Kakanui war memorial grove. A concrete plinth with formica engraved plate records 9 service persons names - 6 First World War and 3 Second World War. About 7 mixed native trees including cabbage trees.
The Kakanui memorial grove is a part of a network of North Otago memorial oak groves.
The original North Otago memorial oaks were planted in 1919, however, as subsequent development resulted in a number of these threes being lost, and many of the original and crosses purloined or broken, in the 1950s a local surveyor Jack Horner agitated for the establishment of alternative groves of memorial trees. As an aside, many of the brass plates were later found in the berms and grass and have been collected at the North Otago Museum. Since the 1990s a committee has replaced the wooden crosses, and the North Otago Memorial Oaks have again become a much more well recognised important part of the fabric of North Otago's history.
A new replacement bronze tablet and information board (last two thumbnail images) were added in time for the First World War centenary in August 2014.
The other groves are those at Oamaru, Maheno, Glencoe Domain, Ardgowan School, and Hampden.
Note there is also a more traditional Kakanui memorial.
Kakanui Memorial Grove First and Second World Wars - Inscribed names
WW1
C.H.S. Barnell
A.E.Couper
G.Grenfell
C.H.Maffey
H.Southgate
L.H.Wright
WW2
D.I.Cooper
J.W.Isbister
S.S. Wilson
Information and images courtesy Bruce Comfort, 2009 and 2014
Find out more about the people listed on this memorial from Auckland Museum's Cenotaph database