Staveley is a small township in the

Ashburton District Ashburton District is a Districts of New Zealand, territorial authority district in the Canterbury Region of the South Island of New Zealand. It encompasses the town of Ashburton, New Zealand, Ashburton, a number of small towns and settlements an ...

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 ...

, New Zealand.

Geography

Staveley is named for Robert Staveley, who was a runholder in the area and who had his farm in this location. Staveley is located on the

Inland Scenic Route The Inland Scenic Route is a touring route in Canterbury, New Zealand. In the north, the route starts in Amberley and in the south, it ends at Orari Bridge where it meets State Highway 79 (SH 79). It is on the New Zealand Automobile Asso ...

, which is the former State Highway 72. Staveley is located on 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 ...

, in the foothills of the

Southern Alps The Southern Alps (; officially Southern Alps / Kā Tiritiri o te Moana) are a mountain range extending along much of the length of New Zealand, New Zealand's South Island, reaching its greatest elevations near the range's western side. The n ...

. Adjacent localities are Bushside to the north-east,

Springburn Springburn () is an inner-city district in the north of the Scottish city of Glasgow, made up of generally working-class households. Springburn developed from a rural hamlet at the beginning of the 19th century. Its industrial expansion began ...

to the south-east, and Buccleuch to the south, all between away. Springburn was the terminus of the Mount Somers Branch from 1889 to 1957.

Town facilities

In the centre of the township, there is a shop and cafe, an old school that now functions as a museum, a small church, a hall, and a small number of houses. The museum holds photos and artefacts of settlements in the vicinity of Mount Somers / Te Kiekie, a peak of that is the backdrop to this part of the Canterbury Plains. Staveley Camp is located on Sawmill Road and is available to groups only. The facility is owned by the Mid Canterbury District Bible group, who purchased the site in 1959 and constructed buildings (bunk houses, a kitchen, and meeting rooms) in 1971.

Attractions

In 1949, locals built a natural

ice rink An ice rink (or ice skating rink) is a frozen body of water or an artificial sheet of ice where people can ice skate or play winter sports. Ice rinks are also used for exhibitions, contests and ice shows. The growth and increasing popularity of ...

. On busy days, the facility has hundreds of visitors. Staveley has two historic

lime kiln A lime kiln is a kiln used for the calcination of limestone (calcium carbonate) to produce the form of lime called ''quicklime'' (calcium oxide). The chemical equation for this reaction is: CaCO3 + heat → CaO + CO2 This reaction can tak ...

s. The older one, believed to have been constructed prior to 1890, was damaged in the

2010 Canterbury earthquake The 2010 Canterbury earthquake (also known as the Darfield earthquake) struck the South Island of New Zealand with a moment magnitude scale, moment magnitude of 7.1 at on , and had a maximum perceived intensity of X (''Extreme'') on the Mercal ...

and has since been closed. The other one was built in 1898 and can be visited by the public, with sign posts in Staveley giving directions to the site. Ross Cottage at 63 Flynns Road is a historic cottage. In 1990, it was registered by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust (since renamed to

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 ...

) as a Category II structure with registration number 5121.

References

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