Located on SH3 at Brixton, Mount Pleasant homestead and the distinctive brick wall at the roadside have been local landmarks for over a century.
The house was built by Robert Thomas - the date is unknown but it seems likely to have been about 1900. Thomas was a bricklayer so it can be assumed that the wall was built sometime between 1904 (DP2162 indicates a furze hedge on the boundary) and 1913 when the property was sold to James and Amelia Muir.
In the 1980s part of the brick wall was demolished accidentally by contractors laying cable. The company responsible paid for Martin Van Hoof to re-instate the wall following the incident.
A car accident outside the homestead in early 2017 damaged the brick wall, but once again was repaired to match the original.
It is also said that the first shots in the Taranaki Wars were fired from a spot close to where the house now stands - noted on DP2162.
Related documents and plans:
Mount Pleasant History (A Town Called Waitara, S. Pigott and D.P. Fraser. TRCT993.482 FRA)
Paritutu SD, Block III SO36/5, ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)
Paritutu SD, Block III SO7393, ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)
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