DB Breweries (660 Great South Road)

On the corner of Bairds Road and Great South Road is the DB Breweries complex. This site was originally the homestead of the Baird family, who first purchased their land in 1850. Named Fairview, the home stood opposite to where the brewery’s storage vats are today. The Baird family also built a storage shed and wharf beside the Tāmaki River, where wheat, chaff, and other local products were shipped to various locations. On 27 August 1854, Reverend John Macky conducted the first church service ever held in Papatoetoe in this shed. The shed survived well into the twentieth century but was finally destroyed by fire in 1963. After Samuel Christie Baird’s death in 1892, trustees of his estate sold some of the land to the owner of Waitemata Breweries.

The Waitemata Brewery first opened on 5 November 1929. During the inaugural ceremony, a protest was held by Helen Baird and members of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), which held a prayer meeting in front of the building. The owner of the brewery, William Coutts, used the opportunity to provide free beer for onlookers. At the very corner of the intersection, there is a diamond-shaped area of grass in front of the brewery. This is the ‘Grass Plot’ and has been preserved to commemorate the WCTU protest.

The brewery has changed much over the years, with buildings being visibly modified and extended. But the magnificent original copper vats can still be glimpsed through the first-floor windows. Dominion Breweries took the brewery over in 1930. Decades later, in 1993, the redeveloped DB Breweries was officially reopened by Morton Coutts, the son of the original brewery’s first owner.

Cross Bairds Road at the signal and then continue walking along Great South Road.