Matanaka Farm is near

Waikouaiti Waikouaiti is a small town in East Otago, New Zealand, within the city limits of Dunedin. The town is close to the coast and the mouth of the Waikouaiti River. Today, Waikouaiti is a retail trade and servicing centre for the surrounding distric ...

in Otago, New Zealand. The five buildings are the oldest surviving farm buildings that are still in their original position in the country. The farm is owned and administered 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 ...

. Additionally the buildings are registered as Category I and are considered "historically outstanding".

History

Matanaka Farm was founded by the Australian whaler Johnny Jones, who had bought the land and an adjoining whaling station in 1838. In April 1840, he brought out about twelve families from Sydney on the ''Magnet'' to settle the farm. The first buildings, including the stables, were built in 1840, using materials brought from Sydney. There are accounts from 1841 that mention a collection of barns and accommodation buildings, which allows researchers to date the buildings to that period. Jones himself moved into the farm's homestead in 1843. His wife, Sarah Sizemore, was said to be known as Cherry, and the nearby

Cherry Farm Hawksbury, also known as Cherry Farm (and sometimes erroneously as "Evansdale"), is a small residential and industrial area in New Zealand, located beside State Highway 1 between Dunedin and Waikouaiti.Sea Container history. Seadog 1979. Place n ...

is apparently named for her. When the settlement 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 ...

began in 1848, Jones supplied the new settlers with produce at a "good price". The Jones family moved to Dunedin for the better education opportunities for their children in 1854. Johnny Jones' son William Jones lived at Matanaka Farm until 1858, and it was passed on to the next generation, John Richard Jones and his wife Mary Orbell, who had Matanaka Farm as their home until 1871. Mary Orbell's brother, McLeod Orbell, then leased the farm until 1878. In February 1878, Matanaka Farm was sold to George McLean. In the late 1880s, McLean leased the farm to Orbell again. Ownership passed in 1892 to the farmer Alexander Bannatyne, whose family owned the farm until 1961. After brief ownership by two individuals, the farm was purchased by Monty Ericson in 1965. The Ericson family gave the Matanaka Farm buildings to the New Zealand Historic Places Trust in 1976. The setting was gazetted as an historic reserve in 1981.

Heritage registration

The land was gazetted as a historic reserve in 1981. The buildings were registered as Category I heritage structures by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust on 11 December 2009 with registration number 7787. The historic homestead is not included in the registration, and is not open to the public. The buildings are the oldest surviving farm buildings in New Zealand that are still in their original position.

References

{{Reflist NZHPT Category I listings in Otago Farms in New Zealand Geography of Otago History of Otago Waikouaiti