Duke Place

Duke Place was created in 1989 off Young Street in central New Plymouth.

Mt Edgecumbe Street used to extend all the way from Aubrey Street through to Young but in the late 1970s it was shortened to terminate at the intersection with Aubrey. The street’s northwestern end eventually became Duke Place.

The name was chosen by residents from a list taken from Plymouth in England – that city, New Plymouth’s namesake, has a Duke Street which was one of a group of roads named after members of the Hanoverian royal family in the 1700s. Plymouth’s Duke Street intersects with Edinburgh Street, the Duke of Edinburgh being a title established by King George I in 1726 and bestowed upon his grandson Prince Frederick.

The area that is now 1-3 Duke Place was originally part of the pre-European Rungapiko pā, located on the bank of the Mangaotuku Stream. The landscape changed utterly in 1860 when the British army constructed Fort Murray blockhouse on the remains of the old stronghold. One of a ring of nine timber blockhouses built around New Plymouth in the winter following the outbreak of the First Taranaki War, the fort acted as the town’s westernmost defence. It was named after Lieutenant Colonel George Freeman Murray of the 65th Regiment, who was in command of New Plymouth from 1856 until March 1860. Fort Murray was occupied by British army and local militia forces, as well as being used for interning any soldiers who refused orders.

The four acres of land the blockhouse, its stables and defensive ditch stood on were sold by auction in October 1867. As late as 1888 it was still being described by a land agent in an advert in the Taranaki Herald as “the paddock known as Fort Murray”. The land was owned by Gustave Tisch, proprietor of the Terminus Hotel and later mayor of New Plymouth, in the early 1900s. By 1910 insurance manager Thomas Handley owned a house on the site known as “Te Rungapiko”, so memories of the once mighty pā clearly lingered.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.