New Stories of the Old West Heritage Conference

Sandra Coney is an independent on the Future West team, with 15 years’ experience representing Waitakere on Council. Sandra has particular interests in the environment, heritage and public parks. She also chairs the Council’s WW1 commemoration committee. 

Well, yesterday, we had our first “New Stories of the Old West” heritage conference as part of the Auckland Heritage Festival. Funded by the Waitakere Ranges Local Board, over 120 people attended and enjoyed plenary sessions, workshops, displays and networking among people who love the heritage of the west. This was judged an “outstanding success” by those attending and the congratulatory emails are coming in to the Board.This has to be the highlight of the term in which the Future West-led Waitakere Ranges Local Board has really built up its heritage focus in the last three years.The Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Act 2008 required the Auckland Council to monitor progress under the Act. The first Monitoring Report in 2013 reported that there was a great deal of scope for prioritising heritage for the next monitoring report due in 2017.When the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan was being developed, the Local Board discovered that most of the identified heritage sites in the heritage area had not made their way into the PAUP because the data was too old and imprecise. The sites had not been GPS’d and their condition was unknown, the last survey being in the 1970s.For the last three years the Board has funded ($60,000 annually) the revisiting of all the data, with the Heritage Department of Council revisiting the locations of sites on the databases to check how accurate they are, record their condition and the extent of the site.So far they have done the Manukau Harbour coast from Green Bay to Whatipu. They have found that many sites were inaccurately recorded – sometime land sites were out in the sea - and the extent of the sites needed correction. They have also determined that some sites have been damaged or have disappeared through coastal erosion and parks’ management practices, while they have found new sites, particularly very good middens previously unknown.This work is set to continue in the new term, with the focus being on the West Coast. Gradually the records are being cleaned up. As we embark on the second Monitoring Report, we are much better placed to report on the cultural and historic heritage aspect of the responsibilities the Act places on Auckland Council.This is the major piece of heritage work the Board has funded, but it is not the only one.We have also carried out a number of activities with our communities around heritage. The historic Lopdell House and Treasure House were reopened after restoration and seismic strengthening. The Board also made a grant to the trustees of the unique Soldiers’ Memorial Church in Park Road, Titirangi, so they could commission a history prior to carrying out restoration work at the church.The Board is lucky to have within its borders Waikumete Cemetery – at 109 ha, the largest cemetery in New Zealand and the largest military cemetery.  We have established and maintain close relationships with the cemetery management, with  regular meetings. We have been really pleased that the new management is taking such good care of the cemetery, which contains so much of the region’s heritage, but also is a wonderful open space asset for people living around it. For that to work well, the cemetery has to be a safe and welcoming place.A cemetery management plan has been completed in this term and the Board has given a grant of $10,000 to Friends of Waikumete Cemetery, to write and publish a book on the military aspects of Waikumete, and this project is well under way.  We also contributed $2000 to a Friends of Waikumete Cemetery project to restore the Wallis angel, a wonderful example of funerary statuary that was threatening to tip over and fall.We supported the restoration of James Cross’s grave after it was trashed by vandals. James was a seaman on HMS Orlando and drowned in Auckland Harbour in 1894. At the time his shipmates paid for a lovely marble headstone. The cemetery management and community really came together to fund the replacement of James’ headstone which was unveiled two weeks ago. I joined the cemetery staff and supporters on one of the fund-raising efforts, a walkathon around the cemetery – one circuit takes an hour.In early 2016 we held the first Waikumete Cemetery Open Day, in partnership with Friends of Waikumete, Urupa Committee, RSAs, and the library, events and cemetery teams. We think the first cemetery “open day” in New Zealand. Once again, the community came together to offer walks, talks, grave digging and Muslim burials demonstrations, “find-a-grave”, visits to the cremator, and demos of how to care for heritage graves and so on. This is something we can hold again in two years’ time.It is all about fostering appreciation of our heritage places and supporting the connection of our present communities with their ancestors in the cemetery.As well as the cemetery book, we have helped fund a number of other projects, including a publication about Maori at Huia, and a history of Exhibition Drive, and a reprint of a book about the original land purchases in Waitakere. We also cleaned up and restored the Soldiers’ Memorial Reserve at Titirangi and restored the viewshaft to the Manukau Harbour. Interpretation was installed at this site, and we also supported the interpretation of the radar station site at Piha, and on the old radiohouse, now the cookhouse in Piha Domain.We have had quite a focus on WW1 as this is the centenary period. I chaired the WW1 Political Steering Group for Council and also served on the Memorial Working Party, working on a memorial for Auckland for the centenary. Board member, Neil Henderson, was also on the WW1 PSG.In our area, we have held three concerts by the Royal New Zealand Artillery Band, the first in Titirangi, the second in Swanson and the third in mid-September commemorating the Somme, held at the Playhouse Theatre in Glen Eden.These three events feature an hour long concert, followed by afternoon tea, all free. There are also displays at the concerts about local men who served and died in WW1. We have also had workshops and displays at our local libraries about WW1 and we funded the purchase of some display panels for libraries and the digitising of some important historic resources held by Titirangi RSA.Restoration work was carried out on the memorial school gates at Oratia School and also the memorial at Glen Eden School. The Board also made a grant to the trustees of the unique Soldiers’ Memorial Church in Park Road, Titirangi, so they could commission a history prior to carrying out restoration work at the church. Another initiative was the naming of streets in the new Penihana development after men from Swanson who died in WW1.In 2016, Boffa Miskell was contracted to work on a Heritage Assessment for Swanson as an area facing a great deal of change. The idea was that by surveying the heritage we could ensure the history of the area informed new development, with a Design Guide being a key tool that would come out of the process. The project was kicked off with a community workshop at Swanson which was open to anyone to attend.Boffa Miskell is also undertaking iwi engagement, and separately, Te Kawerau a Maki has offered to provide a Cultural Heritage Report detailing their affiliations with the area. Their report will be included as an appendix to the Historic Context document.When it comes to reporting progress on heritage for the next monitoring report, I am confident under the Future West team we can report great progress in celebrating heritage in our area, as well as updating the essential “nuts and bolts” work that needs to underpin our protection of heritage.Sandra ConeySandra is currently seeking re-election to the Waitakere Ranges Local Board along with her fellow Future West candidates.  She is also standing for the Portage Licensing Trust and District Health Board.

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