By Melissa Moxzon
HAMILTON - A part of Hamilton's military history hidden under the floorboards of St Peter's Anglican Cathedral has become a mini tourist attraction for parishioners.
In the past few weeks about 50 people have clambered through a trapdoor near the choir seats to see the remains of redoubt trenches
from the Land Wars of the 1860s and 1880s.
The cathedral was built in 1915 on a hill at the south end of the city that had been a storage, administration and accommodation redoubt for the British Army. It supported Moule's Redoubt across the Waikato River, which guarded the waterway used by Maori war parties travelling north.
A church member and amateur historian, Paul Day, said that instead of filling the three trenches, the cathedral foundations were made twice as high in places to reach the bottom of the metre-deep channels.
Church members were always aware of the trenches, but it was not until part of the floor was raised in the 1970s that it was possible to get to them.
The builder who raised the floor, Tom Hodgson, said the recent resurgence in interest came after Second World War veterans talked to the church youth group about their experiences.
Old soldiers were asked if they had fought in trenches and the teenagers were told about the channels under the floorboards and a style of fighting that was a forerunner to the trench warfare of the First World War.
They were given a tour and a week ago the trapdoor was opened again in answer to popular demand.
The land was covered in gorse and blackberry when the cathedral was built and Mr Day said that after the Army left, the hilltop had been a dumping ground for spare telegraph poles and materials.
He said it was not certain the trenches related to the redoubt, but the evidence was fairly strong because nothing else had been built on the site.
