Page 8 - Kimihia Volume 2

It was a rarity for a new school in New when the Kimihia Lake became a swimming
Zealand to open with a ready-built pool available impossibility and swimming lessons there had to
for use by the pupils. be curtailed.
Through fund-raising by parents and pupils The mining contractors (Downer & Co.)
of the ‘old’ school and a grant from the were prepared to make their heavy earthmoving
Government, this was made a reality . machinery available for such a purpose at that
During the 1950s consideration had been time.
given to constructing a pool at the old site

Kimihia School 1967
(Photograph taken July 1967 prior to it being moved to Melville Primary School for use as a Library).
At the Melville Primary School, over a period of time, the building was re-blocked, re-clad and re-roofed to a
point where all that remained of the original structure were the internal timbers and so the building was no

longer recognisable as the historic structure it once was. A new building has now replaced the original.