W.S. Glenn MP unveiled the Taihape District High School’s war memorial gates on 15 October 1926. A marble table inscribed with the names of four teachers and 20 students who had given their lives during the war was set into one pillar. The gates were surmounted by a wrought iron arch bearing the school’s motto: ‘Nulla Vestiga Retrorsum’.
The memorial gates were designed to complement the adjoining gates to the Taihape Domain. These had been designed by a local dentist, Mr L. de Lautour, and erected by the Taihape Borough Council in July 1926.
After the Second World War, a second tablet with the names of 36 men and one woman (Sister Agnes Mary Buckley) was added to the other pillar of the school gates.
In 1950 fundraising began to enhance and expand the domain as a war memorial park. A dedicatory plaque was unveiled inside the entrance in November 1953. This read: TAIHAPE AND DISTRICT / WAR MEMORIAL PARK / DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF / ALL THOSE WHO GIVEN THEIR LIVES / IN TIME OF WAR / FOR THE PRESERVATION OF OUR WAY OF LIFE.
It was presumably at this time that the ‘Memorial Park’ arch was installed above the original domain gates.
Sources: ‘School Memorial Gate’, NZ Herald, 16/10/1926, p. 14; Diamond Jubilee of the Taihape District High School, 1956, pp. 18, 27; Denis Ronertson, 1894-1994: “…give me Taihape on a Saturday night”, Waikanae, 1995, pp. 204-5, 236-8, 336; Taihape Memorial Park Management Plan, 2010; Hugh Treadwell, Show Taihape: 100 Years of the Taihape (Rangitikei) and District A & P Association, 2011, pp. 12, 27-8.
| Site | Style | Ornamentation | Unveiling Date | No of Dead |
| School grounds | Gate | 24 |
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