around 1845 and 1860 is a bit of a blank in my feeling about the province. In the last few years a major archaeological dig went on at Bell Block, with a raft of new discoveries about this period, but no detailed reports have been published about it, so we are still a bit in the dark.

 

I visited the site as the dig was finishing and the archaeologist showed me around. It was fascinating, and I hope the details will appear before too long.

However, with the commencement of hostilities in March 1860, a lot of records exist, and so there is much more information.

At this stage many women and children were sent to Nelson, or other places of safety for the duration of the fighting. Extra defences were built around the city, and these are still traceable in some places.

Tightly around the centre, what is now the centre of the CBD, was a trench defence, with gates to let people in and out.

From the signboard on Fort Niger

Further out was a series of forts with 24-hour sentries to observe comings and goings from further afield.

These were on higher ground, and several have been lost to more recent development, but the sites of two of them are still accessible. The most central is on the top of Marsland Hill, where the hill was flattened and barracks erected to house the troops. You can still climb the hill, behind the cathedral, and see memorials to the soldiers who died in the fighting.

Nearer here is Fort Niger, at the eastern end of Pendarves Street, which was also flattened and occupied by a garrison, this time from a naval vessel, HMS Niger, anchored off the coast. At the Battle of Waireka the marines and sailors from Niger under Captain Cracroft came to the support of the local militia and were credited with saving the day. So the name of the fort was retained after the need for it had passed. It is now a reserve, with a signboard (see left photo) telling the stories and displaying the pictures of the history. As it is almost directly behind our house, we climb up there quite often on our walks.