Gina JONES
An hour from Wellington, on the other side of the Rimutaka Range, is the small town of Greytown.
Greytown owes its existence to the energy and initiative of early settlers in Wellington who were looking for small affordable portions of land to farm and to the assistance of the Governor, Sir George Grey. This was acknowledged by the settlers who named the town Greytown in his honour.
In late March 1854 the first party of six intrepid souls, including one woman, their possessions carried by 4 bullocks, crossed the Rimutakas on foot and arrived to camp near Cobblestones. A small memorial shelter marks the spot today. They immediately set to work to build shelters and small cottages. Within five years more substantial buildings, shops, hotels and larger houses were built.
Conservation of trees and the environment has always been important for local citizens. In 1890 the first Arbor Day planting in New Zealand was held in Greytown – trees from that planting still stand.
When the railway by-passed Greytown in the 1870s, Greytown’s position as the pre-eminent town in the Wairarapa slowly declined. In a strange way this has helped modern Greytown, as little building went on from 1920 to 1970 and the colonial buildings with their exotic trees were left largely untouched.
The current inhabitants of the town are increasingly proud of their heritage. Old buildings have generally been sensitively upgraded and put to new purposes … cafes, craft shops, week-end cottages and homes of Wellington commuters. Protection was provided to the central part of Greytown by way of the District Plan – however with a property boom in 2007 this was found not to be enough and developers and kitset homes moved to town and onto the Main Street. This enraged locals and visitors alike. This paper is about what locals did to fight back!