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Township 15 km north-east of Featherston on the Waiohine River terraces. Greytown is the Wairarapa’s oldest town, with New Zealand’s most complete main street of wooden Victorian buildings. Greytown was founded in 1854 by the Small Farms Association, which aimed to settle working people in towns and on the land. It was New Zealand’s first planned inland town, although the first settlers were greeted by dense bush. Once this was cleared, the town developed as a market and servicing centre. It was soon the region’s largest settlement, and became a borough in 1878. However, the railway bypassed Greytown in the 1870s because of problems with floods from the Waiohine River. The town never recovered its former prominence. One benefit of the flooding was rich alluvial soils, and a pip-fruit, berry, and market garden industry was established in the 1890s.
