The New Zealand Heritage of Farm Buildings By Geoffrey G. Thorton.

The New Zealand Heritage of Farm Buildings By Geoffrey G. Thorton.

Publisher: Reed Methuen, 1986, first edition. SCARCE. Very good hardback with jacket. Minor marks and bumps to boards, large gift inscription to ffep. Pages very good. Jacket has a closed tear to top of spine, otherwise very good. 268 pages, illustrated.

This book is Geoffrey Thornton's comprehensive photographic essay on our early farm buildings. More than 300 are pictured, with an accompanying text that gives the background details to each and explains the various farming processes to which they relate. From tiny stone huts in the Mackenzie country to the near Elizabethan opulence of the Otekaieke homestead; from the brick efficiency of Longbeach to the picturesque charm of a derelict West Coast barn; through the finest uses of corrugated iron like the woolshed at Craigieburn to the impressively splendid timber of Brancepeth and Maraekakaho, and in dozens of other stations -- here is the beauty and fascination bequeathed to us by the rural colonists.