Makeover mooted for historic estate
Upgrades are on the cards for a historic homestead on the northern fringes of Hamilton.
Plans for Woodlands Estate Historic Reserve include a children’s playground and extra parking – there is no public transport to the Gordonton site.
Waikato District Council owns the site, and detailed the aspirations in a reserve management plan adopted mid-December.
Improving car parking is a priority, according to the plan, and should happen within three years.
Another early priority is adding a playground beside the cricket oval, with ‘‘equipment for multi-age groups’’.
Other plans include making a viewing area for the cricket oval, looking into the lake’s water quality and adding a new jetty, and making it easier to string fairy lights across the ‘‘music lawn’’ beside the homestead.
However, the plan doesn’t commit council to any of these works, documents say.
It will need heritage professionals’ advice, and will decide what funds to allocate in the annual and long-term plan processes.
The reserve is part of a block of land taken from local Ma¯ ori during the 1863 land wars, Mayor Allan Sanson wrote in council documents.
The homestead built in the 1870s and was ‘‘the centrepiece of a large agricultural estate’’, council documents say.
Surrounding gardens were developed over time.
Irene Riddell gifted the land to Presbyterian Support Services in 1983, and it was transferred to Waikato County Council in 1989.