Work underway on the cottage in mid-May. Photo: Supplied / Department of Conservation
Work by the Department of Conservation to save a miners cottage once home to noted West Coast photographer Jos Divis is "a complex job".
But the small wooden cottage is a key fixture and one of the few buildings intact from the heyday of the ghost town of Waiuta, which was abandoned in 1951 due to the sudden closure of the area's gold mine.
DOC Greymouth operations manager Chris Hickford told the West Coast Conservation Board the cottage is "one of the key components" of Waiuta and is expected to be a key feature for the historic town site as a visitor site.
The department believed the cottage dated from the late 1920s to early 1930s.
It had secured $100,000 to shore up the now fragile wooden structure.
"It's a significant restoration project for us and a significant part of the (DOC) team's work," Hickford said.
The initial work has been to try and save as much of the original fabric of the cottage as possible.
"It's looking really good. It's a complex piece of work and we're very, very pleased to have it underway."
Hickford noted that the Friends of Waiuta were a key partner with the department in saving and planning for the future use of the cottage, along with the wider site.
"They're the dream group in terms of community groups. Their passion and drive is behind it."
Construction was planned to be finished by September. Some other work on the grounds was planned after that with a formal opening being anticipated early in 2024.
Photographer Jos Divis outside his Waiuta residence, circa 1930. Photo: Supplied
Jos Divis first arrived at Waiuta a few years before World War I after emigrating from what is now the Czech Republic, where he was born in 1885.
He was one of Waiuta's last permanent residents on his death in 1967.
While working as a miner he forged a name for himself as a novel and innovative amateur photographer in his documentation of mining town life.
Divis' photographs featured in national publications in the 1920s and 30s such as the Auckland Weekly News.
A novelty of Divis' work was the photographer inserting himself in the images as 'selfies' by deploying camera timers and flash technology.
Photo: Supplied / Department of Conservation
A 45-minute documentary on Divis entitled The Forgotten Photographer Who Saved a Town has recently been released and is now showing nationally.
The documentary, commissioned by the Friends of Waiuta, focuses on Divis' documentation of mining towns between 1909 and 1935.
Waiuta is often referred to as the West Coast's 'best ghost town'.
It was the site of the third biggest underground mine in New Zealand until the 1951 closure, and the largest producer of gold on the West Coast, with close to 734,000 ounces - worth about $1.6 billion - extracted in its 45-year history.
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