About Mt Somers Station

Mt Somers Station is the family property of David and Kate Acland, together they run the 3800ha farm. The property runs from the Ashburton River at an altitude of 400m to the boundary of the Conservation park at the base of the Mountain, an altitude of 700m. 

Mt Somers Station runs over 13,000 breeding sheep, 1800 Beef Cattle and 1300 Dairy Cows. The property also includes 500ha of Native vegetation and Beech forest which has been retired from grazing, this vegetation provides ample food source for the 400 hives we have on the property producing Manuka and Honeydew honey’s in addition to the clover honey produced from the lower terraces. The Station has 12 full time staff, most of whom live on the property.

 

History 

David’s great great Grandfather JBA Acland originally took up Mt Somers Station and a number of other Canterbury runs in 1856 with his business partner Charles Tripp. In 1861 they dissolved the partnership with Acland retaining Mt Peel Station to the south and Tripp taking Orari Gorge and Mt Somers Stations. The families of Acland and Tripp have farmed Mt Peel and Orari Gorge Stations since this time, however Mt Somers Station was sold in 1862 to Tripp’s brother-in-law Charles Cox.

The Station was sold to Cox’s nephew A.E. Peache in 1876. It was Peache who constructed the first Lime quarry at Mt Somers and his works that saw Mt Somers limestone blocks used in the building of the Melbourne Cathedral and Christchurch Cathedrals.

Peache died at the relatively early age of 52 in 1900, his wife remained on the Station until a few weeks before her death at the age of 90 in 1949. More than a century of family association with Mt Somers Station ended when it was sold in 1968 to Burnett Motors for sum 260,000pounds. At the time the station carried 13,304 sheep and 457 cattle. 

The Station originally included almost the entire of Mount Somers and bounded the Staveley Bush, however in the 1970’s the lease on the majority of the Bush and mountainous area was retired and the land became part of the national conservation estate.

Robert (Bob) Burnett sold two-thirds of Mt Somers Station to David’s parents Mark and Jo Acland in 1983, the family moved from Mt Peel Station where Mark had been farming in partnership with his brother. The property was relatively underdeveloped with limited housing and no deer fencing. Mark undertook a massive development program and the first deer were bought to the property in August 1983 at a time when Deer farming in NZ was in it’s infancy. Mark and Jo purchased the remainder of the Station in 2002 from the Burnett Estate, the same year David returned home to the Station.