Cust – a view from the terrace
Without any shadow of a doubt, Cust is a very interesting village with a rich history and stunning northerly views over beautifully undulating countryside.
More than two decades ago, in our quest to experience as much of what Canterbury has to offer, my wife and I briefly owned a block of land on the terrace at Cust.
We’d spied a for-sale sign, and within days we owned our little bit of paradise with a fruit tree, a water race and views to die for.
Our plan was to have one of those cute Canterbury Cottages transported on to our land, but then these dreams were shattered by world events.
The horrific 9/11 New York disaster happened soon after our purchase.
Consequently, many expat Kiwis decided to return home for safety and sanity and suddenly builders were in short supply. Canterbury Cottages couldn’t promise us anything other than a long wait.
In the meantime, as we were trying to get our ducks in line, our neighbours built a large, imposing house that would have made our cute holiday cottage look like their upmarket garden shed. We sold up and bought along the road in Oxford.
I’ve told you all of this because I want you to know how much I genuinely like Cust, even though I’ve never been that taken with the name.
The township took its name from the Cust River, which was named in 1849 after General Sir Edward Cust, who for just six months was a member of the Canterbury Association.
Cust had all the right background to have a modest North Canterbury river named after him. He’d attended Eton and the Royal Military College before joining the 16th Regiment of Light Dragoons. After a splendid military career, he became the member of Parliament for Grantham. Now if you know your British politics, you’ll know this was Margaret Thatcher’s own stomping ground many years later.
Despite all these wonderful career highlights, Sir Edward Cust didn’t appear to make it to North Canterbury or even to New Zealand. To compensate for this oversight, he donated a fine church bell to St James, the Anglican church in Cust. His plan was that this bell would travel out to New Zealand with Prince Alfred, Queen Victoria’s son, and then be transported to Cust along his grand river. If you’ve never been to Cust it’s easy to imagine these sorts of events, but in reality the Cust River could best be described as modest.
Fortunately, Mr Knowles, the church officer, had a team of horses, so they made a day of it and picked up this splendid gift from the Kaiapoi wharf.
The bell, when it was installed in the then wooden belfry, was said to be one of the best toned bells in Canterbury.
In researching the history of Cust I realised how much information I’d actually missed out on in my meagre education. A Press article on December 10, 1912, stated that The Cust Miniature Rifle Club held a Smoke Concert on Wednesday evening … what an earth was a Smoke Concert?
It turns out Smoke Concerts have their origins in the 19th century and were concerts where men could light up cigars, sup spirits, speak of politics and tell blue stories while listening to live music. The ladies, on the other hand, would be banished to another room and more genteel activities.
Something else I didn’t know anything about happened in Cust on June 3, 1978. This event of national importance was part of the Cust Fun Run Day, attended by more than 2000 people. As part of the afternoon entertainment they held the first New Zealand bull-chip competition.
I must confess I had no idea what bull-chipping was all about and if it’s anything like cow-chipping then I want to say I will sit out this one. If you like throwing cow poo a long way in front of a jovial crowd, then this is your new lifetime passion. I actually wasted two valuable minutes of my life by watching the cow-chip winner’s speech from the Iowa State Fair and he explained that he liked to do anything with poo – so there you go.
Now, stepping back in Cust history there is an account in The Press on May 20, 1924, of
a funeral for Mrs
McKibbin, Cust’s oldest resident, who died at the age of 95. Not surprisingly, a very large crowd turned out for her sad farewell, maybe due to the fact she was survived by five daughters, one son, 42 grandchildren, 36 great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren.
You can’t write about Cust historical matters without mentioning the New Zealand Motorcycle Grand Prix, held at Cust every Easter from 1936 to 1940.
Racing stopped during World War II, but roared back into action in 1947 and continued until 1963. In 1947, the race was won by Syd Jenson of Palmerston North on a Triumph Tiger at an average speed of 100kph.
Another competitor to be reckoned with at this time was a Mr Jim Swarbrick, who was known as the Flying Milkman – what a truly great name. In 1948, Jim was the first New Zealander selected to race in the world-famous Isle of Man TT race.
These races on the back roads around Cust were run by the Canterbury Auto Cycle Club Inc on Easter Monday each year, with a practice on the Saturday.
Some years, more than 20,000 spectators came to Cust to view the event. Many travelled from Christchurch by bus or on the special steam train run for the day. For many families, the races were their only outing together for the year, somewhere people could get away from the city, enjoy the countryside and have a picnic day.
Burt Munro of the World’s Fastest Indian fame raced six times at Cust and achieved some incredible speed trial times on the roads around the village.
When the Canterbury Car Club opened a sealed track at Ruapuna Park, the NZ Motorcycle Grand Prix was transferred to a new venue, so Easter in Cust was now so much quieter without the intense roar of engines, the smell of Castrol racing oil and Stevenson’s pies.
In the course of writing this article, it finally gave me the excuse to visit Away With The Fairys, a little shop that we’ve driven past many times and wondered how on earth it had got there.
