Memory box
In an era of shopping malls and big-box mega-stores, the small main street shop is something of an endangered species. The Brighton in Huntly catches my eye each time I drive through the town and happily a break in the traffic allowed me to grab a photo last time I was there.
As one would expect in Huntly, early owners of the land and, later, the shop were associated with the mining industry. Thomas Bell, a Huntly miner, was issued with a certificate of title for Lot 17 of deposited plan 1012 in 1895. At that time the Taupiri Extended Coal Mining Company reserved the right to mine coal and other minerals under Bell’s land.
Bell transferred the property to Eleanor Snell Friar, the wife of Huntly storekeeper Matthew Friar, in March 1897.
According to the Cyclopedia of New Zealand, Matthew Friar was born in Ireland in 1860, arrived in New Zealand in 1876 and joined the firm of Friar, Davies & Co. in 1877.
The storekeepers were headquartered in Ngaruawahia but it would appear that the Friars resided in Huntly.
I’m uncertain as to whether there was a shop on this site before The Brighton was erected, given that its style and construction nicely marries with the 1922 acquisition of the property by Walter Mills. The latter acquired a mortgage from the Auckland Perpetual Land Building and Investment Society in May 1923, which suggests that he was raising funds for the shop’s erection.
Previously Mills had lived in Hakanoa Street, from whence his daughter Selina Kay’s funeral departed for the Kimihia Cemetery in November 1919.
Selina was just 24 years old and had married Frederick Kay two years previously. Another of Walter and Barbara’s daughters, Edna, was reportedly working in the Mill’s confectionery shop on Main Street when she served Donald Haywood, who was later convicted of robbing Glen Afton man Thomas Read outside the Huntly Hotel in late May 1930.
Given its original function, I can’t help wondering if the name of the shop, The Brighton, came about because rock candy is sometimes known as Brighton rock. The Mills’ store and the one immediately to its south likely formed a sweet treat magnet for local people between the world wars, with one a tearooms and sweet shop and the other making ice-cream.
In December 1929 Walter Mills was successful in reaching a legal settlement with his neighbours, the Alpine Ice Cream Company (est. 1928), whose machinery was affecting Mill’s business and the family’s sleep. Following legal action in the Hamilton Supreme Court, the company agreed that it would not run its machines between 10pm at night and 5am in the morning, excepting 20 nights per year.
Despite the evidence of Walter and Barbara Mills, however, the judge rejected the Mills’ claim of £25 damages for past suffering.
Regardless of his years as a storekeeper, Walter Mills’ occupation was listed as a miner in 1950, the year in which he subdivided the parcel of land on which the shop stands. Mills died in the following year and was buried in the Huntly cemetery, alongside his wife Barbara, who had predeceased him by 10 years. The shop remained in the Mills family until 1958, when it was sold to Richard Collins, shop proprietor, and his wife Iris. Subsequent owners included Thomas and Mavis Connolly and David and Thora Patrick. Today The Brighton is one of a number of 1920s commercial buildings that line Huntly’s main street. Perhaps a new life as an ice-cream parlour would keep faith with its original purpose and offer a reason for stopping in Huntly once the latest section of the Waikato Expressway opens.