Purau

Inscription inside and jacket clipped short.

A history and account of Purau Bay on the south side of Lyttelton Harbour, Banks Peninsula, from the days of early Maori settlement until the 1960s. The calm anchorage at Purau, on the south side of Lyttelton Harbour, provided shelter for the earliest ships to visit Port Cooper - whalers, sealers, and enterprising men who eagerly viewed the empty plains. In 1843 the first Europeans to settle on Lyttelton Harbour built a house at Purau and began to farm there. James Joseph and Edward Greenwood from Haworth, Yorkshire, lived at Purau for four years, enduring isolation, hard winters, and danger. Joseph Greenwood's diary has provided fresh and revealing information on those early years. In 1847 the station was sold to W.B. Rhodes and for 27 years Purau was one of the Rhodes Brothers' complex of runs in Canterbury. A fine stone homestead was built here in 1853 by Robert Heaton Rhodes. H.D. Gardiner, an early Christchurch settler, acquired Purau in 1874 and his family have farmed there until the present day. Although isolated from early Christchurch, life at Purau over the decades was never dull. It was a popular picnic area from the 1880s onwards and a venue for the annual mock battles of the Volunteers. Purau also contained the `strongest harbour fortress in the British Empire' and for many years the bones of the Canterbury Navy lay rotting on the beach. An exciting and interesting tale lies behind the peaceful beach resort of today...