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The Early Canterbury Runs: Containing the First, Second and Third (new) Series

Cora Lynn — (Run 333)

Cora Lynn
(Run 333)

Cora Lynn lies on the Waimakariri and Bealey rivers, and goes back to the unoccupied country on the main range next north of Glenthorne. It was taken page 214up by Goldney Brothers in February, 1860. They paid rent for twenty thousand acres.

The Goldneys had a farm in Christchurch as well, where they kept a stud flock of merinos until they were beaten by footrot. Their farm was where Brown's Road is now. Dr Acland lives in the house they built —Chippenham.

In 1867 the Goldneys sold Cora Lynn to John Macfarlane and Thomas Whillians Bruce, and went home to England. In those days Macfarlane sent many cattle to the Coast, and bought Cora Lynn as a convenient place for finishing them off before sending them over to Hokitika.

The Goldneys' homestead was on the Cass River about a mile and a-half above the present railway station. The remains of their paddock can still be seen, and their old track leads past Grasmere from the West Coast Road. Bruce moved the homestead to where it is now. For a time in the 'eighties Bruce had a partner named Irvine whom I cannot identify.

Macfarlane sold his interest in the station some time about 1870 to Bruce. Bruce had been Caverhill's manager at Motunau, and was known all over the province as the 'Little Angel.' Besides Cora Lynn he had Riversdale, across the Waimakariri, and the Inchbonnie estate (then known as the Paddock) on the West Coast Road beyond Arthur's Pass. The N.Z. Loan and Mercantile took over Bruce's stations about the end of the '80's, and kept Cora Lynn until 1902, when they sold it, together with Riversdale, Mt. White, and Lochinvar, to F. J. Savill.

The lease of Cora Lynn ran out the following year, and Savill, holding other Government runs, was not allowed to take it again. R. McKay got the Cora Lynn lease, and Savill sold him the freehold, sheep and improvements.

McKay kept the station until 1907, when he sold it to S. E. Rutherford, of Grasmere, who worked the two stations together until he lost the Grasmere leasehold during the 1914-18 War. Rutherford went on with Cora Lynn, which he worked from the Grasmere home-c page 215stead until 1922, when he sold to the present owners, Taylor and Faulkner.*

I have given an account of Macfarlane in my note on Whiterock, and of Bruce in my note on Motunau. Their head shepherd at Cora Lynn was a man named Andrew Curie.

* But see the end of Grasmere notice.