Feilding is an unusual town. Not only does it spell its name wrong (yes, it really is pronounced Feel-ding, not File-ding); it also feels as if at some point the town decided it wasn’t very nice, so they built a new town centre a block or two away. This is in fact precisely what has happened, on the back of a new regional flood defence scheme, and as a result Feilding now regularly wins the Most Beautiful Town in New Zealand award.
They’ve done a good job, with a pleasing new clocktower, a traffic scheme that (almost) has no traffic lights, and a general feeling of light and space. One or two older buildings could still do with a facelift (or knocking down), but in general the historic buildings have been well preserved and kept in use. Well done, Feilding!
Here are links to Feilding’s own website and to the Wikipedia article on Feilding.