Egmont Road

In the 1840s, inland Taranaki was covered in dense bush and European settlements were mostly only in cleared areas along the coast. In North Taranaki, when settlers’ eyes finally turned inland, one of the earliest roads formed was Egmont Road. It would eventually link the coastal road north of New Plymouth to the slopes of Taranaki Maunga.

Surveyors started mapping the northern end of Egmont Road as early as the 1850s. It was called Egmont Road because they intended it to be the road from the coast to the mountain, which was called Mount Egmont at the time. Initially a dirt road, it opened-up the land around it, which was cleared of bush and subdivided into farms.

In the 1870s, Egmont Road reached the Chute and Nairn track, soon to be called Mountain Road and replace the coastal road as the main route through Taranaki. In 1874, a town block was surveyed at the intersection. Egmont Village took its name from Egmont Road. Population growth was rapid and a school was built in 1879.

The section of Egmont Road from the village up to Te Papa-Kura-o-Taranaki (formerly Egmont National Park) was surveyed by the young W.H Skinner in the early 1870s. For many years the road was administered locally, by what was then the Egmont National Park Board, and in the 1920s it instituted a toll at the gate on the boarder of the park. When the government took over the road in 1936 the toll was abolished.

In the 1930s, when road cycling became popular, Egmont Road was often used for races by the New Plymouth Cycling Club.

Today, the road remains the only road that directly links North Taranaki’s main coastal road to the slopes of Taranaki Maunga.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.

Related plans:

Taranaki DP65 Sheet 1 (1878), ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)

Taranaki SO7701 Sheet 1 (1891), ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)