History – Birth of the Bridgehouse

The site on which the modern Bridgehouse hotel stands in Warkworth is significant because it marks the spot of the earliest European habitation in the area. A police census in 1845 found 30 males and five females residing at Mahurangi Sawing Station (Brown’s Mill). The accommodation differed greatly from that which is offered today. Henry Pulham described it as a “group of raupo huts” and when the one occupied by John Anderson Brown burnt to the ground, it was replaced by a wooden house, the first such structure in the area. Mrs Chandler, an American woman, kept house for the widower Brown. She is said to have used her thimble to measure gunpowder when she shot pigeons for the table.

She milked goats and planted the first peach trees. Her husband had skills very useful to Brown, who established the first the timber mill and, in 1855, a flour mill.

Brown occupied the land on the strength of a timber licence. When the first land sales took place he was quick to purchase 153 acres where the town of Warkworth now stands. From his house above the river, Brown could survey his achievements and plan for further growth.

Bridgehouse was not a term used in the early days as there was no bridge. That was to change in 1875 when a wooden bridge was built. By then, John Anderson Brown was resting in the cemetery on land he had donated for the purpose.

It was also in 1875 that a young woman came to Warkworth with her young son. She was to occupy the house formerly owned by Brown. Space does not allow a full account of her story, except to say that by 1880 she found herself alone with four young children to support. She was known as Nurse Toovey, and she rode on horseback far and wide wherever her services as a midwife were required. In the last decade of the 19th century, Nurse Toovey opened her home to lodgers and called it Bridge Boardinghouse. Her son Thomas Edwards is said to have had little opportunity to go to school as he had to start work at a young age. By 1900, he had married Sarah Wilson from Dome Valley and had taken responsibility for the hotel. Guests found it convenient to leave their horses in his care and catch the steamer to Auckland.

Keeping it in the family, Thomas sold the establishment to his wife’s parents and for 18 years the hotel was called Wilson’s Boarding House. By this time there were 15 rooms, a stable, shed, washhouse and billiard room. Mr and Mrs Fred Kasper were hosts for a few years, before selling to the Clegg family from Whangarei.

During more than three decades of occupancy, the Cleggs made massive changes. They greatly enlarged the accommodation area and built new tea rooms adjacent to the river. A mock Tudor facade gave the hotel a new image from the road. The hotel was now catering for the motoring age.

Successive owners have continued to make changes to suit trade as they find it, but the basic human needs of food and shelter remain the same for every generation.

Judy Waters, Warkworth & District Museum
www.warkworthmuseum.co.nz