PO Box 56076, Tawa Wellington 5249; Secretary ph 232 5901
Website: tawahistory.org.nz
The Tawa Historian
Newsletter #53 – March 2021
Dear Members and Friends,
Just a note to let you know that our latest publication, The Old Porirua Road, has been picked up from our printers and is now available from two sources. They are:
• The Mervyn Kemp Library, 158 Main Road, Tawa, and
• Tawa Books & Post, 181 Main Road, Tawa.
The new book is of 82 pages and is liberally illustrated by 28 photographs (of which 8 are aerial photos), 8 explanatory maps, and one sketch which identifies places and objects from a watercolour painting. Its selling price is $20.00.
It tells of the first road which leaves Wellington for points north of what eventually became New Zealand’s capital city, so became the forerunner of State Highway 1, (SH1). Commenced in the early 1840s, it is now been in place for over 180 years.
The book is designed to assist people who would like to drive along the road which starts at Kaiwharawhara and makes its way up on to the hills of Ngaio, Khandallah and Johnsonville, before entering the valley of the Porirua (formerly Kenepuru) Stream. That stream eventually flows through the broader valley of Tawa before entering the salt-sea harbour of Porirua. The most southerly part of this route still bears the name of The Old Porirua Road, but the remainder of the Road has been completely renamed. It may still be traced, however, along Cockayne Road, Box Hill, Burma Road, Fraser Road, Johnsonville Road, Middleton Road, Willowbank Road, Boscobel Lane, the Main Road in Tawa, Oxford Street, the Main Road (again), through Duncan Park and Linden Park west to Wall Place, in Porirua city. It tells of interesting people and places, a folly, of an unknown settler’s grave, of Halfway House, former farmsteads, the Bucket Tree and Earp’s Orchard, of manslaughter and an old accommodation house, of The Olde Bull and Bush - stories which enliven Tawa’s district and its past, and bring to life some of the history of the vital route which was and still is an important link between Tawa and Wellington.
Only 100 copies have been printed, so get in quick!!
Kind regards,
Bruce Murray
Acting Chair,
Tawa Historical Society