Unfurl a map of the North Island, find Stratford just to the east of Mt Taranaki and travel about 10km on State Highway 43 to Toko, where the fertile volcanic ringplain that fuels the dairy industry ends.

It’s been an easy journey so far, but to get to the genesis of this story you have to have your wits about you as the road pinches in from the sides as you climb up and over the Strathmore, Pohokura and Whangamomona saddles.

The Whangamomona Hotel is splendidly isolated. The Whangamomona Hotel is splendidly isolated.

The Whangamomona Hotel is marketed as the most isolated pub in the country and it feels that way. It was here in 1907 that publican Athalinda Dean – a formidable woman of extravagant tastes – bought and donated a cup to be played between the cricketers of the Whangamomona village and those who farmed farther down the valley.

Athalinda Dean Athalinda Dean

The enterprise was an abject failure.

Carving a playable cricket field from the rugged, sodden country was a task too far. The magnificent trophy, which was thought to have cost Dean upwards of £20, was instead donated to the local rugby club, who opened it up to challenges from Strathmore, Toko and Ohura (who dropped out after a few successful years).

Whangamomona Domain Whangamomona Domain

The trophy became a source of pride for the three districts. In the early days, when roads resembled a ribbon of mud, challenges could be three-day affairs: one day to get there; one to play and drink; one long, long day to return.

The host team would open up their village hall for the festivities. A band would play, sawdust would be spread on the floor to soak up the alcohol and everybody within driving distance would join the party.

“My earliest memories are of being dragged around the hall on sacks the next morning. It was how we cleaned up,” says Carrol Coulton, whose family has farmed the Strathmore Valley for generations.

Coulton played his first Dean Cup match for Strathmore while still at high school.

“Oh hell yes. Beat Whanga at Whanga. I learned to drink beer that day too. It wasn’t pretty,” he says.

Coulton takes his name from his grandfather, Private Carrol Coulton, whose name is inscribed on the lonely Strathmore and Te Wera Makahu Districts cenotaph, one of 25 men from the district to perish in World War I. Another 25 would die in World War II.

It’s a staggeringly high body count, but in the post-war era a different sort of attrition took hold.

“There’d be no more than 50 people living here now,” says Coulton. “The local school, Huiakama, used to have about 50 kids, it might have 15 now. Other schools in the area have closed.

Urban sprawl is not a problem in the back blocks of Taranaki. Urban sprawl is not a problem in the back blocks of Taranaki.

“It’s all the farm amalgamations,” Coulton says. “The area is totally depopulated.”

Back in the day every farm would have about six people working it. Those little farms are now big farms.

“I’m guilty of it. I bought out one neighbour, bought half of another one. It’s the economics of scale.”

The Coulton name will live on in the valley. His son Michael will inherit the land when Carrol shuffles off. He’ll be the fifth generation of Coultons on the same land. Michael’s son, the family anticipates, will be the sixth.

Festivities are underway at the Toko clubrooms. Festivities are underway at the Toko clubrooms.

The hall is gone, though. It might not have been a picture to look at, and stood unused for most of the year, but take away an area hall and you’re taking away its heart. Inside it had matai floors, rimu studs. Someone paid $5000 to come and take the hall so they could strip out the timber.

The hall was the meeting place for the Strathmore Women’s Division, but that had folded, as had the bowls club and the euchre evenings. Even the Bachelors Ball, once the social highlight of the season – “men had to pay, women were free” – had ceased to exist. The Dean Cup festivities had long moved down the road to Toko.