Mystery of wrecked ship's guns resurfaces

If you happen to have an early 19th-century ship's cannon hidden in your garden shed, Paihia folk would like to know.

They'd also love to know how it got there, and how they managed to lose a pair of signalling cannon from an 1820s shipwreck.

The mystery resurfaced recently when a group of volunteers from Focus Paihia carried out a clean-up of a lookout near Paihia wharf known as Maiki Hill.

An Historic Places Trust plaque there states that the guns from the 1823 wreck of the Brampton were placed on the hill for ceremonial use.

No sign of the cannon can be found now, however, and not even the plinth they were presumably mounted on.

Focus Paihia volunteer Bruce Gordon was sure he could recall a gun on Maiki Hill in the early 1970s, before he left New Zealand for more than 20 years.

"Now I've come back and got involved, I've started to wonder what happened to the cannons," he said.

"They're a significant part of Paihia's history and it would be nice to have them back."

Historian Maureen Yorke, of Haruru Falls, said she could definitely remember seeing one cannon - the plaque states there were more - sited on top of Maiki Hill.

The Historic Places Trust, however, believes the original guns vanished too long ago for anyone to remember seeing them on Maiki Hill.

Northland manager Stuart Park said the cannon were installed by the Rev Henry Williams, founder of Paihia Mission Station, as signalling guns.

They were the Brampton's signalling guns until it ran aground on the shoal near Waitangi that now bears its name. The ship stuck fast, so everything on board was salvaged - including the guns.

Do you know where the guns went? If so, let us know. Email reporters@northernadvocate.co.nz or phone (09) 407 3287.