The Sand Hills Run
(Runs 9, 72 and 239)

This station took in the country on the coast between the Styx River and the Estuary. William Derisley Wood took up Run 9 on 31st January, 1852, and he and his partner and brother-in-law, William Chisnall, took up Run 72 on 14th January, 1853.

In September, 1853, Wood and Chisnall sold the station to Dr. Moore and Peter Kerr, though the leases were not transferred officially until 4th June, 1854.

Wood and Chisnall then took up Snowdon Station. After they sold Snowdon, Wood founded the flour milling business which still belongs to his sons, and in later life he bought Swyncombe Station near Kaikoura. He was born in England in 1826 and died in Christchurch in 1906. Chisnall was the first owner of Russley, afterwards Dr. Prins's stud farm, and also rented an island in the Waimakariri which he worked with it. He was drowned while crossing from one to the other. His descendants are now landowners in the Hinds district.

Wood and Chisnall worked the Sand Hills Run as a dairy station, and supplied Christchurch with milk. Their manager was Peter Kerr who bought the station from them in partnership with Dr. Moore.

In February, 1858, Moore and Kerr took up Run 239, which was all sand hills and probably not thought page 49worth bothering with before.

Most of the Sand Hills Station lay within six miles of Christchurch and the land worth buying on it was selected very quickly from 1863 onwards. Dr. Moore sold his share of the station to Kerr in 1864. In 1865 Kerr had something over six thousand acres of the leasehold left. He had also several hundred acres of freehold, part of which still belongs to his descendants who are the Kerrs now well known as the owners and trainers of trotting horses. When the Kerrs threw up the leasehold country, C. T. Dudley rented it for some years up to 1901.

Dr. Moore was one of the first doctors in practice in Christchurch. There is an account of him in Tales of Banks Peninsula. His father was Mayor of Salisbury. Dr. Moore came to New Zealand in 1851 and settled in Charteris Bay, but did not succeed at farming and had to go back to his profession, though he imported some very good dairy cattle, and strains of their blood were valued for many years on the Peninsula. He died in Christchurch about 1870.