Arden's View of Early New Plymouth

This watercolour view of central New Plymouth township from the Liardet/Gill Street area depicts the Wesleyan Methodist Church on the left, St Mary's Anglican Church on the extreme right and Marsland Hill, complete with barracks, in the background.

Hamar Arden arrived in Taranaki with his wife and five children in 1853 and settled in Bell Block. The Taranaki Wars later forced the family into New Plymouth and for a brief time they moved south to Nelson. They returned to New Plymouth in 1861 and Hamar established himself as a professional artist. His son Francis Arden, the eldest of two sons who also became artists, began work at his father's Gill Street studio around 1871.