The Royal Oak Hotel

The Royal Oak was probably the second or third hotel in Carterton, opening its doors to the public in 1865 under Mr. Cadwallader and Mr. Leach to take advantage of the opening of the main road from Wellington to the Wairarapa that was completed in 1860. Important to the completion of the road was the building of the bridge over the Waiohine between Greytown and Carterton that Charles Rooking Carter accomplished in 1859, and the construction of the road over Remutaka Hill.

Over the decades the Royal Oak has witnessed immense changes in the many facets of structural and societal life of Carterton and the Greater Wellington region, and has even changed its face to the world with its 40s change in architecture. Memories fade over time, but in its heyday, the hotel played a huge part in the development of Carterton and the wider Wairarapa society.

A question often asked is: "When did the hotel change its façade from the original rather lovely old building to the new?" The Times Age reported on 2 December 1943 that ‘extensive additions were being made to the hotel’, and it is believed that this is the time when the old façade was changed over to the new and the hotel expanded. Why it was carried out in the middle of a war is difficult to determine and there are few records as to the decision.

The name of the hotel hails from a popular pub/hotel name in England. Along with The Red Lion and The Crown, The Royal Oak is one of the most popular pub names in the UK. These pubs are named after the oak tree that Prince Charles (later King Charles II) climbed and hid in to escape Oliver Cromwell’s Roundheads after the Battle of Worcester in the English Civil War in 1651. The Pendrell family, who helped Charles with the Oak tree escape plan were granted an annuity after his succession to the throne, which is still paid today. The original tree was cut down in the 1700s by souvenir hunters and the photo shows the tree that grew from the stump.

Transport routes were vitally important for hotels and the role that they played in the logistical and social culture of the times. The first hotels in the Wairarapa were at Lake Ferry and Castlepoint because most traffic went to and from Wellington by sea – with the Castlepoint logistics hub only closing when the route over the Remutakas (now HS2) was opened, and establishments like the Royal Oak were built to cater for this expansion of inland routes.

So just as at the Castlepoint hotel became an important, local logistics hub, on a main transport route for seaborne goods and passengers, the Royal Oak easily filled that niche on the new inland route from the capital to the Wairarapa. The Remutaka Hill Road was a complex undertaking that required the bridging of many difficult river crossings and was completed in 1860.

The present car park at the side and back of the hotel used to be stabling for the horses and paddocks at the back served as essential grazing. The stage coach and waggon route became doubly demanding on hotels on election days, as voting rights were based on property. If you owned property in Wellington and the Wairarapa, then you could often vote in multiple constituencies and extra coaches and accommodation were provided at these busy times. (The voting qualification based on property lasted until universal elections were established in the 1880s).

The stage coach services on the main route from wellington to Masterton was initially provided by William Hastwell. He built his stables in Greytown and his coaches stopped at the Royal Oak which acted as an important logistics hubs for the outer settlements. In 1866, a year after the Royal Oak started business, Cobb & Co, an American operator took over the service in the Wairarapa and in many parts of New Zealand. The company ran its service in a similar fashion to a franchise, with local men operating the run and William Hastwell continued to operate it on their behalf. The journey over the Remutakas took around 12 hours and the cost was 10 shillings (about $80 today). The fast coach would set out from Manners Street in Wellington in the early morning and would arrive in Masterton in the evening. The Royal Oak was important as a horse replenishment location as well as providing natural breaks for the human customers and to connect with local services for freight, post, and passengers. It also provided services for waggoneers starting out on their week long journey to wellington with their heavily loaded wagons.

Cobb and Co. Coach service which ceased operations after the arrival of the railway – which reached Carterton in 1880, pulling the centre of gravity of the settlement to the North – and away from the Royal Oak. But there were still many local coach and horse services providing transport to outlying settlements that still needed the essential services of the hotel, which also still catered for local individuals who today would have a car, but then still used horses. And even though the centre of town had moved, and newer establishments opened up in the vicinity of the railway station, there was still a paucity of rooms available and the Royal Oak was still a well-used establishment and services for horses and their owners was still an important facet of the Royal Oak’s business. It wasn’t until 1913 that one of the local coach services purchased a motor vehicle and until 1922 most of the local cartage was still carried out by six horse wagon teams.

In the pioneering days, hotels were always more than just hotels. The Royal Oak and other hotels in the area were an integral part of society and formed the glue that held emerging societies together. By the mid to late 1870s The Royal Oak had become a centre for local social interaction, a centre for parcel and letter collection and a hub for local off main route journeys to outlying settlements and the hotel even served as the mid-point for a local Masterton cycling club, as the journey to the hotel and back was exactly 20 miles. During the first world war, when the army took over the Carterton showgrounds, the pub landlord provided a rugby pitch and changing rooms on land behind the pub. And no doubt the landlord profited well from this transaction with 30 thirsty players, hangers on and spectators all needing post-match refreshment! Another such example of the type of community service provided by the hotel were official meetings. A coroner’s court held in the Royal Oak is well documented. In 1879, a coroner’s inquest under the chairmanship of Mr. William Booth was set up in the hotel to investigate the death of a Mr. George McPartland who had died a few days earlier. The full story can be seen in the newspaper account of the time.

Newspaper reports of the time also tell us how the hotel survived two major bush fires  in the 1870s due mainly to the valiant efforts of the hotel punters, and detail the occasional drunken fights and visits by the constabulary, but by and large, the hotel remained a peaceful and necessary centre for local society. However, as the 20th century advanced, changes driven by the increasing use of trains, busses and private motor cars and the rise of the ‘motel’, and with Carterton and Masterton becoming more accessible, most travellers by this time would stay in motels in town, nearer to other facilities such as businesses and restaurants. With the changing times and with more convenient accommodation available in town, the change to tavern status was inevitable. Hotels like the Royal Oak were forced to adapt or go under. The accommodation trade was diminishing at an ever-increasing rate and by 1969, the Liquor Licensing Authority reported that half the hotels in the country played ‘an insignificant part or no part at all in the accommodation of travellers and that many thousands of hotel rooms were simply never used. The Royal Oak was forced to react to the changing conditions and in 1976, it ceased to offer accommodation, changing its status to a popular and much loved tavern, which it has been ever since.