Although I wasn’t in the market for a new fairy dress, I was more than a little curious to find out about what has to be a very specialised business. Amanda, the proprietor, took over the business from her mother only a year ago. She’d always been interested in fairies and anything mystical right from day dot.
Amanda explained that because it is such a specialised and well-stocked shop, people come from far and wide to visit and buy. She loves it when coach parties and special-interest groups book in and make her shop their must-visit destination.
Amanda’s mother, Margaret, established the business 20 years ago and in the early days made all the fairy dresses herself. One side of the shop specialises in everything you might possibly need for patchworking. Amanda proudly said they had one of the biggest ranges of Tilda fabrics in New Zealand.
Now that I have seen Amanda’s impressive display, I’m seriously considering replacing my musical pursuits with a gentle life of patchworking.
On the other side of the shop Amanda has her extraordinary display of fairy houses, accessories and crystals, but, best of all, tucked away in a magic room at the back is a dazzling array of little girls’ fairy dresses.
I left this mystical haven wishing I had a little one in my family for whom I could buy, and walked up to look at the war memorial, erected in 1922. Originally, to the right of the memorial was a German field gun on a concrete plinth, but this was scrapped for the war effort in 1941.
Evidently, its wooden wheels were unsafe, and it was thought that the gun might fall over if a child was playing on it. In 1998, it was finally replaced by a 1954 American howitzer that was used in Vietnam by the New Zealand Army.
To the left of the memorial is an inviting wooden bench looking northward over the terrace – perfect for a moment of reflection.
On my way back to the car, a lady greeted me from her back garden, and it was none other than Margaret, Amanda’s mum. I’m so glad I asked her how she ended up in the beautiful hamlet of Cust.
Margaret explained that she and her husband were out from Christchurch for the day, and when they were driving between Rangiora and Oxford, she noticed the old blacksmith shop was for sale. She asked her husband to stop, he asked “Why?” and she replied, “It looks interesting”.
He wouldn’t have a bar of it, so when they had finished in Oxford, he asked her what she wanted to do next. Margaret replied: “I want to go back to Cust and have another look at that property.” Her husband asked what she’d do with it and she said: “I would open a fairy-dress shop.”
They pulled up outside the old blacksmith shop and were immediately spotted by the lady selling her recently deceased husband’s business. She invited them in.
That was a Friday afternoon and by the following Tuesday, Margaret and her husband had bought it. In time, they built a house behind the blacksmiths and now her husband doesn’t ever want to leave. It was meant to be – the fairies wanted them there.
No visit to Cust is complete without calling in at Annette and Steve’s Route 72 Cafe Bar and Emporium, which sells all manner of interesting and unlikely things. I’ve always found it hard to leave without buying something, and, sure enough, on this visit it was a new wallet.
Annette, originally from Australia, met Steve on a visit to New Zealand and, together, 33 years ago, they renovated the old butcher’s shop and opened their famous emporium. Eighteen years ago, they added a cafe.
Although Rachael, my chauffeur for the day, and I arrived not feeling particularly hungry, the tantalising smells wafting from the kitchen made us feel stricken with hunger pangs. There are tables on the ground floor, but we chose to have our scrumptious homemade soup upstairs, where we could look out over the road and terrace.
The house directly opposite was for sale and I couldn’t help but notice someone pull up and get out to read the real estate agent’s display board. If they don’t watch out, they could be moving in within days. My parents were regular visitors to
Cust as they went out there to buy bread. Anyone who remembers the Cust homemade bread from that time would understand why they travelled quite so far.
To make a day of it, they would pack a picnic and have their lunch in the picnic area behind the Cust Community Centre. The views are therapeutic, and since my mother spent her life avoiding crowds, to my knowledge, she never met a crowd at this peaceful secluded picnic spot. My mother always gave the community centre toilets a highly coveted six-star rating – and she was an absolute expert.
We were actually heading down the road to see a man about a dog in Oxford so sadly we had to cut short our time in Cust, but I just had to call in at the Querky Style & Roses at Cust nursery, as even in the middle of winter it’s a nursery with a difference.
The nursery has been there for more than 30 years, but Yvonne, the current owner, bought it 10 years ago when it was a little rundown. She has worked hard to build it up to what she now calls a destination nursery.
Yvonne’s own interest in horticulture started when she and her husband bought a bare block of land nearby in Summerhill Rd. She grew her own plants in such large numbers that she established an honesty-box stall on the main road to sell her excess plants. When the nursery came up for sale it seemed to Yvonne it was meant to be.
Traditionally, the nursery was known for its huge range of roses and although Yvonne still has several hundred varieties for sale, she also sells a wide range of plants and gifts.
Some years ago, my wife and I bought a wonderfully unique blue garden bench from Yvonne that had a wheel at one end and wheelbarrow-like handles at the other. We could wheel it around the garden to wherever the sun was. So clever and such fun.
There’s so much I haven’t mentioned about Cust, which is very good news as I will most definitely be back. As Amanda from Away With The Fairys said: “For a place that you miss if you blink, there’s a lot here.”