Notown, 17 miles inland from Greymouth. 1890s.

About this image

Description By 1876 Notown, 17 miles inland from Greymouth, in the Grey Valley, was flourishing as a properly laid-out, booming gold town. A church was considered an essential addition.By 1922 Notown was a ghost town.

Correspondence was entered into with Bishop Philip Viard SM, Wellington, who authorized Patrick Gillan of Kamaka (upstream of Stillwater) to order all building requirements from Auckland and have them shipped to Greymouth. From there they were barged to Kamaka and then taken by sledge miles inland to Notown. Messrs Arnott and Seabrook, a building partnership in Greymouth, erected the church at a cost of £254 and the first Mass was celebrated in 1866 by the foundation priest of Greymouth, Rev. Father Emmanuel Royer, a Frenchman.

By 1922 Notown was a ghost town and the church was disused.Date of Photo1890-99Map^[1]ContributorHistory House Museum Greymouth

Shown in this image

Location (city or town)Notown

Category Information

Category TagTownshipGhost town

From Facebook

LinkFacebookCommentsJohannes Debreuk So where is the cementry in relation to the town.
27 July 2014 at 21:18 · Like

Bob Naisbitt At the back of the town
28 July 2014 at 09:32 · Like

Geoffrey Bell Photo taken in the late 1890's and, if my memory serves me well, the Cemetery is behind where the photo is taken from.
28 July 2014 at 11:12 · Like

Zody Ensor Yes Geoffrey as the town was across the river from the cemetery so this would be looking north east
28 July 2014 at 11:30 · Like

Laura Mills Detlaff Looks semi-derelict even by the late 1890s???

Shelly Baxter Cemetery is still there.

Blake Johnston Ben Williams

Ben Williams Blake Johnston now just a load of gorse

Blake Johnston Ben Williams yeah crazy ay

Shirley Arabin my great grandmother Mary Rice lived there for a few years.

Brian Steele The church was pulled to pieces and re erected at Shanty town.

James Codyre The Catholic church at Notown was shipped down from Auckland in sections...Barged up the Grey River to 12 mile(Kamaka)Mick McLaughlin (My great uncle) paid for it to be moved to Ngahere.Then when it was no longer needed.The Mathews family(more relations)took charge of it.They donated it to Shantytown I think.

Gill Peters My Grandmother Jessie Robertson was born in Notown. Jessie married Scotty Robertson and in the 1930's & 1940's they owned Robertson's Bakery on the corner of Tainui & Thompson Streets. They retired to Christchurch.

Ronald John Amberger My mother's cousins Bill Patterson and Bill Evans,both geologists, drilled and found oil at Notown. Both from the Reefton mining school.

Carolyn Luck My Great Grandparents Emily and Clement Parfitt lived at Notown.
Clement had the first gold dealers licence in the Notown area.
Clement had general stores in Notown, Ahaura, Stillwater, Kamaka, and Kotuku.
Emily on many occasions transported the gold, stitched in the hem of her skirt, first by side saddle to Kamaka and then sometimes by barge to the Banks in Greymouth.
One bank had a ladies room and Emily would undo the hem of her skirt and put the gold in safe keeping at the bank.
Emily and Clement had 10 children, my Grandmother being the only girl and the 8th child. When my Grandmother was born the children at Notown School had a half day holiday as Mrs Parfitt had a baby girl!!

Bruce Dando old pub is still up,

Sandra Douglas We visited the well kept cemetary 3 years ago. A lot of history on headstones.

Mary Moffitt - I heard a story in about 1979 that, after the place became a ghost town, the McVicars, who owned the rights, planned to re-mine the area. There was a very deep gully which had been filled with tailings, and it was rumoured that there was a million dollars worth of gold in that Gully. It seems that contemporary mining practices could extract the gold still remaining in those tailings by early methods. I was surprised that so much could have been missed earlier.
I do not know how much truth is in this story.

Brian Gillooly - Was it not also called Kamaka or is that the area?

OCR Text Transcription Edit Edit +-Close

Editing is temporarily disabled

Cancel Edit

Start typing here to find a location	Latitude	Longitude	Zoom	Actions

loading google map....

Save Cancel

Menu

Notown, 17 miles inland from Greymouth. 1890s.

Editing is temporarily disabled