The Stone Store in Kerikeri showing the lintels were compatible with a Hawkesbury Sandstone source. In the background is the equally historic Kemp House, made from wood. Photo/Heritage NZ.
New insights into the geological whakapapa of some of the materials used in New Zealand’s oldest stone building are cementing transtasman connections between Kerikeri and, quite literally, cousins across the sea.
It’s well known that Sydney sandstone (or Hawkesbury Sandstone of Triassic age for the technically minded) used by the Church Missionary Society missionaries for lintels and other decorative features of the Kerikeri Stone Store originated from New South Wales.
However, recent research combining family history undertaken by descendants of missionary James Shepherd, with geological analysis, has come close to pinpointing the exact location in New South Wales where the sandstone came from. It is in the Ryde area.
Missionary James Shepherd arrived in New Zealand in 1820, returned to Australia briefly at the end of that year, got married and returned to New Zealand in early 1821. He had horticultural and farming skills and also quickly became proficient in te reo Māori.
In 1833, he and his wife, Harriet, were relocated to Kerikeri where he managed the original trading store while the Stone Store was being constructed. Today, the Stone Store is cared for by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga and is a Tohu Whenua.
“This put James at the centre of the construction of the Stone Store, a significant factor when it comes to explaining the origins of the building’s sandstone features,” says Shepherd descendant and Whangaroa resident, Denis Winters. He is about to publish a book entitled Through Shepherd’s Gate, which tells in novel form some of the stories of his Shepherd ancestors.
James Shepherd maintained a close relationship with his father, James Shepherd snr, an ex-convict who successfully farmed near Kissing Point, at Shepherd’s Bay on the Parramatta River about half way between the settlement of Sydney and Parramatta.
“Family history records that James snr hit on the idea of growing much-needed vegetables and oranges, as well as raising sheep and cattle on the fertile soil of their farm, then shipping the produce down the river to Sydney,” says Winters.
“Despite his criminal past, James snr developed a strong friendship with Reverend Samuel Marsden, who was the head of the Church Missionary Society and who established missions at Kerikeri and other parts of New Zealand.”
A lesser-known fact is the Shepherd family had a sandstone quarry on their farm near Kissing Point which served as a source of stone for a number of local buildings in the nearby town of Ryde, including St Anne’s Church, Addington and The Retreat.
According to Winters, it is reasonable to think the source of quality Sydney sandstone on the Shepherd farm in New South Wales might have been top of James junior’s mind, given he was living in Kerikeri at the time the Stone Store was being constructed.
Family history in both New Zealand and Australia again records there is a high likelihood that is exactly how things played out.
One hundred-year-old Bob Shepherd, a descendant of Isaac Shepherd, remembers family talk on the subject. Isaac was the brother of the missionary James Shepherd, who carried on the farming and the quarry for the Shepherd family.
His nephew, Stewart MacLenna, shared a story he heard about the Shepherd quarry sandstone from his Uncle Bob, being shipped to Kerikeri for the Stone Store. It was likely being used as ballast on Marsden’s ship, the Active, when it sailed to New Zealand.
“Given the Shepherd family connection with both the Stone Store and the existing source of sandstone; the close relationship between mission head Samuel Marsden and James Shepherd snr, and the comparative ease it would have been to source sandstone through the family.
“Remember that communication between New South Wales and New Zeaalnd was extremely limited so it makes sense that James junior would have gone with the known, logistically easy and possibly the cheapest option of sourcing his sandstone from the family quarry.”
Recent geological analysis appears to support that conclusion.
“We were fortunate to visit relatives in New South Wales recently and while there we visited some of the buildings that were built from the Shepherd sandstone and met members of the Ryde District Historical Society who were really helpful,” says Winters.
Members of the Society took Denis and Melanie Winters around some of Ryde’s historic sandstone buildings and a piece of rubble was obtained at one of them and taken to New Zealand for testing.
The sample was examined by Kerikeri-based geologist Dr Ross Ramsay, who then went to the Stone Store to take a closer look at some of the sandstone features through a powerful hand lens.
According to Ramsay, the original sandstone lintels at the store comprised a well-sorted biotite-bearing quartz sandstone, which compared with the sample from Ryde, Sydney. He concluded that the stone source for the lintels at the Stone Store, Kerikeri was not incompatible with a Hawkesbury Sandstone source.
“Whether it came from the Shepherd farm I cannot tell, but there was no evidence that it did not,” he said.
The emerging back story behind the source of the sandstone used on the Stone Store goes to show that with history there is always something new to learn, says Heritage New Zealand Northland manager Bill Edwards.
He says one possible next step might be to research Church Mission Society records in search of any correspondence from James Shepherd requesting a quantity of sandstone.
“It’s been a fascinating process to see how family history and now scientific analysis have come together to show the general location of the source of the sandstone and to suggest it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that it was quarried from the Shepherd family farm,” he says.
“We may never know with absolute certainty but there are strong indicators of a family link to the sandstone used in New Zealand’s oldest and most iconic stone building.”