History adds to the appeal when an old pub goes up for sale

I am a fan of tales from old pubs but if they don’t excite you, perhaps you should look away now.

One such pub is the 1861 Opawa Accommodation House at Albury. William and Emma Butterworth ran the pub and in 1863 Butterworth was fined £5 ($700) for not keeping a supply of oats and hay and not keeping a lamp burning. Serious offences when the pub was a stopping place for travellers. Magistrate Belfield Woollcombe suggested Butterworth sell out so Butterworth took over the Queen’s Hotel in Timaru.

At Albury the new publican was William Walden who was determined to make good with irresistible advertisements. Then followed a court case which revealed that Walden’s purchase involved making payments over five years at £130 ($18,000) a year. During 1866 Walden refused to pay up as Butterworth had stipulated that Emma Butterworth was now to be the beneficiary. The lawyers had a field day and Butterworth was accused of perjury.

William Walden died at the age of 45 in 1867 and his wife Jane took over the licence, running the pub (by now called the Opawa Hotel) during difficult times, including the great snowfall of 1867. In September 1870 she was obliged to publicly state that rumours about her being in financial difficulty were entirely false, but within a month the licence was transferred to Alexander McAllister. In January 1873 Mrs McAllister upset a pot of hot fat and the hotel was set ablaze and nothing was saved. The building was insured for £400 ($70,000) and McAllister had it rebuilt in limestone (the present building) with Murdoch McLeod taking over the lease.

In January 1877 the railway to Fairlie reached Albury which would be the railhead until 1883.

As a railhead, Albury was home to a large crowd of hard working and hard drinking navvies.

Among them were 60 married men, a figure we know from a news item about them being given a few days off to visit their families. Albury now boasted a police camp and the pub was being checked regularly.

From this scrutiny came a classic tale of the licensing laws.

Sgt James Burtonshaw rustled up some prosecution witnesses.

D. Cooper told of having a drink after 11pm. A groom at the hotel, Fred Fladden, said he’d had drinks after 11pm but added, "I can’t say what they were."

The next witness, owner Alexander McAllister, admitted he was in the bar after hours but drank only raspberry and cold water. Magistrate Beetham, more gullible than most, dismissed the charges.

But the weather was a bigger threat than an overzealous police sergeant. In the floods of January 1877 all those in the pub and surrounding houses had to decamp to the police barracks and one corner of the pub was undermined by the waters. The paper reported, "a dray loaded with two tons of coals was swept down the river from just in front of the hotel and a buggy, made fast to a tree close by, floated like a ship at anchor."

When people swarmed in to buy land opened up by the railway the pub was told it needed more accommodation as the 17 beds were not enough.

In December 1878, the cook at the hotel gained heroine status. John Hall was loading coal in the Albury rail yard to take to the Mackenzie Country when a bag burst and the horses bolted. Hall jumped on to the wagon but was thrown from his seat and knocked about. The fearless cook, Mrs McDougall, came to his rescue, grabbing the reins and stopping the horses.

In 1879 publican Thomas Butler was the hero when the river rose once more. At 3 o’clock in the morning he hitched up his horse and buggy and took all those whose houses were threatened to the hotel where his hospitality and kindness were the talk of the town. Butler also realised that railway passengers at the end of the line needed help in getting through to Burkes Pass and further afield. He advertised "single and double buggies for hire, with careful drivers, meeting the train morning and evening. Also, ladies’ and gentlemen’s hacks on hire." 

The hotel was still owned by Murdoch McLeod but he could see that a hotel next to the railway station would do better than his riverside pub. He built the Railway Hotel (now the Albury Tavern) and in December 1879 George Palmer became the first licensee.

The Opawa Hotel was soon in decline and by 1886 had closed. But, it’s still there. A sturdy stone relic of a colourful time — and it’s for sale. If I was  younger, I would be making an offer.

— Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer.