Springbank
(Run 3)

This run lay between the Eyre and Cust. On the west it joined Murphy's run and on the east it was bounded by the Manderville and Rangiora Swamp. It was taken up in October, 1851, by William Kaye, a squatter from Castlemain in Australia.

Kaye's manager was Robert Chapman, who had been with him on one of his stations in Australia, and whom he took into partnership. In October, 1853, not long after Chapman arrived, Kaye sold out to him altogether and returned to Australia where he did well with several stations, and in a few years went home to England with a fortune.

Springbank was originally about twenty-three thousand acres, of which Chapman succeeded in making about fifteen thousand freehold. On his death in 1882 the station was divided among his sons, the homestead and three thousand five hundred acres going to Edward Chapman. Edward Chapman died in 1893 as the result of a shooting accident at Lochinvar. The property was carried on by his executors until 1912 when it was cut up and sold in farms. George Rutherford, who had just sold Dalethorpe, bought the homestead and thirteen hundred acres.

Although the homestead of Springbank, with most of the land, has now passed into other hands, Dennis and Robert Chapman—grandsons of the original owner —still own two thousand acres of the old freehold.