The George Cafe - Speldhurst Country Estate 100 Speldhurst Parade

Speldhurst is his biggest development to date. What began as a 25-year plan for 450 to 500 houses, with current momentum looks like it is going to be completed in about a decade. Building houses is in Wayne Bishop's blood and the motivation behind his work are his passion for his job, his district and his family.

The Bishops have been in Horowhenua for over 100 years. Wayne's grandfather started farming in Ohau on the land that has since become the Bishop’s Vineyard development. Although the Bishops have no connection to the vineyard, the family name remains on the land his grandfather, George broke in to support dairying and to have his wife’s name “Ivy” as a street name in this new subdivision is a lovely touch.

The name ‘Speldhurst’, comes from a small Village in the Borough of Tunbridge Wells in Kent, south of London. It has a population of 5,000 people approx. Speldhurst derives from the Old English for 'wooded hill ('hyrst') where wood-chips ('speld') are found’. Speldhurst is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Tunbridge Wells. The parish is 5km to the west of Tunbridge Wells. Speldhurst has a primary school, a parish church, a general store with post office, a pub, a violin shop and a small business park. 

Wayne’s paternal grandmother’s family immigrated from this Village in the late 1800s, travelling to Tasmania first before settling in New Zealand. For the past 40 years we have attended Family Reunions every three years in Matamata from this family line, so we know our relatives very well and many of our extended family have visited us here to see the progress happening over the past couple of years and they too, are excited to see this name being used.  Names of the roads within the Estate are names of roads in the little English village. Even “The George”, the community centre at the heart of the Village is named after a feature in that English Village: the local pub which is called The George & Dragon Inn so we have used ‘The George’ as the name of our Cafe too.