Newstead

N Z Dairy Board

There are people who are ready to retire at 50, and there are others who are never going to get round to it.  One such is Harold Woolford of Newstead Orchard, who recently turned 80, still works a 7 day week, and enjoys life to the full.  When he resat his drivers licence just after his birthday, we danced a jig in the packing room when he passed first try.

There’s a Centenary being celebrated in our district this month, by the Woolford family at McMiken’s Newstead Orchard.

Margaret Woolford has been digging through mounds of old documentation, and has compiled a brief history and timeline of how it came to be.  Her first paragraph reads thus:

Notes by one the first pupils of Marsh Meadows School
(Extracts reprinted from 1950 Jubilee Book)
I remember, as children, how thrilled we were to have a school of our own. Several of us from the district had been attending a private school in the vicinity of the present school. Sixpence per week was the fee.

In the early 1920's logs being taken from the school by bullock team to the railway station. At weekends Mr Kelly grazed his bullocks in Scott's paddock.     .
Getting a ride as far as the Newstead Creamery by horse and cart with my father and then walking on to school.    Stan Hogan
* * *

The property was originally owned by Mr and Mrs Delaney, Mr Delaney having been a sergeant in the militia. They sold the property to Mr and Mrs Ryan in about 1914. Mr and Mrs F. J. Osborne bought the farm in 1918. The Hamilton City Council purchased it in 1956.
The Hamilton Park Cemetery was opened in 1958 and in 1965 the Crematorium was dedicated by the Bishop of Waikato, the Rt Rev. J. 'l'. Holland.

TEDDING HAY
Tedding hay on the property that is now Hamilton Park Cemetery, 1930's.

COUNTRY WOMEN'S INSTITUTE