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Kōrero: Flax and flax working

Flax mill

Image
Flax mill

This is a typical small flax mill, south of Castlepoint in Wairarapa, in the early 1900s. The sheds house the flax-stripping and scutching machinery. Outside are bundles of flax leaves, waiting to be processed. Hanks of recently stripped flax fibre are drying on racks. Washed fibre is laid out to bleach in the paddock to the right of the mill.

Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi

Alexander Turnbull Library

Reference: G- 65161-1/2

by George Moore

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

Ngā whakaahua me ngā rauemi katoa o tēnei kōrero

Me pēnei te tohu i te whārang

Nancy Swarbrick, Flax and flax working – The flax fibre industry: 1860s–1930s, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/mi/photograph/10408/flax-mill (accessed 4 June 2026).

He kōrero nā Nancy Swarbrick, i tāngia i te 1 March 2009.