Cronadun Butter Factory

The factory was in existence prior to 1906 when it was bought by Mr W. R. Hopcroft; £190 for the factory, the house, an acre of land, a horse & a dray.

In the first year after purchase, Mr Hopcroft made 9 ton of butter. In 1918 (when he moved to the North Island) he made 90 ton of butter.The factory at this time was bought by the Golden Coast Dairy company & closed down.

For the first few years Mr Hopcroft was able to get work during the off season, on the railway which was being built at the time.

There were not many dairy farms at the time. Many of the suppliers were railway employees who ran a cow or 2 on the "Long Acre" & skimmed the cream off any leftover milk, to be put on the train to Cronadun.

Much of the cream was sent in treacle billies, some from as far south as Kumara.

Cream from the north of Cronadun was collected by horse & dray twice a week. One day north to an overnight stay at Delavadova's Farm, between Inangahua & the Iron Bridge at the Buller River. A locally born man (Boatmans Creek) Alf "Snowy" Walker, worked at the factory & collected cream by dray, & later a motor truck, & was the driver for the Golden Coast Company until he retired.

To make it possible to carry cream home by truck, a cream stand had to be built at the top & bottom of each river terrace south of Inangahua. Half the cream had to be unloaded at the lower cream stand & the rest taken to the upper one, to be unloaded at the top & then the half load brought up & the half load picked up.

Mr Hopcroft cleaned the soot out of the factorys steel chimney by firing the shotgun up it. Mrs Hopcroft, with up to 5 young sons, had washing on the line practically every day, so "shotgun days" were none too popular.

Comments from West Coast Recollect:

Kevin Oregan

Remember snowy walker and his dog Trixie but unaware he was the first cream lorry driver.

Roger O'Regan

Kevin Oregan

Snowy used to bring Trixie to the Cronadun school when I was there. Don't know how long ago, but I had black hair! Maybe that is where I heard of Snowy's association with the cream truck.

Arthur Bass

I understood it was in Mitchells paddock past Blockhead O'Regans heading toward Boatmans Creek where the old road used to run toward the roadrail bridge. May be wrong.

Liz Moir

I was just going to say that a dairy farm (Mitchell's) right near to it...