Newstead

Before the hall was built any gatherings were held at the school or in residences.

The Newstead Post Office was situated by the road on the north-east side of the railway line. The original building was replaced when a new Post Office was opened in 1918. Mail was collected from the railway station for distribution.

Henry Reynolds was a pioneer of the dairy industry in the Waikato. A former manager of the Woodlands Estate he purchased 1600 acres of land in 1886 which became the Newstead Estate.
He established the first creamery in the area on the Newstead Estate in 1890. He also had a creamery at Pukerimu at which he founded "Anchor Brand" butter. This now world reknowned brand was named after an anchor tattooed on Henry Reynolds' arm.

The Marsh Meadows property was bought from Capt. Runciman by the Scott brothers, John and James, in 1898. Sheep and cattle were farmed on the property.
In the 1920's Tuck and Watkins set up a sawmill near where Mr and Mrs Ron Scott's house is now. Trees were felled back in the plantation and hauled to a steam powered winch by a bullock team. At the weekends the bullocks would be set free to graze on the roadside. On Monday morning they would have to be located and rounded up, sometimes from as far away as Woodside Road at Matangi.

James Runciman was born in Scotland in 1829 and emigrated to New Zealand with his parents, arriving in the ship "Nimrod" in 1839.
The family settled in the Whangarei district but, in 1845 they were driven out by Maoris and took up a run of 2000 acres at Drury.

Situated 8km east of Hamilton with an altitude of 45m (145ft), Newstead was opened up as a militia settlement in the late 1860's after the campaigns of the N.Z. wars.
The land was of a poor quality. The drier areas covered in tea tree and the swamp in flax.