Military camp site wins heritage status

REMAINS: The brick wall that remains on the old camp site and was a back stop wall for the firing range. PHOTO/FILE

The old Featherston Military Camp site at Tauherenikau has finally been given the recognition it deserves with news this week Heritage New Zealand has agreed to list it as a Category 1 historic place.

This comes after on-site visits by Heritage New Zealand officials last year and a call by the organisation for written submissions on its proposal to give the site a Category 1 listing.

Wairarapa war historian Neil Frances said yesterday he was delighted with the outcome.

"It is a major, and somewhat belated, recognition of the camp site's historical importance to New Zealand. Not just in a military sense, but also the effect the World War I camp and the prisoner-of-war camp in World War II had at the time," he said.

Mr Frances said the camps had a noticeable impact on the district's population and on the people of Wairarapa who "lived alongside them".

Confirming the camp site would be listed as of February 26, Heritage New Zealand intends to publicly notify its decision and will be making recommendations to South Wairarapa District Council " to ensure the long-term conservation of this place".

"It is also desirable that Sec 575 Featherston SBRN, Wellington Land District, is acquired and set aside as a war memorial site of national significance with provision for on-going maintenance and interpretive signs."

Summarising its decision to allot a Category 1 listing to the camp site, Heritage New Zealand said the construction of the military training camp was an undertaking "unparalleled anywhere in Australasia" and its scale embodied the extent of the country's commitment to fight in an overseas war.

The camp was a dominant feature in Wairarapa between 1916 and 1918 when more than 60,000 men passed through it before seeing active service.

During World War II, a prison camp for Japanese prisoners was set up there and, in 1943, during a riot 48 of them, alongside a New Zealand soldier, were killed.

The site's archaeological significance was recognised back in 2011 when parts of the camp were declared as being archaeologically important, but this week's move goes much further by giving the entire site the highest category value available from Heritage New Zealand.