View of Hindon Railway Station beside the Taieri River

Hindon is a small settlement in inland Otago, in the South Island of

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 ...

. It is located northwest of

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

in the Silverpeaks Range, close to the edge of the Strath Taieri. The

Taieri Gorge Railway Dunedin Railways (formerly the Taieri Gorge Railway) is the trading name of Dunedin Railways Limited, an operator of a railway line and tourist trains based at Dunedin Railway Station in the South Island of New Zealand. The company is a counci ...

runs through Hindon on its way between Dunedin and

Middlemarch ''Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life'' is a novel by the English author Mary Anne Evans, who wrote as George Eliot. It first appeared in eight installments (volumes) in 1871 and 1872. Set in Middlemarch, a fictional English Midland town, ...

. Hindon was named by provincial superintendent

John Hyde Harris John Hyde Harris (24 November 1826 – 24 July 1886) was a 19th-century New Zealand politician. Born in England, he came to Dunedin as a young man and practised as a lawyer, and was then a judge. He entered provincial politics and was elected as ...

, who owned land in the area, though the origin of the name is not known. The area was a centre of activity during the latter part of the

Otago Gold Rush The Otago Gold Rush (often called the Central Otago Gold Rush) was a gold rush that occurred during the 1860s in Central Otago, New Zealand. This was the country's biggest gold strike, and led to a rapid influx of foreign miners to the area – ...

, with several mines working the gold-bearing quartz

reefs A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic processes—deposition of sand, wave erosion planing down rock out ...

at Hindon and nearby Barewood. The size of the township dwindled markedly after the end of the rush. Little remains of the mines, though some subsided shafts remain as hazards for local farmers.Hutchinson, D.,
Hindon mine shaft 'bit of a graveyard'
" '' Otago Daily Times,'' 5 May 2013. Retrieved 7 November 2015. Hindon has a population of around 70 people. At the height of the gold rush its population was around 1200.

References

Populated places in Otago {{Otago-geo-stub