Family farm may get NZ heritage listing
Sprawling paddocks and “torn-down-looking buildings” might not scream heritage site, but they could get a farm out the back of Matamata on the list.
Sanigar, in Turangaomoana, was farmed by three generations of the Huston family and is “directly associated with the transformation of New Zealand’s rural landscape in the twentieth century”, according to Heritage NZ.
The bid to get it listed came from Sue Huston, who with her late husband Garth carried on a farming legacy started by his grandfather in the early 1930s.
Should she be successful, Sanigar will likely be the first heritage site of its kind in Waikato. On the 200-acre block, the deteriorating remains of an 100-year-old shearing shed, a cow shed a few metres away and a collapsed shack where a family used to reside help tell the tale of NZ’s farming history.
“It’s important to keep these buildings alive,” says Sue Huston. “People might be horrified because they’re all torn down looking buildings but they’re special because they represent how it was.” She applied for a heritage listing after Garth’s death in 2022, in a bid to protect the structures. A survey to assess Sanigar’s potential as a Category 1 historic and cultural heritage site found it was significant, and the proposal is now out for public consultation.
“[Garth] would have been very grateful, Huston said. “He was too sick to do anything but it was distressing watching them fall down.” And it seems pitching a potential heritage site or area isn’t uncommon.
Nearly all recent new listings in the Northern Region were nominated by people in the community, according to Heritage New Zealand.
While there are farms on the heritage list, Sanigar is different because of its smaller size and tale of sheep and dairy operations.
“I can’t think of one like it in Matamata,” Ben Pick from Heritage New Zealand said.
Historic places on the New Zealand Heritage List are given categories, and about 1000 are Category 1. There are 57 Waikato places with a Category 1 listing.
Sanigar’s historical and archaeological significance comes from how it illustrates “the transformation of the rural landscape and economy in twentieth-century New Zealand,” Pick said.
It was previously part of the large Matamata Estate, “an important example of a large colonial, agricultural holding in the Waikato and Hauraki”.
The estate was one of many split up by the First Liberal Government (1891-1912) to make generally medium-sized family-run farms. The farm also provides information about individuals and communities who laboured in and used buildings, such as the local shearing gangs and whānau who stayed nearby.