Thorpe is a rising and prosperous township situated about six miles from Ngatimoti, fifteen miles from Wakefield, and four miles from Woodstock. It is the centre of a large tract of country, including the Dovedale district. The land is chiefly second-class, and is principally pastoral, and the staple products are wool, skins, hides, hops and grain. Fruit also is likely soon to command the attention of farmers, and the land is well adapted for its production. There are three schools; namely, Dovedale school, Church Hill school, and Wynn Valley school; and two churches—Anglican and Wesleyan. The public library is at the Dovedale school, and is well supplied with first class literature. The settlement has a post office, telephone service, and money order office. A rifle club, recently formed, has already done good work in matches with other clubs.

Kenyon, Hugh, Farmer, Thorpe. Mr. Kenyon was born in Scotland in the year 1833, and came out to Australia in the early fifties. He at once went to the gold diggings, which were then in full swing, and worked there with more or less success till the Gabriel's Gully “rush” took place in New Zealand, and he decided to try his luck in this Colony. In the year 1861 he took up an unimproved farm of 400 acres in the Dovedale district, which at that time was all dense forest. His land, however, has now been converted into a splendid property, and carries sheep, cattle and horses. Mr. Kenyon is chairman of the school committee, member of the road board, and also chairman of the cemetery trustees, and has earned the approbation of the people of Dovedale by the way in which he fulfils his various public duties page 137 in those capacities, and in that of a Justice of the Peace.