Tasman District
Tasman District () is a local government district in the northwest of the South Island of New Zealand. It borders the Canterbury Region, West Coast Region, Marlborough Region and Nelson City. It is administered by the Tasman District Council, ...
of New Zealand. Originally called Riverdale, it is located inland from
Golden Bay Golden Bay may refer to:
* Golden Bay / Mohua, a bay at the northern end of New Zealand's South Island
* Golden Bay (Malta), a bay and beach on the coastline of Malta
* Golden Bay High School, a high school in Takaka, New Zealand
* Golden Bay, Wes ...
, southwest of Collingwood.
Located in the Aorere valley, Bainham is situated on the northwestern side of the
Aorere River
The Aorere River is in the South Island of New Zealand.
The headwaters are within Kahurangi National Park. The river flows generally northwards for before draining into Golden Bay at the town of Collingwood. The Heaphy Track's northeastern e ...
. The settlement was originally called Riverdale, but when a post office was established there in 1896, a name change was required to avoid confusion with similarly named places, including Riversdale in
Southland Southland may refer to:
Places Canada
* Dunbar–Southlands, Vancouver, British Columbia
New Zealand
* Southland Region, a region of New Zealand
* Southland County, a former New Zealand county
* Southland District, part of the wider Southland Reg ...
portmanteau
A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of words A telegraph office opened at Bainham in 1898.
In 1906, the population of Bainham was over 100, with the main activities in the area being dairy farming, gold mining in the Quartz Ranges, further up the Aorere River, and timber milling.
A new combined post office and general store was built in 1928 by the local postmaster, Edward Bates Langford. He leased part of the building to the Post Office and Telegraph Department to provide postal services, while using the remainder as a store. Langford's granddaughter, Lorna Langford, took over as postmistress in 1952 and the running of the general store in 1954. She ran the businesses until retiring in 2009. Lorna Langford died in 2020. The building was accorded historic place category 2 listing by
Heritage New Zealand
Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga (initially the National Historic Places Trust and then, from 1963 to 2014, the New Zealand Historic Places Trust) ( mi, Pouhere Taonga) is a Crown entity with a membership of around 20,000 people that advocate ...
in 1990, and has become a tourist attraction in its own right.
Bainham is the nearest settlement to the northern end of the
Heaphy Track
The Heaphy Track is a popular tramping and mountain biking track in the north west of the South Island of New Zealand. It is located within the Kahurangi National Park and classified as one of New Zealand's ten Great Walks by the Department o ...
, to the southwest, and is a gateway to the
Kahurangi National Park
Kahurangi National Park in the northwest of the South Island of New Zealand is the second largest of the thirteen national parks of New Zealand. It was gazetted in 1996 and covers , ranging to near Golden Bay in the north. Much of what was the ...