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1 Bedroom Cottage
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Methven is surrounded by the chequerboard plains of Canterbury and dwarfed by the huge mountains of the Southern Alps. Just 92km from the city of Christchurch, it provides a welcome rural retreat with many outdoor pursuits on offer. The town is at its busiest during winter when many thousands of skiers and snowboarders flock there to enjoy the nearby Mt Hutt snowfields. In summer fishing, jet boating and mountain biking take centre stage, all set in pristine alpine scenery.
There is evidence that Moa hunters passed through this region, but there were no Maori settlements here. The town of Methven was established in 1869 by Robert Patton and named the after his home town in Perthshire, Scotland. The site for the township was at the junction of six main roads. In 1878 sections in the town were auctioned. In 1880 Patton opened a hotel and sold some land for a blacksmith's shop. John Grigg of Longbeach had a hut in the area as a stopping place for drovers driving cattle from Longbeach to the West Coast.
In 1878 work began on the inland branch railway linking Methven with Rakaia. It was opened in 1880 and operated until 1976. Methven was the closest town to Mt Hutt sheep station which had been established in 1853. The new town became more important as a centre for travellers when in 1882 the Iron Bridge was built across the Rakaia River at the entrance to the gorge. It is built to a Bollam Truss design and is one of only two surviving in use. The other is in Savage, Maryland, U.S.A. A wooden bridge was built over the South Branch of the Rakaia River, to be replaced by a concrete structure in 1945. During the Great Depression of the thirties unemployed men were given jobs building the Rangitata Diversion Channel. This channel was capable of irrigating nearly 4,000 hectares. This scheme was extended to Highbank Power Station on the Rakaia River, thus providing additional irrigation and water for the power station.
In 1969 the Methven Lions Club favoured the development of the wide south basin on Mt Hutt as a ski area. Peter Yeoman, a Christchurch business man and civil engineer, took up their idea and in 1972 the Mt Hutt Ski Field Development Company Ltd. was launched. The road to the ski field was built, about 5.600 ft above sea level, and is known as "Hood Highway" after Doug Hood, the Ashburton road contractor. Willie Huber spent the winter of 1972 in a chalet in the middle of the basin in the winter of 1972, collecting critical data. In 1973 the skiers came and Mt Hutt is now one of the leading ski areas in the southern hemisphere.
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