Town 19 km north of Timaru. Situated near the Arowhenua forest and close to early crossings of the Ōpihi and Temuka rivers, it was gazetted as a town in 1858 and surveyed in 1863, originally under the name ‘Wallingford’. It developed as a secondary industrial centre to Timaru, with early boiling-down and tannery works, a flour mill, a cheese factory and potteries. Temuka has one of New Zealand’s best preserved early 20th-century main streets, and a number of notable older public buildings and churches.
