If walls could talk . . .

The remains of Patrick Talty's St Bathans Hotel in the Nenthorn conservation area, beside Ramrock Rd, not far from the Macraes mine, in the Waitaki district. Nenthorn is about 20km northeast of Middlemarch on a tussock plateau. In the late 1880s there was a goldmining boom in the area and when Mr Talty set up his hotel, business would have been brisk. Mr Talty was being pursued in the courts for debt, but resolved the issue by burning down his own hotel in 1894, and claiming the insurance money. He relocated to Cardrona and continued mining there. He died in 1913, penniless and alone. His body was found in his hut several days after he died. He is buried in an unmarked grave in Cardrona Cemetery.