Whanganui contractors unearth wooden drain from early 20th century

A 13m wooden drain from the early 20th century has been found under Moana St in Whanganui East.

Contractors replacing a stretch of sewerage pipe on Nixon Street in Whanganui have unearthed an old tōtara drain.

The 13m wooden box drain was found by Loaders Whanganui on the Moana St/Nixon St intersection, with Archaeology North’s Hamish Crimp saying it was built in the early 20th century.

“Whanganui East used to be its own borough and had its own council - Eastbrook, then Wanganui East - and we know that in the early 1900s, it was ordering lots of tōtara planking for building culverts,” he said.

“At that point in time, Whanganui East was growing very quickly, and once the tram arrived in 1914 it grew even quicker.”

It merged with the Wanganui Borough Council in 1912.

Last year, work on stage one of the sewerage project was slowed after contractors from Parkinson and Holland hit 4575-year-old tōtara at a depth of around 8m, continuously jamming the company’s boring machine.

Crimp said the drain, discovered 60-70cm under the road’s surface, was an interesting example of early Whanganui infrastructure.

“It’s amazing the timber has survived under the ground for that long,” he said.

“It’s not as old as the tōtara found earlier, but at that time [the early 20th century], they were milling trees in excess of 2000 years old.

“We do know the council was ordering second-grade tōtara for their culverts, so it wasn’t the nicely finished stuff.”

Crimp said the drain was one of several historic drainage features uncovered during council infrastructure works in Whanganui this year.

In May, a brick box drain was uncovered on Wilson Street and a concrete culvert associated with the Whanganui tramways network was discovered on Puriri Street.

The brick drain was around 150 years old, with the bricks probably made locally from clay.

Crimp said Nixon Street was formed during the 19th century as one of the main routes leading from the Whanganui River towards No. 3 Line and on to Okoia.

It was named after prominent early European landowner Major John Nixon, whose property, known as Sedgebrook, once occupied the area.

The portion of Moana Street the wood box drain crossed was originally part of Gellatly Street, which was merged with adjoining Scott and Ikamoana Streets to form Moana Street in 1918.

He said the part of the road where the drain was located had been slumping in recent years and no one knew why.

“What had happened was the drain had filled with silt and the timber was starting to rot away.

“The fill they had put in over 100 years ago wasn’t very firm.

“Now, it’s been removed and the road has been repaired. The slump has disappeared.”

He said Archaeology North and Whanganui District Council had a good working relationship and contractors were also great to deal with.

“A lot of them have ties to Whanganui and have been around here a long time, so they find stuff like this fascinating.

“For this [drain], I was pretty much in and out in a morning.

“Ideally, we like to leave archaeological features in situ if we can, but in this case, it was obviously causing problems with the road and needed to come out.”

Crimp said everything uncovered during the Nixon St project, including the ancient tōtara and shell midden deposits and cooking fires associated with pre-European Māori settlement, would be presented in a final report, available for the public online.

Mike Tweed is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present, his focus is local government, primarily Whanganui District Council.