Arden Place in Ōākura is named after Rachael Alice Arden who arrived in Taranaki as a nine-year-old immigrant from England with her family and spent most of her life on the land where Arden Place is situated.
After her marriage to Captain Frank Mace as a 19-year-old in 1863, Rachael lived spent the next 50 years on the Ōākura land she and Frank farmed, which straddled the Wairau Stream and ran from South Rd down to the coast, to what is now popular Ōākura beach.
Over the years the couple built a beautiful 14-room home called Wairau (which was destroyed in a fire in 1926) right on the coast and were well-known for their hospitality and impressive and extensive gardens.
Rachael was born in 1843 in Brighton, England the eldest daughter in a family of ten children. When the family first arrived in Taranaki they settled on land in Bell Block that then became caught up in the ‘Puketapu feud’. The family moved into New Plymouth as the Taranaki War intensified. Later, along with many other New Plymouth settlers at this time, the family moved to Nelson.
It was in Nelson in that Rachael married Francis Joseph Mace, who was born in Maderia, Portugal, and had immigrated with his family as a teenager and had started farming in the Ōmata area.
By 1865 the couple were living and farming on the 121 hectare Ōākura land that Frank received as a crown grant due to his military service and the first of their six children was born.
As a member of the Taranaki Rifle Volunteers Frank was involved in fighting at Waireka. He then joined the Taranaki Mounted Volunteers and saw extensive active service around North Taranaki. By 1863 he was promoted to Captain before being wounded in an ambush at Warea.
Rachel came from an artistic family. Her father, Hamar Humphrey Arden, and then later her brother, Francis Hamar Arden (known as Hamar Junior) were perhaps New Plymouth’s first professional artists, setting up studios in New Plymouth as early as 1861 .
Rachel herself was a busy mother having six children over 10 years and was very involved in the local Ōākura community taking part in agriculture and horticultural shows, involved with the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board, the Women’s Patriotic Committee during World War One and organising and attending balls (including one to celebrate the couple’s golden wedding at Ōākura Hall to which over 200 attended).
She died in May 1922 at the age of 79 and is buried at the Ōākura cemetery.
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