Otahu Flat School

Otahu Flat School shut down over 74 years ago. It's a small one-room school building still standing next to Clifden Blackmount Road, the main route into to Manapouri.

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The Full Timeline

• 1859-97: Scottish brothers John & Robert Cuthbertson founded Otahu Run in 1859. The first homestead was built in 1861. Then sold in 1880 to Batger & Menzies, and was renamed Otahu Estate.

• 1897: Bought by the Crown for subdivision.

• 1910: Subdivision finally happens, area renamed Otahu Flat.

• 1915: The school officially opens. It was built by parents of local kids. 7 pupils on first day (3 Scotts, 2 Owens, 2 Pearces). The first/only teacher: Miss Alice Dawson. Dawson also had to commute to Invercargill every Saturday for training, a 6hr round trip by wagon and train.

• 1920: Used for community dances, Methodist services (until 1920), WWI Red Cross sewing.

• 1950s: Stopped teaching due to low pupil numbers. Kept going as a non-denominational Sunday school (kids from Blackmount/Monowai).

• 1952: Homestead block bought by JL & SW Sanford, later became SW Sanford and Sons, then AI and OE Sanford.

• 1970: The school had a 75th Jubilee event, January 1970.

• 1964: The school shuts down entirely and is effectively abandoned.

• 2009-2019: Otahu Flat School Restoration Committee gets formed in 2009, backed by the Sanford family (landowners). Building had been derelict ~45 years.
  Restoration completed 2019.

• 2026 (present day): Currently the school is once again abandoned, and is in really really poor condition. By the info provided on the noticeboard at the carpark, it's been left since 2019. So for well over 7 years.

Already the whole building is completely falling apart. Inside it's full, I mean full of bird shit all over the floor and desks, and there is mouse/rat crap throughout everything. Draws in the teachers desk, on and under the kids desks, behind stuff, on all tables, cupboards, window sils anything that isn't out in the open. The window frames are coverd in rodent shit, and millions of dead bugs, dirt and grime. The air in the building is highly toxic, not like mouldy as far as i can tell, but really sharp, metallic and musty, like an ammonia-tinged smell rather than the damp/earthy smell of mould.

Everything rotting and falling apart really badly, and most sad of all, everything is coated in bird / rodent shit which absolutely sucks when they've gone to such lengths to restore the building to pristine condition.

⚠ If you're planning to go inside rather than just view it from the carpark, treat it like you would an old sealed up shed thats full of years of droppings and rotting material. Mask up with adleast a P2/N95 respirator, gloves if ur gonna interact with drawers/surfaces, and walk/breathe as little as possible. Disturbing the building kicks dust into the air that's genuinely bad to breathe, not just gross.

⚠ Could easily contain hantavirus-type particles & Histoplasmosis.

I'm seeing a real trend in NZ, where ppl will find a piece of history worth restoring and preserving, whether that will be a train or a building, they'll restore it to like new, just to abandon it again, leaving it to rot back into the ground.

The reason why the restoration of this place failed was probably because covid hit in 2020, the whole resto group was probably old guys and so they stopped visiting and then probably died. And because it was never given a purpose, and was set up just to be a set in stone museum piece, no one had any reason to actively work on it, and also probably now bc it was no ones responsibility.

This place should've originally been restored and re-purposed as a air-bnb/booking.com cabin for travellers to stay in. It would've been perfect for that, and having people actively using it would kept it in good condition. Now it's a rotting shit filled wreck, and it's just gonna fall apart until it's in such a state the farmers allowed to plow over it. Its already right in the middle of his field, so its prolly already a massive pain in the ass and annoyance having a big square parcel of land in the middle of his field taking up space etc so I don't blame him & I don't see anyone who wants to keep it..

 

The definition of "what a waste".

 

 

This post describes a personal visit to an old, disused building. The interior contains dust, dried animal droppings, and other debris that may pose a health risk if disturbed. If you choose to enter, wear appropriate respiratory protection (P2/N95 mask). Enter at your own risk. I'm not responsible for any harm or illness resulting from a visit.

This log was published: 11/Sep/26