Daily Photo – Domestic Sanity at Totara Estate

I came to the Totara Estate, an historic farm site managed by Heritage New Zealand and famous as the birthplace of the New Zealand frozen meat industry in the 1880s. It also kicked the country’s export industry into full gear. Before 4,460 frozen mutton and 449 frozen lamb carcasses departed Port Chalmers in Dunedin by ship in February 1882, New Zealand’s export commodities consisted largely of wool and grain. This technological breakthrough gave the country a major new export, at the same time making the world a much smaller place. And the 15,000-acre farm in North Otago known as Totara Estate sat at the very centre of this history-making achievement.

Sitting approximately eight to ten kilometres south of Oamaru, the property features wonderfully preserved 19th-century farm buildings, including a stable, cookhouse and meat-hanging sheds. The farm was a busy place, with up to 50 workers based on the estate, slaughtering between 300 and 400 sheep a day before they were cooled, sent by rail to Dunedin, frozen, and exported to London. The man behind it all was a Scot named Thomas Brydone. In short, Brydone was the practical force behind early refrigerated meat exports, the person who turned a risky idea that many did not believe was possible, into something that operated on a massive scale. In doing so, it connected New Zealand with the rest of the world and opened the door for butter and cheese to be sent to foreign shores.

The farm itself is wonderful to walk around. Even the domestic quarters have their own intrigue, with stone floors partly hollowed out by the boots of farmhands, deep knife grooves worn into old wooden tables, a kerosene lamp to read by, a tobacco jar, a hand-carved pipe, and a small washbasin. These early domestic objects offered small moments of comfort and sanity in a place that, let’s be frank, must have absolutely stank.