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Paengaroa School is located in the village of Paengaroa which is situated in the sunny Bay of Plenty, not far from the coast. Paengaroa is ten minutes drive (on State Highway 33) south of Te Puke - the kiwifruit capital of the world. Around the school is lovely farmland, tidy orchards, some industry and housing. The school is on Old Coach Rd.

Jonathan B

A Picture of Early Life In Paengaroa

 

1912: Paengaroa at that time consisted of stables and a blacksmith's shop, two boarding houses (Robeke's which stood where the present petrol station is and Walters which stood behind the present general store) a fish shop, a general store, a butchers shop, a country hall (known as 'Billy Gilmore's Hall') and a school of one room on the present school site.
Farming in those days was tough. Cows had to be milked by hand and the milk taken to a creamery situated on Old Coach Road - the resulting skim milk brought home and fed to the calves and pigs. All the farm work had to be done by hand and horse, scrub cut and burnt, the land ploughed by a single furrow plough, crops sown and picked by hand. Hay was made and turned to dry by hand, then carted to the stack on a big sheet or cart.
For relaxation there were always house parties where several families would gather and sing songs around the piano. There was one in nearly every house and, if not, one would be brought by horse and cart from the neighbours. The older folks played cards and the young played tennis on a bit of grass paddock with a strip of wire netting for a net.

Source: Excerpts from the Paengaroa School 75th Jubilee Booklet - Article by C Mundt

The city of the plains .... that never was

 

Judging by it's location, Paengaroa might be expected to be a bigger, bustling town. That's what our ancestors expected it to become. But things didn't turn out quite like that and most of the residents wouldn't have it any other way.
V Sherriff reports (Bay of Plenty Times - 16 December, 1995)

Paengaroa never did develop into the city of the plains it was touted as at the beginning of this century - but there is time yet, according to a new breed of retailers in the area.
In 1911 it must have seemed obvious that the staging post for the Tauranga to Rotorua coaches would always be a busy crossroad. Not only that but the Whakatane road also passed through the district which had just been given permission for a railway.

...From the air Paengaroa looks important and, if it was on a treasure map where "X" marks the spot, prospectors would be sure to turn up gold.
First settled 100 years ago, the Paengaroa District now sports a fine shopping area that could almost be referred to as Te Puke's Parnell.
The present shopping area is minus the Paengaroa Tavern, recently bought by Comvita, which has expanded onto the site.
With a population of about 500, Paengaroa's passing traffic and surrounding district provide most of the customers for the many businesses supplying the local market.
The biggest Paengaroa success story, Comvita, which is a cottage industry that has grown into a thriving local and export business, is still based in the area. Established 28 years ago, the company concentrates on bee, honey and health products - employing 60 people from all over the western Bay Of Plenty. The business has expanded into the former Tavern where more manufacturing is be done and a centre has been build including a large retail store. Visitors can come and observe the processes that have proved so successful for the company.

Visit to COMVITA click here

The Junction

 

 

Paengaroa is an interesting name, and I would be pleased to bear from fluent Maori speakers regarding it's meaning. From what I can cobble together from talking with local folk, I gather it refers to a Pa (village) on the banks or margin or boundary (enga) of the plain (roa). By European times there were no Pa in the area, but several large sites are still recognizable on the properties of Matapara (Mathew's), O'Hara's and William's farms, all just above the plain as you take the road to Rotorua. I understand that the plain extending from there to the present day village was a kumera garden.

 

In early European times the village looked very different. Where State Highway 33 now runs beside Wilson and Old Coach roads, there used to be an actual cross road. The main route was the road from Maketu to Okere Falls. The Maori people had used this route from the beginning as Rotorua tribes came to Maketu for kaimoana and, I imagine, for social visits and sometimes warfare. In the era of sailing ships Maketu was charted as a blue water harbour, meaning coastal trading vessels could dock there, bringing supplies and taking produce. The other road ran from Tauranga to Whakatane. The present Whakatane road did not exist so that Old Coach Road was the only route in that direction. The village was generally known as "The Junction".

 

I am told that Paengaroa was originally planned out to form a town centre instead of Te Puke. However, the lack of a suitable water supply caused the planners to abandon the idea. (In those days they had no electric pumps, so that water was best managed if it could be brought down from the hills. All the local water sources at Paengaroa lie below the level of the village.) Apparently the pattern of streets at the back of the village are those originally planned for a town.

 

Coaches brought travelers from Tauranga and further a field through the Junction on their way to Whakatane and Okere Falls. Travel was, of course, slow, and each night the passengers on the coach would need to stay at an inn. The horses would be tired and hungry. They would be fed, watered and groomed and put out to pasture for a rest, with fresh horses being harnessed the following morning. All this was quite an operation. Inns, stables and fields, harness repair shops, farriers and so on were needed at each "stage". It was a days journey from Tauranga to Paengaroa, so that the village had all these amenities and more. My Father, Mr Levis, has supplied me with most of this information, our family being among the original settles in the area. He tells me a good rider on a good horse could reach Auckland in three days. The coaches were naturally much slower, with four or six horses pulling the weight of the coach, the passengers and all the luggage. A photo of one of these is on display in the school foyer.

 

The roads were not scaled in those days, so they were dusty and muddy according to the weather. On the site of the Craft Centre there was a BNZ bank. Where the antique shop now stands there was a bakery. A general store, selling everything from buttons to boots, stood next to the bakery, on the corner of MI Road. There was a post office there with it. A butchers shop stood opposite the Mobil Service Station in the paddocks beside Lemon Road. I can still remember the large wooden building (more or less derelict in my childhood) that had been the stage coach boarding house. It stood on the corner where the fish shop is now, and I think the house behind the fish shop is, in fact, the original structure. The livery stables, farrier and so forth were further along where the hall is now situated. The stage coaches ran regularly until about the mid

1920's. Around that time the railway was put through, and you could catch the train for Te Puke or Tauranga or Auckland from the station by the Wilson Rd over bridge.

 

My Great Grand Father was on the committee to build the first school in the village, and his two sons were among the very first pupils to be enrolled there. Rooms nine and ten form the original building, and you can still see the wide weather boards used in those days (about 1906). The caretaker's shed was originally a saddle room, for most of the children rode to school on ponies. There was no football field as such, because that was the horse paddock where the horses grazed while the children had their lessons. Even little ones of five and six years had to manage with the task of catching, saddling and bridling their horse at the end of each day before they could begin their long ride home.

 

There is always more to learn when talking to the older locals, some of whom have lived their entire lives at The Junction.

 

Compiled by Heather Firth (2000)