From left: HB Woodturners Guild members Brent Salisbury, Roger Mabey and Mark Bayliss with their playground additions.
From left: HB Woodturners Guild members Brent Salisbury, Roger Mabey and Mark Bayliss with their playground additions.
With its stock truck, grain silo and other farm-themed play items, the St Leonard’s Park playground has been missing just one thing until now – animals.
And why not some animals with history behind them?
Sadly, in 2023, a Hastings poplar tree, once regarded as the largest in the Southern Hemisphere and more than 150 years old, was felled.
Its ailing health made it a danger to park users.
Now, less than a year on, pieces of the poplar have been turned into a flock of wooden sheep for St Leonard’s Park by the Hawke’s Bay Woodturners Guild.
Hastings District Council completed a St Leonard’s Park playground upgrade in October 2023. The equipment pays homage to the district’s agriculture sector, including the nearby Stortford Lodge sale yards, which have been operating for 120 years.
While the park has been popular with families since its opening, on the other side of the park HB Woodturners Guild has been busy rustling up a flock of five wooden sheep to add to the playground’s rural feel.
Hastings kids are loving the new flock at the local park.
During the planning stage of St Leonard’s Park, HDC asked the guild if they could make sheep, but finding the right wood was challenging, guild member Roger Mabey explained.
Mabey said the group searched everywhere for the right wood to no avail.
The group heard that the poplar tree in Frimley Park was being removed, and Mabey said through the council, the guild was given “some big branches”.
“Getting the poplar worked out exceptionally well,” Mabey said.
Along with five sheep, the guild members have made spares in case of damage.
The group is not worried about weather damage or wear and tear from children, as the wood has survived the past 150 years. It has also been coated in several layers of good-quality oil.
“Everybody thinks poplar is a soft wood, but this was hard and is something that should last really well outside,” Mabey said.
The Woodturners Guild workshop/club rooms are just across the field from the new park. The club has called St Leonard’s Park home for 10 years and celebrates its 35th anniversary this year.
The group plans to place a sixth poplar sheep in front of the woodturners’ rooms.
The group discussed naming each sheep but decided to leave that to the kids’ imaginations.
“We’re pleased that this means the tree is still remembered in Hawke’s Bay and that the sheep are being enjoyed by the kids,” Mabey said.
HB Woodturners Guild members Brent Salisbury, Mark Bayliss, Logan Van Der Meer and Mabey made the sheep.
Maddisyn Jeffares became the editor of the Hawke’s Bay community papers Hastings Leader and Napier Courier in 2023 after writing at the Hastings Leader for almost a year. She has been a reporter with NZME for almost three years and has a strong focus on what’s going on in communities, good and bad, big and small. Email news tips to her at: maddisyn.jeffares@nzme.co.nz
