The Ellesmere District Historical Society picked up on the theme, with a display of photos depicting everything the district produces: beef cattle, sheep, pigs, dairying, game, barley, wheat, fish, bees, olives, blackcurrants, vegetables and crops. The photos showed how the food had been produced and gathered over the years. Dairying has been a feature of the Ellesmere district since the earliest settlement, the display recorded. Before towns were developed, the early settlers took their surplus butter and cheese to Christchurch by horse and dray.
Later creameries were established and milk was transported there for separation. By the 1920s farmers had their own separators and the cream was sent to the Tai Tapu Dairy Company.
Refrigerated tanks were in use by the 1970s and whole milk was collected by dairy company milk tankers. Many of the dairy farms are still family-owned and operated, but are much bigger operations than they were 40 years ago.
Fishing included catching eels at Lake Ellesmere and fishing for salmon, trout and whitebait on the Rakaia River. There were also photos of the various modes of transport over the years, as well as processing, retailing and leisure activities, World War 1 photos and images of Southbridge. A display of a century of motorsport in the Ellesmere district was hugely popular, while the Ellesmere Concert Band looked beyond the district in performing its own arrangement of Lorde's hit song Royals. Southbridge 150th Anniversary The Ellesmere town of Southbridge will celebrate its 150th anniversary next year. The first public building in what is now Southbridge was the St James Anglican Church, built in 1865 on land given to the church by C.J. Bridge.
Mr Bridge later placed an advertisement to sell the town's first sections in the Lyttelton Times in 1867. Anyone who is interested can contact Pat McEvedy on 027-430-3818 or Serena Matthews on (03) 324-2657.