You can see three structures here. They are really interesting and the main focus point. All three of them are storage buildings. When the European missionaries arrived, they reported that the most elaborate sanctuary buildings in the village were not the chief's houses; they were the store rooms. There's an entirely alternative approach to property compared to the European approach. The rua goes down underground so it keeps the kumara's cool and dry. The patika and the whatarangi are raised up, to give security from feeding kids and rats.

Storage house design varied depending on the tribe... some reports would say a whatarangi was ten metres in the air with one single pole, and it was for dead people; they would put skeletons up there. If you look at the bottom panel of the largest structure - that's a replica of a piece of wood that was found buried in a garden in Chartwell in the 1970s; this original piece of wood now belongs to the Waikato museum. So every effort has been made in this garden to make sure that the carvings are accurate, to pre-European carving style. Because of course, like any art form, there's changes in style and changes in technique, so where practical they have used traditional stone tools and traditional patterns