Our Heritage Sites

Mangatangi School

Mangatangi School
Application to the Education Board for a school was made in 1918 by Mr. George Stubbs of the Mangatangi Land Company and the first school was opened on this property in 1919.

The original building was a two room, lean to building previously used as a weekend bach by Mr. Hutchinson, an Auckland grocer. The building was adjacent to the Kershaw home.

Miss Ruth Appleton was appointed as head teacher with a first day roll of 9 pupils.

With a growing roll an application for a new school in permanent buildings was made and this school opened in July 1923 with Mr. Richard A Henderson as head teacher, with a roll of nearly thirty. The property of 2 hectares was donated by the Mangatangi Land Company.

Post and Telegraph Office
Richard William Bentley purchase 460 acres (185 hectares) in 1898 and in 1910 established the Post and Telegraph office with Mrs. Bentley as Post Mistress.

A telegraph line of sorts had first been erected in 1863 to connect the Redoubt at Miranda to the headquarters of General Cameron at Pokeno

The telegraph line had been extended to Thames as an essential communications link with the town of Thames which was booming following the discovery of gold in the Coromandel Ranges.

Mr. Bentley sold the property to Mr. Tom Hutchinson and then retired to Papatoetoe where he died in 1962 at the respectable age of 92. The Bentley homestead was destroyed by fire in 1958.

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