Longbeach is a lowly populated locality in the

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climat ...

region of

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

South Island The South Island ( , 'the waters of Pounamu, Greenstone') is the largest of the three major islands of New Zealand by surface area, the others being the smaller but more populous North Island and Stewart Island. It is bordered to the north by ...

. It is located in a rural area of the

Canterbury Plains The Canterbury Plains () are an area in New Zealand centred in the Mid Canterbury, to the south of the city of Christchurch in the Canterbury region. Their northern extremes are at the foot of the Hundalee Hills in the Hurunui District, and ...

on the shore of the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

on the northern side of the

Hinds River The Hinds River (Māori: Hekeao) is a river in the Canterbury region of New Zealand. Its north and south branches drain the eastern flank of the Moorhouse Range, part of the Southern Alps, and their confluence is near Anama and Mayfield. T ...

's mouth. Nearby settlements include Waterton and Eiffelton to the north, and on the other side of the Hinds River,

Lowcliffe Lowcliffe is a lightly populated locality in the mid-Canterbury region of New Zealand's South Island. It is situated on the shore of the Pacific Ocean between the mouths of the Hinds and Rangitata Rivers. Nearby settlements include Coldstrea ...

to the west. The small township of Hinds is to the northwest, while the nearest significantly sized town is Ashburton, further north. There is a Longbeach School, though it is actually located in nearby Willowby rather than Longbeach. It was formed when three local schools amalgamated in 2000 and caters for students in grades 1 to 8. In the 1860s, there was a proposal to build the

Main South Line The Main South Line, sometimes referred to as part of the South Island Main Trunk Railway, is a railway line that runs north and south from Lyttelton, New Zealand, Lyttelton in New Zealand through Christchurch and along the east coast of the ...

railway between

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

and

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; ) is the second-most populous city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from ("fort of Edin"), the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of S ...

on a

coast A coast (coastline, shoreline, seashore) is the land next to the sea or the line that forms the boundary between the land and the ocean or a lake. Coasts are influenced by the topography of the surrounding landscape and by aquatic erosion, su ...

al route that would have passed through Longbeach, but this was abandoned in favour of a more inland route through Ashburton that had easier river crossings. However, Longbeach continued to lobby for a railway. In 1878, a proposal was made to extend the Southbridge Branch from Southbridge across the

Rakaia River The Rakaia River is in the Canterbury Plains in New Zealand's South Island. The Rakaia River is one of the largest braided rivers in New Zealand. The Rakaia River has a mean flow of and a mean annual seven-day low flow of . In the 1850s, Europ ...

to Longbeach and Waterton. It was primarily intended to serve agricultural interests in the area. Although an appropriate location for a bridge was found, the government never acted on the proposal and it lapsed.

Historic buildings

Several buildings on the Longbeach station are classified as

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; in ) is a Crown entity that advocates for the protection of Archaeology of New Zealand, ancest ...

historic places: the two storied brick cookshop, waterwheel, homestead, stables, chapel and cob cottage. The brick buildings were built of bricks manufactured at a steam-powered brickworks at Eiffelton. The original wooden and corrugated iron woolshed was built in the 1880s.

Demographics

Longbeach is part of the Eiffelton statistical area.

References

{{Ashburton District, New Zealand Ashburton District Populated places in the Canterbury Region