Tophouse, also known as Tophouse Settlement, is a rural locality in the

Tasman District Tasman District () is a local government district in the northwest of the South Island of New Zealand. It borders the Canterbury Region, West Coast Region, Marlborough Region and Nelson City. It is administered by the Tasman District Council ...

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 ...

, some 8 km northeast of Saint Arnaud. It is named after a hotel established in the 19th century to service drovers transporting their sheep between

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and

Marlborough Marlborough or the Marlborough may refer to: Places Australia * Marlborough, Queensland * Principality of Marlborough, a short-lived micronation in 1993 * Marlborough Highway, Tasmania; Malborough was an historic name for the place at the sou ...

. The hotel is still in operation today and has an eventful history, including a double murder suicide in October 1894 (see below). For many years, "Tophouse" referred specifically to the hotel, but it has also been used to refer to the general vicinity, and on 20 February 2001, the New Zealand Geographic Board assigned the name "Tophouse Settlement" to the area. Tophouse is located near State Highway 63. There were also plans to establish a significant

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 ...

junction in Tophouse. One plan from the 1880s for the route of the Main North Line from

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

to Marlborough and

Nelson Nelson may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Nelson'' (1918 film), a historical film directed by Maurice Elvey * ''Nelson'' (1926 film), a historical film directed by Walter Summers * ''Nelson'' (opera), an opera by Lennox Berkeley to a lib ...

proposed extending the

Waiau Branch The Waiau Branch was a branch line railway in the northern Canterbury, New Zealand, Canterbury region of New Zealand's South Island. Known as the Great Northern Railway for its first few decades of life, the Waiau Branch was seen as part of ...

line (then terminated in

Culverden Culverden is a small town in the northern Canterbury Region, Canterbury region of New Zealand's South Island. It lies at the centre of the Amuri Plain. Culverden has traditionally been surrounded by sheep farms. Dairy farms have now become more ...

) via

Hanmer Springs Hanmer Springs is a small town in the Canterbury region of the South Island of New Zealand, known for its hot pools. The Māori name for Hanmer Springs is Te Whakatakanga o te Ngārahu o te ahi a Tamatea, which means "where the ashes of Tamate ...

to Tophouse, and then building one branch down the

Wairau River The Wairau River is one of the longest rivers in New Zealand's South Island. It flows for from the Spenser Mountains (a northern range of the Southern Alps), firstly in a northwards direction and then northeast down a long, straight valley i ...

valley to Blenheim and another to Nelson. This proposal remained under consideration until the 1930s, when a coastal route via

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and

Kaikōura Kaikōura (; ) is a town on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand, located on New Zealand State Highway 1, State Highway 1, north of Christchurch. The town has an estimated permanent resident population of as of . Kaikōura is th ...

was chosen instead of the inland Tophouse route. Tophouse had a school which opened in 1914 but has since closed.

The Tophouse Tragedy

What became known as the "Tophouse Tragedy" occurred in October 1894, when the owners of the hotel, Nathaniel and Louisa Longney, were away in Blenheim, having left their cousin, John Lane, in charge of the business, and a governess, Miss Catherine Wylie, looking after their three children. The brother of Mrs Longney, a Mr William (Bill) Bateman, who was rumoured to have been trying unsuccessfully to court Miss Wylie, heard of this arrangement and apparently became jealous. Bateman travelled to the Tophouse hotel, arriving on the evening of Thursday, October 4, and convinced Lane to go out rabbit shooting with him. He then shot Lane in the back of the head, and dragged his body into the bushes. Bateman then went the 300m to the nearby telegraph station, and told the telegraphist, William Wallis, that Lane wanted to talk to him. When Wallis accompanied Bateman, he too was shot, his body being concealed under a horse-cover. During the night, Bateman repeatedly threatened Miss Wylie and Mrs Wallis, who locked herself in the telegraph station and tried to call for help, but did not shoot either woman. When the police arrived the following evening, alerted by Mrs Wallis' attempts at calling for help, they found Bateman on the verandah of the hotel, having shot himself in the head with his muzzle-loading shotgun. To accomplish this he had removed his shoes and socks and placed his toe on the trigger, putting the barrel of the gun under his chin. The shot went through his head, and the blast holes can still be seen in the roof-boards of the verandah even today.

References

External links

Decisions of the New Zealand Geographic Board, 20 February 2001
includes the assignment of the name Tophouse Settlement
History of TophouseNewspaper Report on the Tragedy
{{Tasman District Populated places in the Tasman District Hotels in New Zealand Buildings and structures in the Tasman District