Shepherd's Bush
(Run 40, N.Z.R.)

Shepherd's Bush took in the country between the South Hinds and the Rangitata. It joined Cracroft on the plains, and ran back to Pudding Valley, where it joined Mt. Possession. Mt. Pukanui was on it. Shepherd's Bush contained over forty thousand acres, of which perhaps a third lay on the plains. It was taken up by Benjamin and Thomas Moorhouse, whose first application for it is notified in the Canterbury Gazette of November 1st, 1854. Thomas Moorhouse very soon sold his interest in the run to the brother. The application book for runs shows that as originally applied for, a narrow strip of Shepherd's Bush ran across behind Anama to the Ashburton River, but this piece of country was never stocked until the boundary was straightened, and it became part of Anama. I do not know when Moorhouse first got sheep on to the run, but he was living there 'in a tent with a chimney built at one end 'in February, 1856. Captain Harding, who afterwards had stations of his own in Mid-Canterbury, lived with him at the time as a cadet or overseer. The original homestead was on the riverbed flat, below the terrace where the present homestead is. The old homestead site was washed away about 1888. There was a small patch of bush near it, and when Mrs Moorhouse came to live on the station she named it Shepherd's Bush in allusion to the bush and their occupation as shepherds.

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For a time in 1855 and 1856, Tripp and Acland ran the sheep they brought to stock Mt. Peel on terms with Moorhouse. Some years after that the Shepherd's Bush sheep became scabby for a time, which the Mt. Peel sheep never did. Sheep seldom crossed the Rangitata unless they were driven over. Acland told me that very early one morning he saw a dog chase a single sheep across the river on to the Mt. Peel side. The sheep ran up the river-bed towards the gorge. Acland hurried back to his homestead and got several shepherds, and they all rode up the run, rounding up every mob they met, to find the Shepherd's Bush sheep and kill it before it could infect the Mt. Peel sheep, which would of course have been a very serious thing indeed. After riding for several hours, and looking through many hundred sheep, they found the straggler, caught him, and killed him, and in half an hour he was cooking on the fire. Acland said that though mutton should be hung, he had never enjoyed better chops for breakfast in his life.

Dr Moorhouse had 5000 of his 6000 sheep declared scabby in 1861 and 1862. He was fined £200. The flock was declared clean in 1863.

The first sheep show ever held in South Canterbury was held at Shepherd's Bush in 1859. I believe it had been arranged to hold it at Mt. Peel, but the Rangitata was high and the exhibitors from the north did not care to risk their sheep crossing the river in bullock drays. I cannot find any account of this show, but I think I have been told that the only class of sheep shown were merino rams.

Dr Moorhouse died in Timaru in 1872, aged 42, and after his death his widow carried on the station until 1885, when it was taken over by the National Mortgage and Agency Company.

In the 'seventies Morrow had bought a block of seven or eight thousand acres on the plain in the middle of the run, and formed the Montalto estate, and about the same time some of the land, where Ruapuna is now, was sold to farmers. In 1889, when the runs were put up to auction, Morrow also out-bid the company for page 289their leasehold country—the hill part of the run. This left the company with a freehold station of five or six thousand acres running up the Rangitata, across the foot of the hills, and down the South Hinds—shaped like a horse-shoe. It was, of course, the freehold frontage which Dr Moorhouse had bought to protect his run. This carried about 5000 sheep and the company went on with it until 1902, when they began selling off the land in blocks. A year or so later they sold the homestead and the last of their land to Donald Frazer, who had managed Shepherd's Bush for them for many years.

Dr Moorhouse's elder son, another Dr Ben Moorhouse, once told me a story to illustrate the gift horses have for finding their way. Ben was out mustering on the plain of Shepherd's Bush, when a fog came up so thick that he could not see past his horse's ears. He waited for a time, and saw that there could be no mustering that day, and tried to make for home, but after an hour or so found that he was lost. He did the wisest thing he could—dropped the reins on his horse's neck and gave him a dig in the ribs. The horse swung round and trotted off with Ben in a bee-line. At that time there were no fences at Shepherd's Bush, except a paddock or two at the homestead. I should explain that in the early days of fencing, when the sheep were all merinos, fences were usually made of standards and five wires, with very few posts except strainers, so that if you slewed a mob of strong merino wethers too hard against a fence the fence went flat. (I flattened one myself once at Cracroft, but managed to push it up again before McMillan or his overseer saw it.) To protect these fences people used to put posts and rails for half a chain on each side of the gates. Well, Ben's horse trotted straight through the fog for an hour or so, and then stopped short. Ben found that he had just missed the paddock gate, but had hit the rails a yard or so from it.

I may describe Ben Moorhouse (the younger), because he was the person who persuaded me to publish page 290my notes on the early runs and because he was one of the best and kindest men I ever knew. He was a good friend, a jolly companion, and about as good a sportsman as ever walked—a good shot, a pastmaster at fly fishing, and a born judge of horses and dogs, and he had a natural gift for woodcraft and understanding wild life, so that in his later years when he couldn't walk much he could still get as many and as good deer as anyone in the Rakaia.

He was six feet four high, and broad in proportion, wore a beard, and had a great, hearty laugh; in fact, he was like the pictures of Sir John Falstaff. He was big all over, and had immense hands, but could tie flies beautifully with them and was a very deft surgeon. He was untidy in his dress and very unpunctual, but as no one could be in his company without feeling all the better and happier for it he was extremely popular with all kinds of people.

During the war he gave up his practice in Christ church and spent some years as a snip's surgeon. He also had a station called Fiery Creek in Southland. He died at Russell, in the Bay of Islands, in 1921.

To return to Dr Moorhouse (the elder). He had given up his profession before he came to Shepherd's Bush, but still did a great deal of doctoring for nothing and would travel any distance into the back country in any weather if there was an accident or a confinement and no other doctor could be got. He was a great friend of Sir Cracroft Wilson's, but his cattle used to wander down the Rangitata and break into Sir Cracroft's paddocks. I have already described Sir Cracroft —'The Nabob.' He had a violent Anglo-Indian temper and Moorhouse's cattle used to annoy him. He used to complain 'A man may try to shoot me, rob me, abuse me, or anything else, but by God, sir, a man who eats the very grass that makes my living is beyond all bearing.'

Joseph F. Foster, who had been overseer or clerk at Waimate, Mitchell, and Wigan were three of Moorhouse's managers at Shepherd's Bush.