Stony Batter

Stony Batter is a historic defence installation at the northeastern end of Waiheke Island, Auckland, New Zealand. It is sited within a 50 acre (200,000 m²) scenic reserve of the same name, owned by the New Zealand Department of Conservation (DOC). The park serves double duty as a historical (Category 1 Historic Place) and nature reserve, containing unusual rock formations, three significant bush blocks and three concrete gun emplacements with an extensive tunnel system, reputed to be the largest in New Zealand.

History
Stony Batter was of part of a counter-bombardment battery system progressively being installed in the Hauraki Gulf from the 1930s. Composed of various gun batteries, such as at Whangaparaoa, Motutapu Island and at Stony Batter, as well as having observation posts such at Rangitoto Island (command post) and Tiritiri Matangi Island, it was supposed to engage enemy naval forces entering the inner gulf. Ranges would have been too far beyond the line of sight (over 30 km, thus the need for a complex set of observation points and communication lines), as well as at least initially beyond the range of most enemy ships' ability to retaliate.

While approved in 1939, construction was delayed for cost reasons until German raiders were sighted in New Zealand waters during 1940-1941, as well as the war entry of Japan in late 1941, suddenly turned it into a high-priority project. In 1942, the site on Waiheke was chosen, but it took until early 1943 before the Public Works Department was finally tasked with construction after other contractors declined the job. Delays were caused by the remote location, which at first had no road access, and also by the fact that the project was kept in strict secrecy, requiring with a large degree of self-sufficiency during the construction period, complete with its own living facilities and machine shops. The new battery was generally referred to only as A2, to conceal its location.

The tunnels and underground chambers were quarried by hand, with formwork for the walls and ceilings, then filled with concrete (reinforcing steel was not used due to shortages). Aggregate was obtained from the prominent rocky outcrops, giving Stony Batter its name. The tunnels and chambers where designed based on plans of the Tawa Flat railway tunnels project. The work on the installations, sans guns, was completed behind schedule in 1944, and had by then ballooned from initial estimates of £140,000 to £327,966, excluding the costs of the guns. Construction of the battery was, however, considered a major feat of engineering, carried out under particularly difficult circumstances. As the tides of war turned, only two guns were installed, one in 1944, and one in 1948. The third gun was cancelled before shipment. Never fired except for testing and training purposes, the guns were dismantled and sold for scrap in 1961.

An extensive vineyard on the surrounding privately owned farm is also named after the installation. For almost two decades, the farm's owner had a dispute with Auckland City over public access to the reserve, finally resolved in 2002 by the Privy Council agreeing with the Council's case providing public access. If one examines the lead up to the access dispute, one finds that the land owner was suffering huge losses through theft of his farm stock, some of which were barbecued on site, and others were trucked off the farm to be butchered elsewhere on the island. The thefts were of such a magnitude, tens of thousands of dollar value per annum, that the viability of the stock fattening part of the landowner's business was being jeopardised. Mr John Spencer, the landowner at the time, took one of the few options open to him and blocked access to his property.

The battery is now in the hands of a preservation society, which keeps it open for the public under a concession from DOC. The preservation society is currently trying to source an appropriate artillery piece to restore at least one gunpit to a similar state as it would have appeared in late World War II.

Characteristics


The 9.2 inch guns that were once installed in two of the gun pits had ranges of 31,300 yards (over 30 km) and a possible rate of fire of one round per minute. This made them the largest guns ever used in New Zealand. Their mountings could swivel them 360° and elevate up to 35°. They were served by ammunitions storage lockers in the base of each gun pit, which were in turn fed by large electric hoists from underground ammunition dumps.

Next to the gun pits, which can be accessed at any time, the site also contains around a kilometre of tunnels, most of which are accessible by guided tour. These connected the gun pits with each other and with their ammunition stores, a plotting room, an engine room providing electricity, as well as with storerooms and barrack (located aboveground).

Temporary closure
In June 2006, the Stony Batter site was closed by the Department of Conservation, which administers the reserve, after a series of complaints of verbal and one of physical abuse was laid against one of the preservation society's founder members, Sue Pawley, by a number of visitors. The reserve was reopened to the public on 15 August 2007, partly due to public pressure after 3,000 signatures had been collected on the island in favour of the proposal.

The Society's website
The Stony Batter Preservation and Restoration Society does not currently have a website. For a number of years there was a comprehensive website with hundreds of photographs, detailed plans and descriptions of every aspect of access to the reserve and the restoration work being undertaken there. After committee disputes and disagreeable politics within the society, the website was closed down. It took eighteen months before a skeleton replacement site appeared, and another two years before a few pictures were added to it. For the entire duration of the replacement website's existence, it showed 'Under Construction' pages, was never completed and not surprisingly, it too has now disappeared. It was recently confirmed by an insider that consistent with history and still dominated and bullied by 'old whitey', the committee has again refused to approve payment of web hosting fees (Q4 2011).

Management of Stony Batter into the future
Over the years the NZ Department of Conservation has repeatedly threatened to either close the site or take over management, seemingly reluctant to peremptorily deal with the problems associated with the dysfunctional concession operator. DoC staff to their credit have made a considerable number of improvements, including upgraded signage and interpretation, but their efforts have always met with criticism from a vocal minority of society members. Unfortunately the status quo with the concessionaire remains. In its favour, the society has made some progress toward restoring the site to something resembling its heyday in the mid-to-late 1940s, such as the partial reinstallation of one of the Ruston diesel generators, the likes of which would never have eventuated had it been left to DoC's more purely administrative, rather than restorative, role. The future is an open book, yet to be written, but we can be confident that the concrete of the gun emplacements is thick enough to outlive the present committee, and many iterations of DoC which will certainly follow.