The love story behind NZ’s only wagon wheel makers

A Wairarapa couple are doing all they can to preserve the heritage of traditional wheelwrighting.

It’s the craft of making wagon wheels and traditional wooden carriages – and Greg and Ali Lang have been in the business for more than 30 years.

Greg told RNZ’s Morning Report they were the only people in the country who still made wagons by hand.

Greg and Ali Lang have been working as Wheelwrights for more than 30 years.

Supplied / Lucia Zanmonti

. They even helped to create the working wheelwright shop in Hobbiton.

Wairarapa Film Festival director Jane Ross has made a documentary about the couple called, By Hand.

“There is a tension that exists with the responsibility of being the only people in New Zealand that have those skills and wanting to be able to pass them on,” she told RNZ’s Morning Report.

There is no shortage of demand for their services though.

“We’re building carriages, restoring carriages, conserving carriages, and making wheels for them as well,” Greg Lang said.

“Whether it’s the film industry or families that have a horse-drawn vehicle in the shed… we’re even restoring wooden-bodied train carriages and electric trams as well.”

Shooting the documentary By Hand.

Supplied / Lucia Zanmonti

Lang learned the craft in Somerset, in the UK. Many of the trees that were traditionally used in England are available in Aotearoa, he said.

“We use elm for hubs because it doesn’t split and the grain’s all interlocked and interwoven, we use oak for the spokes, and we use ash for the falloes – the bits around the outside.

“We’re the only ones in New Zealand doing it, and we want to see this passed on. So, we’ve formed a heritage trust which will adopt the UK apprenticeship system, and start of 2027, we’ll look at taking on our first apprentice.”

That’s part of what Ross’s documentary is about, but it’s also a love story, she said.

“We actually literally watch them making a wagon wheel from start to finish, including the milling and steaming and bending of wood and then drying it on an open fire outside. But at the same time, we also learn about their origins, their love story, because they’re very much partners in life as well as partners in craft.”

The film is not just a documentary, it’s also about Greg and Ali Lang’s love for one another and for the craft itself.

Supplied / Lucia Zanmonti

Not only was it their love for each other, but also for the work itself which became clear during filming, she said.

“Greg would stop in the middle of milling and say things to us like: ‘can we all please just take a moment to smell the sweetness of this elm wood?’”

The documentary was meant to encapsulate all the senses that came with making a wheel from start to finish, Ross said.

“It was about the steam and the smell of the fire and, the wood shavings that fall everywhere.”

Greg Lang, Jane Ross, Ali Lang and Cameron Madams at the premiere of the documentary By Hand.

Supplied / Beau Elton

The documentary premiered earlier this month the Wairarapa Events Centre in Carterton in front of more than 200 people, Ross said.

“To actually screen it in Carterton was really important to me … that I gave it back to the community from where it came.”

Now she hopes to enter the film festivals around the country and overseas.

“I want that story to be told globally. I really do. I want to take our stories to the world.”

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand