Hands up anyone who has been to the Helensville cemetery recently - and I mean just for pleasure. I consider it to be one of Helensville's "hidden" gems.

On a lovely day (like today) you get the most astonishing views - way better than from the mostly overgrown Wishart Rd lookout. You can see the whole Helensville township spread out below, along with Parakai in the distance. The oxbow curves of the Kaipara River really look something from up here, and you get a great view across to the Kaipara Harbour.

But the cemetery itself is great.

Perched on top of a ridge, with gnarled old trees everywhere, there are some wonderful old headstones. Much of it is pretty rundown, at least in the older section up at the top, with headstones leaning at all angles and old wrought iron fences falling down - but that just adds to the atmosphere. Keen photographers can have a field-day up here.

The newer sections lower down aren't nearly as interesting, of course - well kept and no view, but that's to be expected.

I recommend a jaunt up here on a fine day for any visitor to the town - it'll give you a good birds-eye view of the pay of the land, plus you can spend some time with many of the old identities of the town.

How can we protect the natural character of our town?

Helensville is a lovely place, still on the quiet side with many beautiful old buildings and a "small town" feel. What adds to this charm is the fact the town is only a 35 minute drive from the centre of Auckland, so we get the best of both worlds.

However, the beginning of the end has already happened.

It's progress (of a sort), and I'm not knocking it, but it is rather a shame too. Already the main southern entrance to the town is dominated by a massive Mitre 10. There's also an ITM building supply store, and in the middle of the main road what used to be Helensville Video is now chain Video Ezy. And of course there's the huge Woolworths supermarket, dominating the main shopping area.

How long will it be before there's a McDonalds, KFC or Pizza Hut? Or worse - the dreaded Red Shed?

It's going to happen eventually, probably sooner than later, and unfortunately Helensville will go the way of many other small towns around New Zealand (and around the world for that matter) - the locally owned shops will be swallowed by national chains, and one day I'll drive into town and wonder exactly which town I'm in.

Because that's the problem with progress - everything starts to look the same. There are towns all over New Zealand that have very little of their own character left. Some are luckier than others, but generally the faster they grow and more popular they become, the quicker they turn into what the people who moved there were trying to get away from in the first place.

You can't blame the commercial property owners for selling out to the big chains.

I heard someone moaning a few months ago because they had heard The Warehouse was making overtures about buying a block of commercial land in Mill Road. This person was quite indignant that the owner would actually consider selling to a big chain. But I bet if it was them who had the chance to land a big payday they would leap at it - loss of town character or not.

Is there anything we can do? The commercial land and buildings are all privately owned, and the owners are quite within their rights to sell to whoever they want. I'm sure many of them would prefer Helensville to stay the way it is, but I guess faced with the option of either going slowly broke or earning a nice healthy payday through a sellout, I know which way they will go.

I suppose Rodney District Council could impose stringent design rules that mean chains have to adhere to a specific look. A couple of years ago I was in the "Old German" town of Leavenworth in Washington, USA. There's a McDonalds in the main street, but you'd hardly know it - apart from some discreet signage, it looks like a traditional German building. Admittedly the whole town is themed, but it's an idea.

Maybe that would just scare the big chains away and stunt the development of Helensville.

Maybe that would be a nice thing...

A sunny Sunday in Helensville.

It was nice to hear the TV3 weatherman (local lad Michael Hall) advising Aucklanders to take their mountain bikes up to Woodhill Forest today, then stop at the Helensville bakery on the way home! Nothing like a bit of national promotion for the town.

The Helensville Pioneer Museum reopened recently, so that's another worthwhile attraction for out-of-towners to visit on their way through (not that we want them to "go through" - we'd prefer them to stay a while).

Helensville has become something of a cafe destination, with four of them in the main road and almost always busy.

People driving through will be interested to see the development going on - construction at both ends of Commercial Road, with the new medical centre and new physiotherapy centre. And of course coming from Auckland, even before you hit Commercial Road there are all the new buildings that have gone up recently in Mill Road. A boom town for sure!

I spoke recently with local physio Kath Long. Apparently some people have criticised the lovely new physical therapy clinic she is building in Commercial Road (read article) because it isn't "heritage" in design.

No, it isn't - instead it's a very modern, and great-looking, building.

What's with the "heritage" deal anyway? Helensville does have some wonderful old commercial buildings, the Old Post Office being the prime example, while others like the Allsorts building are very nice too - and the old Screatons building is currently having a facelift which will give it a nice heritage appeal.

But take a look at the rest of the Commercial Road buildings. Many so-called "heritage" ones are simply plain, ugly old buildings with no real architectural merit. The rest - and probably the bulk - are much more modern: the Helensville Pharmacy, Kaipara Tavern, Library and Hall, Vets, Kaipara Court ... the list goes on.

The Kaipara Medical Centre is a rather neat-looking art deco style building - "heritage" surely, but not really Helensville's heritage. When it was built, was there an outcry that it didn't match the rest of the town's architectual style? And the new clinic, being built right alongside, is modern (and attractive) in design.

Now don't get me wrong - I'm not knocking Helensville's heritage appeal. History is very important, and it is something that most towns in New Zealand have lost. And unfortunately it's happening in Helensville too.

However, building new buildings to look like old ones isn't the answer - a fake heritage building is just that.

Preserving the remaining worthy heritage buildings (not just anything that's "old") is important, and fortunately, if we step away from commercial buildings for a moment, Helensville is blessed with many beautiful old (read heritage) residential homes - and the town does have a good record of these being preserved.

Rather than bemoaning the arrival of attractive new buildings, perhaps we should be more worried about the town's loss of character through the arrival of large national chains - but that's a subject for another posting.

Hi

First post on Think Helensville, the new blog for everything to do with Helensville, New Zealand.

This blog is brought to you by the Helensville Online website, www.helensville.co.nz. It will be a series of (probably infrequent) notes, jottings and thoughts about our great town.

Don't be shy in posting any comments - your views are welcome!