York Road (Midhirst)

The story of how York Road got its name appears to be lost to history. However, in the area north of Midhirst, many of the roads are named after towns in England, hence it’s most probable York Road was named after the historic town of York.

Many of the original settlers on the road were Polish immigrants. They bought blocks of land in the 1870s, when the road was merely marked on a survey map and all the land was covered in bush. Once the land was cleared, dairying predominated. In 1897, a creamery was built at the intersection of York and Derby Roads.

An ongoing problem in the Taranaki area during these years was the lack of rock to make road metal. A suitable rock was found at the head of the Manganui River, which flows parallel to York Road. In 1901, an appeal was made to government to open a quarry at the location. On approval, a crusher was built, and a railway line, to transport the crushed rock to the small settlement of Waipuku, on the main road. The railway line was completed in 1908 and soon sixty men were producing about forty truckloads of crushed rock every day.

With all the work going on in the area, the dramatic population increase meant a school was necessary. Opened in 1909, the school on York Road had two teachers and forty pupils.

World War One meant a shortage of manpower and the quarry fell into disuse. After the war, several other quarries were opened in Taranaki and the Manganui quarry never fully restarted, despite providing some rock for a development at Port Taranaki. Abandoned sometime after 1925, within a few years the derelict quarry and the railway line were derided by many as a ‘white elephant’.

The school was closed in 1939. Much of the railway line was removed during the Second World War, for use elsewhere.

Today, the York Road loop track takes hikers on a trail around the old quarry’s remaining features.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.