INDUSTRY ON THE WAINUIORU

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A flax mill operated amid the headwaters of the Wainuiorū around 1900, beside the Mangaru Stream near the Stronvar Road. 

    Perhaps the upper Wainuiorū's only industry apart from farming and logging, it was owned by William Toogood, who also had a mill at Featherston.

    A 1905 photo shows the sheds housing the flax-stripping and scutching machinery, which was powered by a wood-fired steam engine. Outside are bundles of harakeke leaves, waiting to be fed into the stripping machine. Stripped and washed fibre is drying on a rack and bundles of fibre are bleaching in the paddock to the right. Later it would be put through the scutching machine, in which beaters flailed the fibre to refine it further.

    Toogood (grandfather of the television personality Selwyn Toogood) designed and patented several flax machines and appeared as an expert on the flax industry before a parliamentary committee in 1898.

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For more on the flax industry, see Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, at http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/flax-and-flax-working/

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photo captions:

The flax mill on the Mangaru Stream about 1905.

The area in 2018, seen from almost the same spot.

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