Eight graphic murals, with designs focused on the Ōtāwhao settlement which was once located on the skate park site. The designs include interpretations of tools used for kūmara cultivation, ahikā (fire pits), parinuiterā kūmara rows, pekapeka, pā tuna, Mangapiko/ Manga Ohoi streams and Ngā Maunga – Kakepuku and Pirongia.
The artwork depicts the sacking of Rangiaowhia 1864. A food producing village known as the economic hub of the Waikato, Rangiaowhia was the largest settlement of Māori at that time. However, due to the encroaching British forces into the Waikato, the village had sent all its warriors to defend Paterangi Pā leaving behind only women, children, elderly and the disabled.
Hamilton-born artist Richard Lewer works and lives in Melbourne, Australia. Working across a range of medium, his art explores the intimate, though at times uncomfortable, terrain of his own personal history. This painting was gifted to Council.
This Imperial and Colonial Forces Memorial adjacent to the Old St John’s Church was erected in 1888 by the government to honour imperial and colonial troops, as well as kūpapa Māori who fought alongside government forces during the Waikato War including battles such as Rangiaowhia, Hairini, and Ōrākau in 1863–65. It is made of sandstone with a marble inscription panel and cross on a three-tiered base in the church cemetery.
Many of the men memorialized remain unnamed, and their remains are believed to be buried nearby. The site is of significant historical importance, as it reflects the complex legacy of the New Zealand Wars within the Waipā and the nuanced relationships between Māori and colonial forces.
In 1847, at the age of twenty-two, Rahapa married Irish-born farmer Thomas Power. Known for his agricultural skills, Governor Grey requested the couple work together to introduce local Māori to European farming practices. During the British invasion of the Waikato in 1864 Rangiaowhia was besieged. Rahapa and Thomas’ house was not attacked but afterwards, while Power was in Auckland with three of their five children, it was looted by soldiers.
What is significant about this union is that it formed one of the first Māori-European families in the Waipā district. Descendants of Rahapa and Thomas are still alive, some of which reside in the Waipā district today.
The inscription reads:
The Plaque Has Been Laid By The Descendants of THOMAS POWER (1808 – 1897) His Wife RAHAPA TE HAUATA (1825 – 1865) In April of this Year 2001 ‘Softly Blows the Wind’ ‘E pa to hau he wini raro’
The Rangiaowhia Burned Whare Memorial Pou, erected by Ngāti Apakura in 2015 in the Catholic cemetery at the other end of the village, commemorates the Crown’s attack on the undefended village of Rangiaowhia on February 21, 1864, and features carvings that evoke the area’s history.
This attack targeted a refuge for women, children, and elderly men, resulting in the deaths of at least seven individuals when Crown forces set fire to a whare. The memorial stands near the site of the tragedy, with St Paul’s Anglican Church and its cemetery marking the location of the former village.
