Ngahere is a locality in the

Grey District Grey District is a Districts of New Zealand, district in the West Coast, New Zealand, West Coast Region of New Zealand that covers Greymouth, Runanga, New Zealand, Runanga, Blackball, New Zealand, Blackball, Cobden, New Zealand, Cobden, and settl ...

of the West Coast of New Zealand's

South Island The South Island ( , 'the waters of Pounamu, Greenstone') is the largest of the three major islands of New Zealand by surface area, the others being the smaller but more populous North Island and Stewart Island. It is bordered to the north by ...

. The

2013 New Zealand census The 2013 New Zealand census was the thirty-third national census. "The National Census Day" used for the census was on Tuesday, 5 March 2013. The population of New Zealand was counted as 4,242,048 – an increase of 214,101 or 5.3% over the 20 ...

gave the population of Ngahere and its surrounding area as 363, an increase of 5.2% or 18 people since the 2006 census. Ngahere is located on the south bank of the Grey River, and State Highway 7 and the Stillwater–Westport Line (SWL)

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

pass through the village.

Railway

The railway reached Ngahere when an extension was built from Brunner on 1 August 1889, and it was the line's terminus until a further section to Ahaura was opened on 14 February 1890. On 1 August 1910, Ngahere became a railway junction when the

Blackball Branch The Blackball Branch was a branch line railway of New Zealand's Rail transport in New Zealand, national rail network on the West Coast, New Zealand, West Coast of the South Island and was operational from the 1900s to 1966. It included the Ro ...

was opened, and this

branch line A branch line is a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Branch lines may serve one or more industries, or a city or town not located ...

operated until a flood in 1966 destroyed its bridge across the Grey River. The branch was formally closed on 21 February 1966. The next year, passenger trains through Ngahere on the SWL were cancelled; since this time, freight trains of coal have been the predominant traffic through Ngahere.

Churches

Sacred Heart Church

Sacred Heart Church is a Catholic church in Ngahere, within the Greymouth St Patrick's parish. The church was built in 1960, to replace an earlier church of the same name. Originally erected as St Patrick's in the gold-mining settlement of Notown in 1866, the kitset

kauri ''Agathis'', commonly known as kauri or dammara, is a genus of evergreen coniferous trees, native to Australasia and Southeast Asia. It is one of three extant genera in the family Araucariaceae, alongside '' Wollemia'' and ''Araucaria'' (being ...

church was relocated to Ngahere in 1922 after Notown had become a ghost town, and was relocated again to

Shantytown Heritage Park Shantytown Heritage Park, usually known as Shantytown, is a tourist attraction in the West Coast Region of the South Island of New Zealand. Located south of Greymouth, the Heritage Park opened in 1971 and consists of 30 re-created historic buil ...

after the present Sacred Heart Church was built.

St Luke's

St Luke's is a small former Anglican church, opposite the Ngahere sawmill on , built in timber to plans from Ralph Tyler of Greymouth. The foundation stone was laid on 21 September 1952 by the Bishop of Nelson, Percival Stephenson, and the church was dedicated in 1954. The church was sold in about 2010.

Railway

Churches

Sacred Heart Church

St Luke's

References

Further reading