A document detailing the early history of every hotel in South Canterbury has found a new home at the Fairlie Heritage Museum.
The manuscript of several hundred pages was compiled by the late Ray Stenhouse from Christchurch, and details the ownership, licensing history, changes and significant events that happened in the early years of each hotel.
Fairlie Heritage Museum guide Garry Kerr said he was surprised and grateful for the museum to have received the piece of local history.
‘‘A lady from Ashburton came to drop it off one morning but the museum was closed so she rang me.
‘‘She said they had made a special trip just to drop it off.
‘‘She said the guy who wrote it, Ray, wanted the Fairlie Museum to have it.
‘‘I was just amazed reading through it.’’
He said the history of the Opawa Hotel in Albury had piqued his interest.
‘‘We can see back to when William Butterworth was granted a conditional license in 1861 with a condition of the hotel having not less than six beds for travellers in not less than four separate bedrooms.
‘‘It has some really interesting things like the inspector visiting because the light wasn’t showing at night like it should or the yards not being up to scratch.’’
He said it would be a very useful tool for the museum’s archive to have.
‘‘Now that people know it is here, I’m sure it will be a big help not only to the people of Fairlie but to all South Canterbury.
‘‘I expect we will have people contact us and ask about information on specific hotels like ‘have you got one on the Orari Hotel’ and we might have to charge for it because we are struggling for money here.’’
Museum executive Martin Cordes said preserving information such as this was very important.
‘‘It’s one of those things that if it was not written down, it’s lost forever but thankfully we now have all this important information.’’
