ARO VALLEY MEMORIAL
This memorial is sited on a roadside reserve at the junction of Aro Street, Raroa Road and Holloway Road. It sits in a grove of pohutakawa trees, which are some of 160 in the area that are heritage listed. The memorial can be hard to spot unless you know where it is. It is sometimes vandalised with graffiti, but the lettering on all four faces is still easy to read.
Holloway Road has an interesting history. The surrounding area was named Mitchelltown, after a local family who farmed and felled trees on the hillsides adjacent. They in turn sold some acres to another family, the Taits, and this area became known as Taitville. Although the Memorial is registered as Historic Place Category 2 with Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, there is no detail entered on the Register. A plaque on the plinth declares that the Memorial was erected by the Mitchelltown Welcome Home Association and Friends, in 1920, and another that it was "Erected in memory of the boys of the Mitchelltown School and area who served abroad in the Great War 1914-1919" |
There are 19 men designated as killed amongst the total of 86 names on the memorial.
J R Borthwick, W Bowden, L Culverwell, D McCarthy, M Dowman, H McDonald, M Griffin, V Hall, W H Hampton, W Mouton, H Nelson, F Newman, H H Nelson, W Oliff, S Smith, K Tait, H Warner, W F Elford, E Goer. |