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Although Lindsay Kirby’s family “only” arrived on their property on the Mahurangi Harbour in 1886, her family’s connection with that landing spot has remained unbroken for the intervening 137 years.
Lindsay’s forebears, Sarah Jane and Charles Lushington, settled on what was then a 121.5 hectare (300 acre) farm at the eastern end of the Mahurangi Peninsula. Today, the farm covers just 24-hectares and has been farmed by Lindsay and husband Mark for the last 50-odd years.
A feature of the property is the homestead Rodmersham, named after Charles’ home in Kent.
The two-storey, five-bedroom lime cement house, with walls a foot thick, was one of NZ’s grandest colonial homesteads in its day. Its construction included beach sand, shell and shingle from Motuora Island, and lime from the Warkworth kilns up-river.
The exterior plaster had lines drawn on it to simulate masonry and the roof was made of slate, a common ballast cargo of those times, which was replaced by corrugated iron during World War I. Even though some concessions have been made to modern living, the structure has been carefully maintained, so retains an authentic Victorian character.
Charles had the ill fortune to be a passenger on the Kapanui when she was hit by the Claymore and sank in the dark off North Head, Auckland, on 23 December 1905. Being a strong swimmer, he spent a long time in the water rescuing others, but succumbed to pneumonia and died at the relatively young age of 43. Sarah Jane continued to live at Rodmersham until the late 1920s when, aged 82, she decided to move to Remuera.
When she left, she took with her what was then arguably NZ’s finest art collection held in private hands. Charles had inherited the paintings from his father’s estate and they included Judith and Holofernes, by Guido Reni; Samuel Anointing David, by Tiepolo; Rabbi’s Head, by Rembrandt; Siege of Belle Isle by Admiral Keppel, by Serres Dominique; a landscape and a river scene, both by Ruysdael; Conversation Piece, by Watteau; Landscape, by Decker; and Holy Family, by Domenichino. Most of the collection was eventually sold.
Sarah Jane’s widowed sister Theresa Eaton and Theresa’s daughter Ella, who had moved to Mahurangi with the Lushingtons, continued to live at Rodmersham after Sarah Jane’s departure.
Ella later married Harry Wynyard and when Sarah Jane died, childless, she bequeathed Rodmersham to Ella and Harry’s eldest child Gladwyn Lushington Wynyard, Lindsay’s father.
“Dad was only 15 at the time and had just started working at Wrightsons,” Lindsay says.
“Rodmersham has always meant ‘home’ to me. I grew up fishing for snapper off the jetty and for kingfish off the rocks, swimming and sailing there.”
She remembers Fred Anderson’s launch making its daily run up the river, picking up cream and dropping off supplies along the way.
“We’d ring our meat orders into Stubbs Butchery or the grocery order to McDowells in Warkworth, and everything went on the account.
The telephone was a party line and the operator was Mrs Lawrie.
“There were always people coming and going; we never felt isolated. It’s much quieter these days.”
Lindsay and Mark have lived most of their married life on the farm, only leaving in March this year after Lindsay, now 86, suffered a serious injury while driving the farm mule. The accident, which saw her drive over a seawall and land in the water with the mule on top of her, put her in hospital for months. She is recuperating on a farm in Kaipara Flats, but hopes to return to her beloved Rodmersham in the not too distant future.
Although Lindsay and Mark do not have children, she has ensured through her Will that the property will remain in family hands .
Rodmersham adjoins a section of the Mahurangi Regional Park, south of Martins Bay.
Sources, Lindsay Kirby and Cimino Cole.
