30 April 2025
Written on the Floor
Ngā Manukura. Local Legends.
WRITER: Greer Paterson
photographer: Anna Brook
Restoring an early-nineteenth century bakehouse brought the Millers Flat community together. Now, it brings history to life for locals and visitors alike. Hilary McKenzie, a trustee on the restoration project, shares the ups and downs of the process and what the bakehouse means to the town.
When the project was at a bit of a standstill, Hilary says, “We decided to do the front first – particularly to stop it falling down on the footpath, but also knowing that if we actually started the project, the community would believe that it was going to happen again. It looked a bit odd, like Queen Anne at the front and Mary Jane at the back.”
“There is so much value in having a meeting place for people to just sit and talk about their place and their stories,” says Hilary, 63. Sitting neatly at the end of the Millers Flat bridge, right in the heart of the small Māniatoto Central Otago town, the Millers Flat Bakehouse has been revitalised in a project that spanned more than three decades. Originally built in 1908 as a bakery and tearooms, the development of road and rail meant that bakeries like this became redundant, with bread being supplied from factories in Ōtepoti Dunedin. The building eventually fell into disuse – until the community decided to do something about it.
“In the early nineties, the shop was sold by the Faigan family to the community,” Hilary explains, “who were taking it on as a community store. A separate trust was formed to look at restoration of the bakehouse. Betty Adams and Paula Helm, two of the original trustees, worked on the project right through to its completion, and without their vision it never would have happened.” came on to the group as a trustee in 2013. “A standout moment for me was actually having my first look in the bakehouse. What struck me about it was that it was about to fall down. I can remember looking at the front of the building and the actual front wall looked like it was about to separate. The immediate thought was if it was going to be restored it had to be done now – it was reaching a tipping point.”
The group worked hard to restore the bakehouse as close to its original state as possible. One example is the floor. “We choose to keep the original… the history of buildings is often written on their floor,” says Hilary. “At some stage, we may have to do something about it – like many old buildings, it’s had things chewing on it over the years.” Where original features couldn’t be preserved as part of the building’s restoration, the trustees found creative ways to retain them. “Paula took pieces of the original wallpaper and made a collage of the Clutha river and valley, which we have up on the wall as a connection.” Finally, driven by what Hilary describes as pure “grit and determination,” in 2019, the group successfully re-opened the building as a museum and, with a fully restored working oven, on certain days also a bakehouse. Local Rick Hunt also used to bake bread “the old-fashioned way” in the brick oven once a month. “It was a huge amount of work on his part to do that. It was about forty hours of work each time he baked – it would take three to four days to heat the oven up,” Hilary says. “We have a group of around fifteen people who contribute in lots of different ways. We can’t do it without the volunteers – if we didn’t have them, the scenario with the bakehouse would look very different.” Having successfully brought the bakehouse back to life from the brink of demolition, the trustees, volunteers and local community couldn’t be more proud of the space they have created. “People walk into the building and enjoy looking at the photos in what was the tearooms, then walk around to the bakery and go, ‘Wow.’ It takes you back.”
“It’s lovely the stories that people will tell,” Hilary says, “like their own experiences growing up. You can always make a connection with
people in one way or another.”
Continue reading the full story in our Ngahuru Autumn 2025 Edition.
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This story appeared in the Ngahuru Autumn 2025 Edition of Shepherdess.
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