Brierley Place

Brierley Place is a short cul-de-sac in Marfell. The road was formed in 1974 and, according to the records of the city engineer at the time, was named after a street of the same name in old Plymouth.

However, a quick search of a street map of Plymouth in England reveals that the city does not have a street with this name. This was confirmed by staff at the Plymouth museum, but they did point out that there is a street with a very similar name, Briarleigh Close.

Briarleigh Close was named after a residence demolished in 1965 to make way for a housing development, although the actual street may not have been constructed until the 1970s – coincidentally around the same time as Brierley Place.

Is it possible that there was some sort of transcription error or miscommunication between the two cities resulting in the wrong spelling being approved for our short street? A letter on file indicates that there had been confusion around the name for the road.

In June 1974 New Plymouth City Council’s Town Clerk wrote to the solicitors representing the developers of the subdivision requesting clarification for the name of the road as “Arcon, Pentagon and Broadlands” had all been suggested and that “even the surveyors are confused”.

Unfortunately, the files are silent on how the road eventually came to be named Brierley Place. If it was not some sort of confusion between the two Plymouths perhaps the name was a nod to prominent New Zealand company Brierley Investments Limited (BIL).

BIL, led by now-disgraced businessman Ron Brierley, was described in 2014 by New Zealand Herald columnist Brian Gaynor as “the most influential company throughout most of the 1970s and 1980s with one in 20 New Zealanders owning shares”.

However, there is no evidence of the company being involved in the subdivision, nor are we aware of any direct involvement with other New Plymouth residential developments.

A third, more likely explanation, is that the road was named after an English town. There is a village named Brierley in South Yorkshire, another in Gloucestershire and even a Brierley Hill in the West Midlands.

On 5 July 1974 the first building permit was issued for a house in the new Brierley Place subdivision, granted to Ebert Brothers Construction on Lot 14 with an estimated value of $19,800.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.

Related plan:

Taranaki DP11284 Sheet 1 (1974), ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)