Motumaoho is a small village in the Waikato region of New Zealand'sNorth Island, just to the west of the Pakaroa Range. It is on SH26, east of Hamilton and west of Morrinsville. The village is bordered by the Waitakaruru Stream to the east. Motumaoho can be translated as an intruding clump of trees. It once had a cheese factory, post office, railway station and garage, but now has only greenhouses, a school and houses. A hall was open in 1917 https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WT19170220.2.36 1925. 1928.
History
The area was sparsely occupied by Ngāti Werewere of Ngāti Hauā. The nearest known archaeological site is just over the confiscation line and county boundary, about 5km towards Eureka, where a ringditchpā, Mangao Tupua, is on a small knoll at the foot of the Pakaroa Range. Some early European traders are believed to have traversed the district prior to 1834, when the missionary, John Morgan, travelled up the Piako River and crossed to Horotiu. The 1860s saw an influx of European settlers to the area and, on 13 December 1873, a settler from Auckland, Thomas Morrin, purchased Kuranui No.1 Block. In May 1874, he bought two further blocks, Motumaoho No.1 and No.2, and hired Irish navvies from the gold fields to dig a network of ditches to drain the land, enabling it to be used for agriculture. In 1873 Motumaoho was described as being near Hangawera, a hill over 10km to the north, there being no other settlements in the area. The other large holding in the area was Norfolk Downs. That estate was divided into smaller farms about 1911, after which there was some growth in the population.
Motumaoho Swamp
A 1963 study found much of the vegetation on Motumaoho swamp, to the north of the railway, remained as it had when it built up the peat bogs over about 13,000 years, the two dominant species being giant wire rush and wire rush. However, since then, additional drains have been put in and, by 1998, Valentine Rd had been extended across the area. The study also looked at Moanatuatua swamp, which became a scientific reserve in 1980. Floods still occur.
Cheese factory
The centre of the village is dominated by the former cheese factory. A New Zealand Dairy Association dairy was built in 1910. The cheese factory was described as new in 1912, saying the Waikato Dairy Association's offer to build and run it was accepted. However, in 1929 the cheese factory had on its wall - Norfolk Coop Dairy Co estd. 1916. The Norfolk Co-operative Dairy Company was formed in 1915, with 22 suppliers. Electric power was connected in 1923, when a new factory was approved. It was working by 1924. Norfolk Co-operative Dairy Company, Limited merged into Morrinsville Co-operative Dairy Company, Limited in 1946. The factory closed in 1983. The derelict building remains and, between 2010 and 2014, a rusting Bedford OB bus was parked beside it.
Flax
In 1926 Palmerston North-based flax miller, Fred Seifert, formed a company to develop of former dairy and scrubland north of Motumaoho. He hoped to build a mill in 1929, but an old flax mill was demolished in 1928 and a shareholders tour in 1929 failed to raise capital, so no more was heard of the prothe eastect.
By 1891 41 people were living in Motumaoho and, though the 1896 census recorded only 7, 215 were in the 1916 census. The current population has shrunk, the main part of the village, near the old dairy, being in meshblock 1091200, which had these census figures -
Year
Population
Median age
Households
Median income
National median
2001
87
26.5
27
$17,500
$18,500
2006
96
27
30
$25,800
$24,100
2013
78
32.2
27
$36,300
$27,900
Education
Motumaoho School is on SH26. It had a roll of 33 in 2017 and has 3 teachers. In 1923 it had 70 children. A request for a school was made in Parliament in 1910 and a one roomed school opened in 1912. In 1969 it was replaced by a school with a small library and a staff-room transported from Ohautira. Later changes added a library, which had been the Post Office, and a front deck.
Commerce
Agriculture, at 56.9%, was the main occupation in 2013 in Tahuroa census area.
Quarry
The only other significant remaining occupation is quarrying. At the end of Harbottle Road, on the slopes of the Pakaroa Range, about south of Motumaoho, Winstone Aggregates supplies road stone. The quarry contains the index fossil, minotis, dating from the middleJurassic, Norian age. The quarry was first developed for road stone by Piako County Council in 1924 on land they leased.
Transport
Road
SH26 through the village was sealed in about 1929. Traffic volumes have increased from 4,397 in 2008 to 4,812 in 2015.
Railway
Motumaoho railway station was a flag station on the East Coast Main Trunk line, about north of the village. It opened on 1 October 1884 and closed to passengers on 31 July 1967 and to goods on 27 May 1973. It had a goods shed and cattle yard, the latter built after 1936. The line is on a rising gradient from Morrinsville.
Incidents
On 6 August 1959 Leslie George Kelly, an engine driver and Māori author, was killed in a head-on collision at Motumaoho. A wagon fell on the train crew after they'd jumped from their east-bound train.
