A Home for Generations /
Step inside one of Mid Canterbury’s most iconic homesteads, Longbeach Estate
An exquisite addition to any coffee table, Homesteads shares an insight into the legacy of New Zealand’s rural heritage through some of our most spectacular grand country homes. We take a look inside one of Mid Canterbury’s most iconic, Longbeach Estate.
ONE HOMESTEAD ABOVE ALL OTHERS REPRESENTS
everything that these grand and remote rural houses once stood for. Longbeach Estate, established by John Grigg in 1863, was famously described by a visiting British politician 30 years later as ‘the best farm in the world’. It became one of the country’s most impressive pioneering farms, and was the site of a much-admired homestead and a large community of workers serviced by a self-contained ‘village’ on site.
The homestead that stands at Longbeach today was designed by noted Christchurch architects Heathcote Helmore and Guy Cotterill. It is the third homestead to have been built there. Close to it, visitors can still explore the remarkable collection of village buildings developed by John Grigg to service a permanent workforce of 150 or more during the 1880s – including a post office, a butchery, a farm office, a flour mill, a smokehouse, a dairy, a granary, a saddlery, light- and draught-horse stables, a shearing shed and a restored cookhouse.
Longbeach also has its own private chapel, one of the oldest churches in Canterbury, which was built in 1859 at Prebbleton, more than 100 kilometres away. John Grigg bought the chapel in 1873 and had it transported on a bullock wagon to its current resting place, nestled within the expansive gardens that surround the homestead. Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh attended a service there when they spent a weekend at Longbeach in January 1954 during their two-month royal tour: it was said to be the smallest church the Queen had ever worshipped in.
Bill and Penny Thomas took over managing the Longbeach farm and moved into the homestead in 1985 when they were in their early 20s and just married. They have raised a family of four there, and now have grandchildren – seventh-generation descendants of John Grigg – living on the Longbeach Estate. Bill is the great-great-grandson of the first John Grigg, and took on the property from his father, David Thomas, and his mother, Virginia, who was the great granddaughter of Longbeach’s founder.
Bill and Penny maintain the homestead and 18 hectares of gardens in immaculate condition. Bill and son James jointly manage the farm, which today totals 1000 hectares used for cropping and finishing lambs, with a further 300 hectares in dairying. The farm still has 7 kilometres of coastline, but at its zenith Longbeach encompassed more than 30,000 acres (12,000ha).
The land John Grigg bought, initially in partnership with his brother-in-law, Thomas Russell, a founding shareholder of the Bank of New Zealand, was waterlogged and was described as ‘Valueless Bog’ on a Lands Office map from 1864. Undeterred, he transformed it into a highly productive farm using an innovative drainage system that involved creating a clear passage for the Hinds River through the farm to the sea, and laying a network of open drains through paddocks. This was followed by mile upon mile of closed drains formed from field tiles made from clay quarried on the
property and fired in a kiln he had built at nearby Eiffelton (so named because the kiln chimney was thought to resemble the Eiffel Tower).
Between 1889 and 1900, close to a million tiles were laid in field drains, and 9000 acres (3600ha) of land had been drained. Drainage work continues on the farm today – although, ironically, Bill has had to invest in irrigation for the land that his great-great-grandfather drained.
Despite having no experience of gardening before coming to Longbeach, Penny’s legacy has been in maintaining and adding to the property’s grounds. She and Bill have established large areas of new planting within the framework of the mature trees planted by John Grigg in the 1870s, and have returned the garden to something like its original size. Penny spearheaded the restoration of the station cookhouse in 2006, and manages it as a venue for weddings and catered functions.
The gracious English country-style homestead was completed in 1939, where the first and second homesteads once stood. The first was a double-storey timber building that had originally been an accommodation house in
Chertsey, some 40 kilometres away. As with the chapel, John Grigg had this towed to Longbeach by bullock wagon to accommodate his family when they first moved to the farm from central Christchurch. It was replaced in 1891 with an imposing 33-room, two-storey, Gothic-style mansion, built from bricks fired in the kiln.
After the second homestead burnt down in November 1937, architects Helmore and Cotterill were commissioned to design its replacement. They are believed to have provided three designs to John Hutton ( JH) Grigg – Bill’s grandfather. The first two were grander and incorporated Georgian influences. The design that was eventually selected was more pared back and is thought to have been influenced by the early work of English architect Edwin Lutyens, whom Heathcote Helmore had worked with for a time. The house was built using bricks recycled from the charred remains of its predecessor, and oriented slightly more towards the north. The links to the British Arts and Crafts movement are clearly shown in its steep gables, shingle-clad roof, dormer windows and painted shutters. It has been praised as Helmore and Cotterill’s most ‘outstanding achievement’, and has a Heritage New Zealand Category 1 classification. JH Grigg is said to have had a hand in its final appearance, deciding that the salvaged bricks should be left exposed, rather than covered with white cement. When the recycled bricks ran out, timber cladding was extended on to the second-storey walls rather than mixing new bricks with old. Bricks that were not of good enough quality were laid as paths.
The links to the British Arts and Crafts movement are clearly shown in its steep gables, shingle-clad roof, dormer windows and painted shutters.
The homestead is right at home in its country garden setting, surrounded by a swathe of lawn to the north, where beds of roses planted by Penny press up to the sash windows, and a wisteria smothers one end gable. To the east is a small lake, formed in a natural gully during downtime between harvests by employees of the original John Grigg.
The generous covered terrace along the house’s northern side is used these days for family barbecues and outdoor meals, and helps to keep the interior cool during summer months. In the generous sitting room, window seats maintain a connection to the garden year-round and provide a sundrenched morning aspect across to the pond.
The original southwest-facing kitchen, which is accessed from the rear service yard, has been opened up and refurbished by Bill and Penny, and leads to a cosy family room. It’s a welcoming and well-utilised space, where family and visitors gather around the farmhouse kitchen table – although they acknowledge that its orientation and distance from the northern outdoor terrace is not ideal for modern living.
The relatively compact formal dining room and the generous sitting room are still used, and are decorated with artworks, farming trophies and furniture dating from JH Grigg’s day. Sadly, few early family possessions were salvaged from the fire that destroyed the second homestead.
An intact bathroom from the 1930s features art deco-style fittings that would still have been the height of modernity when the house was completed. The master bedroom, which is where Queen Elizabeth would have slept in 1954, is distinguished by an unusual curved ceiling and art deco-style fireplace, and has french doors leading to a Juliet balcony.
But perhaps the most striking feature of the 900-squaremetre interior is the formal entrance, with its chequerboard linoleum, curved archway and original brass star lightfitting. The front door, which is set into a solid stone surround, still bears the original turquoise paint colour from JH Grigg’s time.
Like each generation before them, Bill and Penny have added to the Longbeach legacy, maintaining a successful farm, and investing in preserving and developing the homestead and gardens and the associated station buildings. Theirs is a modern farming enterprise, operating within an environment steeped in heritage. It’s a unique blending of the historic and the contemporary – a responsibility the family is committed to upholding.