The Camphouse at North Egmont is one of the oldest surviving corrugated-iron buildings in the world. It is one section of barracks imported from Melbourne in 1855 to house imperial troops in New Plymouth. After the last troops left in 1870, the colonial Armed Constabulary occupied the complex. For a few years in the mid-1870s part of it was used as temporary housing for new immigrants to Taranaki. This part of the building was moved to North Egmont in 1891 for tourist accommodation. The hand-wrought iron sheets are several millimetres thick, and gun slits were cut in some of them.
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by Ron Lambert
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