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Before St Peter Chanel School

Question: I'm Scott from St Peter Chanel School. I want to know if there was a building before our school or was it farm land?

Answer: Hard to believe now, but the grounds where the St Peter Chanel Church and School stand today were once part of a busy timber milling complex.

It all began in 1914, when brothers George and Bert Heath bought the land on the corner of Old Wharf Road and High Street and set up a sawmill and box factory there to service the developing apple industry. The sawmill, powered by a steam engine, cut the timber used to manufacture wooden packing boxes for the local orchards.

In 1940 Heaths' was sold to Nelson timber merchants, H. Baigent & Sons. Electric motors were installed, greatly increasing the sawmill's output, and the business grew rapidly. Baigents' ran a very successful timber milling operation on the site for 29 years, but as the town became more built-up, problems with waste disposal and pollution from the mill proved a major issue for Motueka's residents.

In 1969 the firm closed the site down and moved its operations elsewhere. The land where the mill complex stood was subdivided and sold off, and coolstores, houses and church took its place.

Abridged information taken from "Back Then ... threads from Motueka's past", published by the Motueka High School in 1999 - see pg. 67. Copies can be borrowed from the Motueka Library.

For more information related to this, see Sue Clark's article about the History of Port Motueka on this website.

- Anne McFadgen

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