Orongorongo Meter House was erected no later than 1926. Today it is hidden deep inside the native bush of Wainuiomata Regional Park.
Orongorongo Meter House is a concrete structure resembling a small hut, positioned above a cast-iron pipe and the older concrete water race, which lies approximately half a metre beneath its concrete floor. Inside the house, an outline of the water flow meter system can be seen on one of the walls and floor, once used to regulate the Orongorongo pipeline beneath. An old newspaper article suggests that the meter was purchased on the 13 June 1924.
Further, near the entrance and a window, is concrete sealing at each end of the hut marking what was once entry points to the water race. The race itself begins at Lower Dam and extends to Colemans Tunnel near Richard Prouse Park.
The concrete hut / house is of a rectangular design, measuring 3.365 meters along its longer side, corresponding to the track side or the south/north orientation. On the shorter side, measuring 2.455 meters, lies the east/west alignment. The height from the exterior to the arched concrete roof peaks at 2.5 meters. Positioned on the east side, the entrance features a window opposite on the west side, both fashioned from molded concrete.
Until the mid-1980s (perhaps later), the hut was visible from The Meadow which is known today as Hine Road Recreation Area. Over time, dense tree growth has obscured the structure from view. Its exact location is on an old track that ran parallel with Reservoir Road that use to accommodate four-wheel drive vehicles until about 2008. It was initially carved out for the Orongorongo Pipeline, since then, nature has almost completely reclaimed this stretch of the old track.
It is interesting that both the water race and the pipeline run underground. As a result, their maintenance tracks intersected at this point, though elsewhere along the hillside they followed different levels. It remains unclear whether the hut’s position directly above both was intentional or merely coincidental. If intentional, then the hut could date back earlier to the time of the water race.
One possible theory is that the hut was constructed for the Orongorongo pipeline, but positioned above the water race so that an existing water race manhole could be repurposed to provide access to the Orongorongo pipe.
