West Taieri/ Woodside
Woodside was an early settlement at the foot of the Maungatua mountains. It lies on the edge of the Taieri plain, and is approached from Dunedin by leaving the Dunedin-Middlemarch road (State Highway 87) by the Woodside Road about 2 km west of Outram.
The West Taieri cemetery is situated at this junction. The cemetery contains the graves of many of the early settlers, including the prominent brick-maker John Joseph, who made the bricks for many of the original buildings. His tomb can easily be identified as the large red brick one.
Several of the early buildings of the 1860s and onwards still survive, though some are in a state of disrepair. The most impressive surviving building is the West Taieri manse, a white two-storey colonial-style wooden house, built in 1875 and in private ownership since 1969. Also impressive is the Old Woodside Store and Post Office, built in the 1890s and still retaining some features of the original shop.
John Joseph’s own house continues as a private dwelling but has been extensively altered. A Scottish-style house built in 1866 for one of the earliest setters Francis McDiarmid is being restored.
Other buildings have fared less well. The West Taieri school, dating from the 1870s and closed in the 1940s, is in poor condition, and the Woodside Mission Hall, built as a Sunday School in the 1860s, is in a derelict state.
The trail, which was developed by the Taieri Historical Society, makes a pleasant 90-minute walk round some of the early buildings of Woodside. It can also be done by bicycle or by car.