Grahams Beach

“A cannonball? Here?” you might ask, staring at the sandy expanse of Grahams Beach. It’s not every day you stumble upon a relic of New Zealand’s past while strolling along a seemingly peaceful shore. Grahams Beach, nestled on the Awhitu Peninsula, south of the Manukau Harbour, holds more secrets than meet the eye. This tranquil village, once known as Graham’s Beach, served as a vital ferry link between Waiuku and Onehunga in 1895. A wharf, built around 1903, facilitated this connection. Grahams Beach even boasted a thriving primary school until 1949 when it merged with Awhitu District School. But beneath the calm exterior lies a dramatic history. In 2019, Rowan Dixon made an astonishing discovery on Grahams Beach: a 15-kilo cannonball, half-buried in a cliffside slip. This wasn’t just any rock. It matched the ammunition used by Royal Navy warships in the mid-1800s. These ships, including the HMS Harrier, patrolled the Manukau Harbour during the New Zealand Wars. The Harrier, armed with seventeen 32-pounder cannons, played a key role in the 1863 proclamation demanding Maori allegiance to the Queen. The cannonballs fired from these ships, likely including the one found by Dixon, served as a stark warning. Gwyn Marshall, a descendant of the beach’s namesake, William Graham, recalls stories of cannonball holes in the cliffs. Her father, born in 1876, recounted how these were fired as a warning for Maori to leave the peninsula. The discovery of the cannonball, particularly by the Dixons on the day of Paul Dixon’s funeral, a man deeply interested in local military history, added another layer of poignancy to Grahams Beach’s story. Now, this relic, once a symbol of conflict, rests at the Manukau Heads Lighthouse. Grahams Beach, a place of quiet beauty, whispers tales of a turbulent past, inviting us to delve deeper into the layers of history hidden beneath the sand.