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Denniston: A Working Town
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DescriptionDenniston was always a working town; its life was the coal.
The community at Denniston served no other purpose than to support the operations of the coal mines and the incline. Once the road was put through, people started to drift off Denniston to the warmer climate of Waimangaroa since it is said that the weather on Denniston is not for the faint of heart and is not the place many would consider to be an idyllic existence.
The first of Denniston's communities to suffer the pinch were quite naturally the smaller settlements such as Burnett’s Face, the town half a mile up the plateau, whose main road was the constantly running narrow gauge skipway linking the coal face with the Bins at the head of the Denniston Incline.
Burnett's Face was always a rough and ready outpost on the edge of civilisation, and by the 1950s little remained of the settlement. The skipway which had been used to convey coal from the mines to Denniston since the early days of the Denniston Incline, was replaced in 1952 with an aerial ropeway.
By the 1960s the writing was on the wall for the Denniston Incline and the decision was taken to close it by 1969, the actual last day of operation being 16 August 1967.
The Conns Creek branch which connected to the foot of the incline was cut back to a siding about 1 mile long where the coal was loaded from trucks. A few months later the aerial ropeway from the mines also closed down in favour of direct trucking of coal from the mine to Waimangaroa.
In May 1968 the Inangahua earthquake caused much damage to the incline, making the closure irreversible.
With declining coal markets, and the fact the system was almost entirely reliant on the outdated "Q Class Wagons", it was seen to be more cost effective to truck any remaining coal from the plateau down the hill via the public road, rather than rebuild the Incline.
Thus what was once described as the "Eighth Wonder of the World" by locals, faded into history. An estimated 12 million tons of coal was carried in the incline's working life
Map[1]
The community at Denniston served no other purpose than to support the operations of the coal mines and the incline. Once the road was put through, people started to drift off Denniston to the warmer climate of Waimangaroa since it is said that the weather on Denniston is not for the faint of heart and is not the place many would consider to be an idyllic existence.
The first of Denniston's communities to suffer the pinch were quite naturally the smaller settlements such as Burnett’s Face, the town half a mile up the plateau, whose main road was the constantly running narrow gauge skipway linking the coal face with the Bins at the head of the Denniston Incline.
Burnett's Face was always a rough and ready outpost on the edge of civilisation, and by the 1950s little remained of the settlement. The skipway which had been used to convey coal from the mines to Denniston since the early days of the Denniston Incline, was replaced in 1952 with an aerial ropeway.
By the 1960s the writing was on the wall for the Denniston Incline and the decision was taken to close it by 1969, the actual last day of operation being 16 August 1967.
The Conns Creek branch which connected to the foot of the incline was cut back to a siding about 1 mile long where the coal was loaded from trucks. A few months later the aerial ropeway from the mines also closed down in favour of direct trucking of coal from the mine to Waimangaroa.
In May 1968 the Inangahua earthquake caused much damage to the incline, making the closure irreversible.
With declining coal markets, and the fact the system was almost entirely reliant on the outdated "Q Class Wagons", it was seen to be more cost effective to truck any remaining coal from the plateau down the hill via the public road, rather than rebuild the Incline.
Thus what was once described as the "Eighth Wonder of the World" by locals, faded into history. An estimated 12 million tons of coal was carried in the incline's working life
Map[1] Photograph
Relates to
Location (city or town)DennistonLandmark (Place)Denniston Incline
Landmark (Place)Denniston InclineCategory Information
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West Coast New Zealand History (30th Apr 2015). Denniston: A Working Town. In Website West Coast New Zealand History. Retrieved 24th Mar 2026 18:16, from https://westcoast.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/1086