It is next to St Mary's on Perth St.
It's a monument to Catherine and Andrew Burnett from the Scottish Highlands. This is the spot where they camped before travelling to Mt Cook in 1861 in a bullock dray. Mt Cook Station was founded in 1864. Their first home was a two bedroom cob cottage with a thatch roof. (Imagine the conditions they survived in!) The Burnetts had eight children and to provide better access to education, they purchased land in Cave in 1873 and built a homestead there. To be even closer to the schools in Timaru, Andrew Burnett had a home built in Timaru's Perth Street in 1876; this house became the South Canterbury Museum after Thomas Burnett's death.
One of their sons, Thomas Burnett was a New Zealand politician. (25 November 1877 – 30 November 1941) initially a politician of the Reform Party, he later joined the National Party. He was a student at Timaru Main School and Timaru Boys High School. Thomas Burnett acquired ownership of Mt Cook Station at a period in Mackenzie County history when there was a series of devastating snowy winters, and in spite of the extent of his run reaching right to the Tasman Glacier, he saved his flock. He was deeply conscious of South Canterbury’s drought vulnerability, and after much battling persuaded the Government to undertake the Downlands Water Supply Scheme. Grateful ratepayers erected a memorial to him by the main highway near cave.
He was also instrumental in getting the Land Act altered to give security of tenure to pastoral lessees, enabling progress in the high country.
He was moving figures in the establishment of the Tekapo Sale with its own new yards in 1928.
He built St David's Pioneer Memorial Church LN:312 C1 designed by Herbert H. Hall at Cave in 1930 at his own expense. (It was built for Thomas Burnett in memory of his father Andrew Burnett (1838–1927) and his mother Catherine (1837–1914), as well as to commemorate other pioneering run-holders who took up runs in the Mackenzie country)
Burnett Homestead Gates were erected by T.D. Burnett during the worst years of the great depression (1932-3), with the inscription that reads 'to keep minds and hands busy'. Stylistically they resemble the nearby
Organised, paid for and erected the memorials at Burkes Pass, Mackenzie Pass and the War Memorial on the Cave Hill.
He was much involved in alleviating distress caused by the Great Depression of the 1930s.
He was one of the first nature conservationists and was known latterly as the “Man from the Misty Gorges”.
St David's was designed by Timaru-based architect Herbert Hall (1880-1939). Hall moved to Sydney, Australia, to begin working as an architect and on his return to New Zealand settled in Timaru. He designed a number of buildings (both domestic and public) throughout Timaru and the surrounding districts in the early part of the twentieth century.
