Waipu

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WAIPU COVE TO LANGS BEACH HISTORY TOUR

Waipu was founded by Nova Scotians in the 1850s. But the story began long before that, when a Scotsman, the Reverend Norman McLeod, a strict Calvinist, emigrated to Pictou in Nova Scotia in 1819. Later, he moved to St Ann’s, Cape Breton Island, but when potato blight and wheat rust attacked the crops in 1847, people were reduced to starvation.

McLeod then led 300 of his followers to Australia, where the high price of land and a typhoid epidemic caused the group to move on again to New Zealand. The first of McLeod’s followers arrived in Auckland in 1853 and petitioned the government for land on which they could settle as a group. More Nova Scotians came to join them, plus families direct from Scotland to join their Cape Breton relatives. Most settled in Waipu.

Waipu under Norman McLeod provides the setting for Fiona Kidman's classic novel, The Book of Secrets.

The others established sister settlements at Whangarei Heads, Leigh, Okaihau and in valleys north of Whangarei such as Kama, Whau, Hukerenui. Their history, from when their forbears left Scotland in 1819, is recorded in the stone House of Memories in the main street of Waipu. It is built to resemble a Scottish crofter’s house and was an early museum in New Zealand terms, opening before the turn of the 20th Century. One particularly interesting exhibit is the Great Highland Bagpipe which is believed to have been played during the Crimean War. Opposite the museum is the 1878 Kauri Presbyterian Church.

Also on the main road are the Memorial hall, small but not tiny community library, and grand monuments to the Nova Scotians, and WWI. The old timber National Bank is also of note because most of the heritage listed banks in New Zealand are rather grand and made of stone. This more humble corner set building was constructed in 1924 and served as the local medical centre for many years after it retired from banking.

Waipu is also notable for the Caledonian Highland Games, celebrated on January 1 each year. The event draws contestants and visitors from all over the world. Waipu has a “twinning” relationship with Assynt in Scotland and Cape Breton/St Ann’s/Baddeck in Nova Scotia.

The "Old Waipu Fire Station" which was in use from 1957 to 1991 has been re-purposed as an art gallery and attracts interest for the symmetry of its stucco-clad form and retro signwriting up front. The site, which is on the Waipu Heritage Trail, was actually a butchery before it was a Fire Station.

WAIPU COVE TO LANGS BEACH HISTORY TOUR

Hometown New Zealand Photographs by Derek Smith

Image Credits: Derek Smith and Maclean Barker Photographers and tdes, and Te Papa:T. G. Palmer & Son; photography studio; circa 1900s; Whangarei