Liverpool Arms Hotel

The Liverpool Arms Hotel has a brief history. It was built by Francis (Frank) and Elizabeth Woodhouse down on Section 8, probably near to where Thomas Anderson had built his Way-Side Inn about 1864 in what we now know as Kidds Gully, about 5 km below the Queensberry Inn between Luggate and Cromwell. 

Francis had been a gold miner down at Teviot and after fluctuating fortunes, they decided to obtain a Deferred Payment Licence on Section 8 of 320 acres that was previously owned by the well-known Robert Kidd. Robert had owned inns and hotels at Albert Town, Cromwell, and on this property (but it burned down in 1882), Long Valley, and Lake Hāwea. It is likely that Section 8 had been taken from Robert as he was neither farming it nor residing on it (a requirement of the issue of the licence) and hadn’t paid the lease payments for some time. 

In June 1888 when Francis and Elizabeth completed the building of their house, they applied for an accommodation licence from the Warden’s Court but were declined (probably due to close proximity to the Queensberry Inn). They renamed Kidds Creek to Woodhouse Creek, as occupiers in the area were want to do for any creek crossing their property, and advertised the property for sale, even putting it up for auction (Sept 1889). There were no takers, so they stripped all the iron roofing off the house and went off to Bannockburn where Francis had arranged a lease of the Carrick Range Hotel. Woodhouse Creek returned its name to Kidds Creek. It appears that Robert Kidd had renamed it from an earlier name to his name when he built his hotel there – the Kidds Halfway House.