Home-Discovering Edgecumbe
- Our Class - Room 7
- Learning outcomes
- Research Process
- What was Edgecumbe like 100 years ago?
- What was Edgecumbe like when your Grandparents (or Great Grandparents) were young?
- What was Edgecumbe like when our Parents were young?
- What is Edgecumbe like today?
- Our Local Heroes - the Community
- Our Interview with Mrs Davey-Emms
- Our Interview with Mrs Reid
- Our Art
- References and acknowledgements
What was Edgecumbe like when our Parents were young?
When our children first asked their parents about what Edgecumbe was like when they were young, they thought about how busy and nice looking the town was BEFORE the 1987 Edgecumbe Earthquake.
Our Parents remembered these things:
*The original Riverslea Mall was one of the biggest undercover rural shopping centres found in New Zealand. It was very popular with lots of families coming to Riverslea Mall to go shopping because there were many other shops here and Whaea Lesa said when she was younger, she used to come out with her family because it was "...pretty flash!". Here is an old aerial photograph of the original Riverslea Mall (thank you Mr Grindley).
*Edgecumbe was busy on a Friday night because people would go to the Riverslea Mall to 'hang out' and there were a lot of shops inside the mall. Today there are still a few shops but the mall is not as busy as it used to be but that is slowly but surely changing!
*After the 1987 Edgecumbe Earthquake, the Riverslea Mall had to be demolished as it had been ruined. It took a few more years to be rebuilt, but the new Riverslea Mall was another huge shopping centre that was a Lockwood building - well actually, a whole lot of Lockwood buildings put together under one enormous cover. If Edgecumbe has another earthquake, the building can be dismantled and individual shops can be repaired.
*The Plains pub, was found just past the railway bridge heading towards Te Teko, was also ruined during the earthquake and so was demolished and taken away. It had been in Edgecumbe for a long time!
*People began to move away from Edgecumbe after the earthquake and so it became a very quiet township. We hope Edgecumbe will be busy again!
*The Rangitaiki Dairy Company used to make a lot of butter that would be sent overseas. It is now part of Fonterra and even though people once called the company RPD (Rangitaiki Plains Dairy Company), it is known as Fonterra now by our children (or the milk factory),
*The Veterinarian clinic was once opposite the Fonterra Plains company, on Eastbank Road but after the earthquake, it was moved to the other side of Edgecumbe on the main road, opposite the RD1 building or opposite Riverslea mall.
The 1987 Edgecumbe Earthquake
Throughout our pages, you have seen mentioned many times, the 1987 Edgecumbe earthquake. Here are two YouTube clips.
The 2009 Eastern Bay Floods
Our area has had flooding in the past, one that people remember as being one of the worse was the flooding that happened in 2009.
*Acknowledgement:
- Both aerial photographs used showing the original Riverslea Mall and Edgecumbe township are from the Riverslea Mal information board - Thank you Mr Grindley, Edgecumbe Mall Ltd/Riverslea Mall.
