Paynes Ford. . . or should that be Paines Ford?
Hamama resident Brian Petterson believes that Paynes Ford is incorrectly spelled. Photo: Gerard Hindmarsh.
Brian Petterson of Hamama, now 78, clearly remembers as a boy the sign that used to stand at the old bridge across the Takaka River, just upstream from the spot now commonly referred to as Paynes Ford. According to him, that sign was clearly spelt Paines Ford, and was named after Barty Paine, who lived in a small house next to the Takaka River crossing.
“Somehow his name got misspelled over the years,” says Brian. “Now everyone uses Paynes with a ‘y’, but I think it’s time it got corrected.”
Upon a little investigation, the evidence supporting the name change is fairly irrefutable. Herbert Sidney Paine, known locally as Barty, was born in 1862. His father was a musical-instrument maker, a talent he passed onto his son, who built his own cello. Barty not only played in a local string orchestra under George Gilbert, but became the second conductor of the Takaka Brass Band when Gilbert retired from that position in 1901. After moving from his house beside the ford on the Takaka River, Barty shifted into a bach on Maori Reserve land on the east side of the Waitapu channel, on land which is now known as Soper’s Hill or Bienn Dobhrain. It was Barty’s job to attend to the beacon light in the channel, rowing out every day as required. The keen gardener, bachelor and master mariner drowned at Waitapu on 16 April, 1937, attempting to cross the channel to get home in a horse-drawn dray. He was 75.
In his 1975 book Golden Bay, JNWS Newport says a number of lives had already been lost at the Paynes (sic) Ford crossing before a bridge was erected there in 1894.
In June 1963, it is recorded that the Commissioner of Crown Lands gave £300 as a contribution for the £450 purchase price paid by the Golden Bay County Council for Irvine’s Bush (from local farmer Murray Irvine), which then became known as Paynes Ford Scenic Reserve. Now administered by DOC, this popular picnic and swimming area is now perhaps better known for its sheer and overhanging limestone crags, now rated as one of the best concentrations of bolted, sport-climbing routes in the country.
DOC area manager John Mason said last week he had been aware of the misspelling of the reserve ever since he retrieved the original file from the Nelson office a couple of years ago.
“I’ve asked around a few people but nobody seems to know how the change in spelling came about, but it has been spelled this way for a very long time. I’ve got a copy of Beyond the Marble Mountain by J Halket Millar at home which was published in 1948, where Paynes Ford is mentioned many times—always with a ‘y’. Even a Tyree photo of horses pulling timber across the Takaka River spells Paynes Ford like this. Any change would have to go through the NZ Geographic Board, and my understanding is that anyone could initiate this.”
Brian Petterson thinks the change can’t come soon enough. “History is recorded in our local place names, so the least we can do is spell them properly. The longer we leave a mistake, the more acceptable it becomes. Surely we owe our pioneering heritage more than a bit of sloppy spelling.”
Gerard Hindmarsh
