Bureta Farm in Tauranga (1900-1974)

The Fiji connection
The name Bureta has been used for this part of the Ōtūmoetai peninsula since 1900 when the land was bought by Bowyer Corbett, a planter from Fiji.

In the beginning
Early plans show that 110 acres of the 140‐acre farm were bought by Thomas Craig. Thirty acres were later purchased from the Māori owners to whom they had been granted after the land confiscation in 1865. The whole area was turned into productive farmland by well‐known Tauranga settlers, including Captain Clarke, A.C. Turner, Rev. T. Gellibrand, and Captain Crapp.

Bureta Farm
In 1900, 43‐year‐old Bowyer Corbett left a successful career in Fiji—where he had lived for some 30 years—for the sake of his health. The name Bureta (pronounced “Mbureta” in Fijian) comes from the island of Ovalau where he settled. A Fijian specialist suggests the translation is “muddy water.” Corbett took up farming in Ōtūmoetai, but despite the change of climate, he died in April 1909. His wife, Eileen, remarried and, with her husband Caldwell Ashworth, retained ownership of Bureta until 1914 when they moved—first to Ngawaro, and later to Norfolk Island. At the time of the clearing sale in 1914, the Ashworths had 45 choice dairy cows. They were also part of the social scene and entertained members of the Waikato Hunt on the farm in 1912.

Dairying at Bureta
In the early 1920s the farm was owned by Murray Munro, whose sons transported cream from the farm by buggy on their way to Ōtūmoetai School. The cream was placed on a large cream stand at the northeast corner of Grange and Ōtūmoetai Roads, from where Dinsdale’s truck collected it to take to the dairy factory on 11th Avenue.

From 1924 to 1929, the Blaker family was allowed to occupy a cottage on the site of an ancient fortified pā, in an area then known as The Terrace (later as The Plateau). Acklam Avenue now runs along the centre of the pā site, which is bounded by Ngatai Road and the golf course. The cottage had belonged to a failed poultry farmer, who had placed his incubators in the protection of the inner trench, covering them with only a malthoid roof.

Drainage was always a problem on the farm. Millions of mosquitoes bred in the swampy areas, emerging at night to torment the Blakers. Before 1924, one notable sight was the “frogs’ pond” – a swampy, raupo-filled area where the main drain widened before discharging into the harbour. At times, where it crossed the beach, the water was up to 30 cm deep and 2 metres wide. This stream was an obstacle to Ōtūmoetai walkers and cyclists taking the beach route to town. In the 1940s, a neighbour, Frank Julian, placed a stout board (sometimes washed away) across the stream above the high water mark. A permanent bridge was constructed by the Ōtūmoetai Rotary Club in 1986.

Farm location from an old interpretaiton panel

The Fells
Another notable owner of Bureta was Commander D.M. Fell, a retired British naval officer, who took over the property in September 1926. The Fells returned to Britain about 12 years later. Their son, Anthony—who later became a Member of Parliament—took every opportunity to support New Zealand’s trading interests, threatened by Britain’s possible entry into the European Common Market. On one occasion, he left the House of Commons in tears, so strong was his concern for the country in which he had grown up.

Rushton and the Sicklings
Walter Rushton—after whom Rushton Avenue is named—along with his son-in-law John Sickling and John’s brother George, purchased the farm (then 147½ acres) in 1938. With about 140 cows, Bureta became a town supply farm around 1941. When the supply quota was exceeded, the extra cream went to the dairy factory and the skimmed milk to pigs on a temporary basis. In addition to dairying, the farm produced crops such as potatoes, maize, kale, turnips, mangolds, and chou mollier. The Sickling children helped with haymaking and earned pocket money by selling pine cones and mushrooms collected on the farm.

The “Remuera of Tauranga”
Subdivision began in 1947, with the sale of sections on the eastern harbour front. Although land sales price control (abolished by 1950) delayed subdivision of the rest of the farm, the incorporation of eastern Ōtūmoetai into Tauranga Borough in 1949—with increased rates—compelled it. Advertised as “Bureta Estate”, the “Remuera of Tauranga”, 63 sections were offered for sale on 3 June 1950, with prices realised ranging from £240 to £910. In 1952, Jack Benham, who had surveyed the subdivision, purchased the old homestead.

Anyone for Golf?
Golf was played on the farm during the Ashworths’ residence around 1912. In the early 1950s, Tauranga Borough Council considered turning the swampy land (acquired as part of the reserve contribution and initially known as Ōtūmoetai Reserve, later as Bureta Park) into a park featuring a lake. However, strong protests from local residents about the mosquito problem led the council to favour a public golf course, which opened in 1956. The Ōtūmoetai Golf Club was formed in May 1964 with 25 members; a lease was granted in 1969 and improvements began—gums and pines were cut down and thousands of cubic metres of fill were added to the course.

School, Homes or Hotel?
When the farm was subdivided, the area that had been the heifers’ paddock in the 1920s was taken by the government as an education reserve for a Catholic secondary school. By the late 1960s, the Church found that filling the land to meet Tauranga City Council requirements would be too expensive, and the land reverted to the Lands and Survey Department. The Housing Corporation then planned a subdivision for State Houses, but when the sections were flooded by rainwater after Beazley Homes Ltd began work, the Corporation abandoned the plan and the land returned to the Lands and Survey Department.

In 1969, a committee was established to investigate forming a licensing trust for Ōtūmoetai. The former education reserve was chosen; during the filling of the swamp, thousands of eels escaped and made their way down the drains to the sea or into Māori cooking pots. Building commenced in 1973, and the Hotel opened on 25 May 1974. The Ōtūmoetai Trust was bought in 1996 by the Tauranga Charitable Trust and renamed Bureta Park Motor Inn.