Fairton is a town in the

Ashburton District Ashburton District is a territorial authority district in the Canterbury Region of the South Island of New Zealand. It encompasses the town of Ashburton, a number of small towns and settlements and the surrounding rural area, roughly coterminou ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. According to the

2001 New Zealand census The New Zealand Census of Population and Dwellings ( mi, Te Tatauranga o ngā Tāngata Huri Noa i Aotearoa me ō rātou Whare Noho) is a national population and housing census conducted by government department Statistics New Zealand every five y ...

it had a population of 1185, of which 612 were male and 573 were female. The Newlands School house, opened near

Rangiora Rangiora is the largest town and seat of the Waimakariri District, in Canterbury, New Zealand. It is north of Christchurch, and is part of the Christchurch metropolitan area. With an estimated population of Rangiora is the 30th largest urba ...

in 1880, was moved to Fairton in 1901. The school moved to a new location donated by a local business in 1968.

Marae

Hakatere Marae has occupied the original Fairton School building on State Highway 1 since 1970, two years after the school left the site. It held

Waitangi Day Waitangi Day ( mi, Te Rā o Waitangi), the national day of New Zealand, marks the anniversary of the initial signing – on 6 February 1840 – of the Treaty of Waitangi, which is regarded as the founding document of the nation. The first Wait ...

events from 1973, and incorporated a hangi into the annual holiday from 1974. The land was officially purchased by the Mid Canterbury Māori Committee in 1975. The marae is named after the nearby Ashburton River. The original school house and ''wharenui'' (meeting house) was destroyed by fire in 2003. A new $300,000 ''wharekai'' (dining hall) was completed in 2007, the entranceway was widened in 2008, and a new multi-use conference building was completed in 2009. The Ministry of Health granted the marae $10,000 a year from 2009 to 2012 to develop a community marae garden on a half acre of land. Ashburton carver Vince Leonard completed carvings for the meeting house and

Ashburton College Ashburton College is a state coeducational secondary school located in Ashburton, New Zealand. It opened in 1965 following the merger of two Ashburton secondary schools: Ashburton High School and Hakatere College, and moved to its current site ...

until his death in 2019. In October 2020, the Government committed $110,208 from the

Provincial Growth Fund Shane Geoffrey Jones (born 3 September 1959) is a New Zealand politician. He served as a New Zealand First list MP from 2017 to 2020 and was previously a Labour list MP from 2005 to 2014. Jones was a cabinet minister in the Fifth Labour Gove ...

to renovate the marae, creating 14 jobs.

References

Ashburton District Populated places in Canterbury, New Zealand {{CanterburyNZ-geo-stub