Strath Taieri is a large glacial valley and river plateau in New Zealand's South Island. It is surrounded by the rugged hill ranges to the north and west of Otago Harbour. Since 1989 it has been part of the city of Dunedin. The small town of Middlemarch is located at its southern end. The name is a hybrid word, from Strath (anglicised Irish and Scots Gaelic srath), meaning a broad river valley, and the Māori name Taieri (alternative spelling Taiari) of the river which runs through it. History There is evidence that moa hunters (1300-1500) were once active on the Strath Taieri, the Taieri Gorge, at Deep Stream and Rocklands on the adjacent plateau to the south. A Māori route from the coast to the interior lay along the valley. Activity during the Classic period (1500–1642) is attested by a cave discovered in 1949 with its entrance blocked containing the bodies of a Māori woman and child. It is not clear if they were trapped deliberately or by accident. This corresponds with other sites in the area containing rock shelters with mostly domestic articles, wooden bowls, material for garments and gear for hunting weka or fishing. Charles Kettle saw the area from the top of Maungatua in 1847 and was impressed by the land's pastoral potential. Strath Taieri and its surrounding district lay beyond the limit of the coastal Otago Block which Kettle was surveying but, following the Otago Association's settlement on that land in 1848, horizons became broader. Kettle was one of the first Europeans known to have visited the Strath Taieri when he led an exploration party up the "strath" in February 1851. The Otago Provincial government was established in 1852, whose territory included the region. It seems Duncan Stewart, his wife and their children were living on the site of what was later the Barewood homestead, on the Barewood run, by late 1853 or early 1854. John Sutton was granted the Barewood Run in 1854 before it was surveyed. Between 1857 and 1859 much of the land in and around Strath Taieri was taken up by pastoralists on lease from the Crown. One of these leaseholds, Cottesbrook, became the centre of several sheep stations put together by the Tasmanian Gellibrand family. A group of buildings, including a homestead, office, cottage, cook house, butcher's shop and large shearing shed were all built from the local stone. They remain,