{"id":133695,"date":"2025-11-13T22:36:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T22:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/133695\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T22:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T22:36:08","slug":"life-in-wimbledon-locals-reject-pub-owners-claim-their-village-is-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/133695\/","title":{"rendered":"Life in Wimbledon: Locals reject pub owner\u2019s claim their village is \u2018evil\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wimbledon, Tararua, not so much.<\/p>\n

The sleepy village of dozens rather than hundreds is a place framed by its winding hill country, sheep paddocks, war memorial, forestry, the Wainui River, and its historic tavern sitting right on Route 52, a road of Kiwi backcountry driving dreams.<\/p>\n

When Eric Gathercole moved to the town from Auckland in 2018, he had hopes of reviving the tavern, built in 1896, into a thriving business.<\/p>\n

For a while, it worked.<\/p>\n

But locals spoken to, some of them anonymously, say Gathercole\u2019s behaviour rubbed people the wrong way long before he told a Hawke\u2019s Bay Today reporter this week he believed the community was \u201cevil\u201d and had \u201cturned against\u201d him<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They insist they want and need to share a different perspective, because the community they live in feels supportive and nurturing and warm.<\/p>\n

To suggest anything else was, well, a shock.<\/p>\n

Trudy Riddell, who lives down the road from Wimbledon, says she has nothing against Gathercole. She doesn\u2019t drink, so didn\u2019t go to his pub.<\/p>\n

But she said Gathercole\u2019s style of hospitality was one in which he felt entitled to the community\u2019s loyalty simply because he was open.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a very vocal guy and he\u2019s very negative,\u201d she claimed.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo call us evil? It\u2019s vile and it\u2019s not true and I hate the fact it\u2019s gone around the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Riddell said if Gathercole was \u201cjust a bit more welcoming\u201d then the community probably would have supported him more.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter what part of New Zealand you\u2019re opening a business in; no one is entitled to anything, no one owes you anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Riddell says Gathercole has now \u201cshot himself in the foot\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re in a small community like we are, you need to try not to get offside with anyone, and sometimes that means you shouldn\u2019t say what\u2019s on your mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounds clan-ish, but it\u2019s not, it\u2019s just the reality of any small community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"EricEric Gathercole, the owner of the Wimbledon Tavern. Photo \/ Michaela Gower<\/p>\n

There has been friction towards Gathercole since a decision in late 2023 to host a gathering of a Dannevirke chapter of the Mongrel Mob at the tavern<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Riddell says she felt intimidated at the time by the gang\u2019s presence in the community and offended that Gathercole then \u201cblamed\u201d locals for his decision to invite them by publicly stating that he\u2019d done it because he wasn\u2019t making enough money from them<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also publicly petitioned to prevent truckies waking him at 3am with their movements outside the tavern<\/a>, though he says that led to constructive discussions and resolved the issue.<\/p>\n

However, the friction appears to have ramped up when a group of local families decided to band money together to refurbish and bring back to life the Herbertville Inn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The inn, which reopened in April<\/a>, is just 9km or 8 minutes from Wimbledon, and Gathercole is blunt in saying its recent success has ruined him.<\/p>\n

Herbertville Inn publican John Sedcole declined to comment for this story, but locals spoken to by Hawke\u2019s Bay Today say it is doing well and is now the place to be on the weekend.<\/p>\n

Gathercole can\u2019t quite fathom the decision to restart it. He says it felt like an attempt to \u201ctake me out\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy did they need another pub when there are only 70 people out here?\u201d he told Hawke\u2019s Bay Today.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I had asked for was a bit of respect, and this is what I got in return.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gathercole plans to continue living in the Wimbledon Tavern, a Category 2 historic building.<\/p>\n

He says he plans to open it only to large outside groups who give him enough notice that they\u2019re coming \u2014 groups like car clubs that often take road trips down Route 52.<\/p>\n

\"Wimbledon'sWimbledon’s war memorial.<\/p>\n

Riddell says it\u2019s a tough time for hospitality everywhere in New Zealand and the Wimbledon Tavern isn\u2019t the only country or city pub feeling it. <\/p>\n

Life in Wimbledon and other rural communities has also changed markedly over the years, with fewer people drinking alcohol. <\/p>\n

The pub is no longer the community\u2019s focal point, she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a great little community, but I think it\u2019s fair to say the heart of it now is in its schools rather than its pubs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just the reality because of drink driving and the awareness of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still an incredible community. Our hall fundraisers are massive, and everyone turns out to support each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re the kind of place that gives visitors petrol for free when they run out on the side of the road.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just really disappointed about the comments that have been made about us – it\u2019s just so uncalled for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another leaping to Wimbledon\u2019s defence is Miriam Tio Lenzen.<\/p>\n

She lives a bit further down the road than Riddell, closer to Weber, but feels she can shed some light on what the community is like. <\/p>\n

Like Gathercole, she\u2019s a relatively recent addition, moving from Auckland via Bay of Plenty two and a half years ago, and she\u2019s also started a small business, in her case landscaping.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just don\u2019t have that experience at all,\u201d she says of Gathercole\u2019s suggestion the community lacks empathy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been invited into people\u2019s homes from day one, given eggs and hay and all sorts of other stuff all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Tio Lenzen, the community has been everything she expected.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was what we were searching for when we moved, the New Zealand we remember 30 years ago, and we\u2019ve got it.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, how does this get resolved? A pub effectively locking out the locals leaves the community in an odd situation.<\/p>\n

Hawke\u2019s Bay Today asked Gathercole what it would take to fix things.<\/p>\n

He said this is what he believes:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority of the community is lacking empathy, I stand by that, and what is the opposite of empathy?<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, if you ask me how to resolve the situation, I really don\u2019t know now.<\/p>\n

\u201cBuy me out, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris Hyde is the editor of Hawke\u2019s Bay Today. He has more than a decade of experience in news reporting in regional New Zealand newsrooms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wimbledon, Tararua, not so much. The sleepy village of dozens rather than hundreds is a place framed by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2741,1259,29480,72235,106,42,78,185,101,424,20829,13611,43,9769,40123,8499,22053,63557,1361,165,44263,40,38,41,39,23534,90586],"class_list":["post-133695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-claim","tag-community","tag-evil","tag-floored","tag-head","tag-headlines","tag-in","tag-is","tag-left","tag-life","tag-locals","tag-nation","tag-news","tag-owners","tag-pub","tag-quote","tag-reject","tag-scratching","tag-that","tag-their","tag-tiny","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-village","tag-wimbledon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}