Denniston Incline Westport

The Denniston Incline built in 1879, and operated until 1967, and was one of the great creations of the 19th Century. Young Brothers engineers and Day and Blair contractors built the world-renowned incline which descends 550 m in less than 2 km, with a gradient of 1 in 1.25 at the steepest part. Many called it the Eighth Wonder of the World.

The Incline worked on the cable-car principle, using gravity. As the coal-bearing wagons - holding up to 8 tons of coal - descended the slope, they hauled the empty ones back up. They were attached to a steel haulage rope wound around enormous drums in two brakehouses. With one wagon descending every 4 minutes, the production was impressive. In its 87 years of operation, the Incline transported some 12 million tons of coal. Inevitably there were runaway wagons and smashes, and injuries were common amongst the workers who had to attach a 45kg hook to moving wagons. Fifty-six people died getting coal from Denniston. As the ground was too hard to dig graves, some settlers made their final journey down the incline in their coffins. They were buried at Waimangaroa. Unsurprisingly, the entire area is now Heritage Listed

The Incline and the grim social conditions of the miners families living on the plateau are illustrated in a video and displays at the Westport museum (Coaltown). There is a winding, sealed road up the hill and Denniston can be reached from SH67 at Waimangaroa by following it for nine kilometres. Friends of the Hill run a museum in the old School manual training building. There are splendid coastal views on a fine day.

Output from the Denniston area peaked before World War 1. In 1910, the 446 men employed by the Westport Coal Company mined 348,335 tons of coal, but oil and electricity were becoming the new fuel sources. When the inclines closed because of rising maintenance costs and falling tonnages of coal, there was little reason for people to stay living in the mist; most shifted to the pleasanter climate on the coast. Bush has virtually taken over the Incline since its closure in 1967, but two Q Class wagons at its foot are reminders of its proud past. Information panels on the Denniston road and the restored Denniston school building provide interesting material on the settlement, mines and sightseeing.

The view of this town on the map is very similar to the experience of visiting the area, the satellite view showing a rough etching of roads, the formal map showing the sections formerly dedicated to the homes of miners.

Hell on earth halfway up ‘The Hill’

The boosters called this the ‘Eighth Wonder of the World’. The poor sods forced to slog away in the mines up ‘The Hill’ sang a different tune:

Damn Denniston, damn the track

Damn the way both there and back

Damn the wind and damn the weather

God damn Denniston altogether.

They had reason to complain, for Denniston was a miserable hole, a gimcrack clutter of corrugated iron and weatherboard buildings clinging precariously to its bleak plateau. Thick fog could hang around for weeks on end, as could steady drizzle. It may have bucketed down but little grew here apart from rust, emphysema and the politics of dissent. The soil was so thin they had to send bodies down the incline for burial elsewhere.

Denniston (named after RB Denniston, the company’s surveyor and colliery manager) was the bleak jewel in the Westport Coal Company’s crown. It was also the country’s most productive coalfield. From its offices in Water Street, Dunedin, Westport Coal, together with the Union Steam Ship Company, dominated the colony’s fuel and transport industries. Between 1879 and 1967 this incline transported 13 million tonnes of coal from the plateau down to Union Steam Ship Company colliers at Westport.

It was a technical triumph. The incline plunged precipitously, 548 metres in a distance of just 1670 metres, some grades beingas steep as 1 in 1.25 (or 80 per cent!). Two water-operated brakes, Upper Brake at the top, and Middle Brake, slowed the progress of the counter-balancing wagons (i.e., descending full wagons pulled up empty ones) down the two inclines to the railhead at Conns Creek. The regenerating bush is reclaiming the upper (number one) incline, but the lower (number two) incline can be admired from a nearby walking track. You can see rusting wagons, wire by the kilometre, stretches of track and at the top of the incline an impressive drive tower. A few people still inhabit the township, where the Friends of The Hill have restored the old schoolhouse. Tracks lead to other former mines and features. Keep to them and watch out for old shafts.

© 2002 Original text – Gavin McLean.
Further reading: Len Richardson, Coal, Class & Community, Auckland University Press, Auckland, 1995.

How it was at Denniston has been explored in a best selling book;

*Image Credits: Lower incline, Denniston, circa 1900, New Zealand, by Muir & Moodie studio, maker unknown. Te PapaView from top of upper incline, looking down towards sea. From the album: Views of the Westport Colliery Co., Westport, 1880, Denniston, by Henry Lock. Te Papa,*Train taking coal from Denniston -Murray King, Truck on the Incline - Ray Mathewson photo.