Farmers Lane

Farmers Lane joins Gill Street near the Gover Street intersection. It is named after the Farmers Co-operative Organisation Society (FCOS), known locally as 'Farmers', which had its department store on the adjacent land. That building is now the Top Town retail and cinema complex.

In fact a lane has existed there for many years. A large wooden boarding house once stood on the site and surveys from the 1920s show a lane next to that building. But the area as we know it today began to take shape in the 1940s.

The 'Farmers' company began in Hāwera in 1914. It began diversifying operations and bought land, including here in New Plymouth, during the 1940s and 1950s.

This land allowed it to build its flagship department store in 1960. Stretching from Devon Street to Gill Street, the two-storey building was considered to be the largest provincial store in New Zealand.

From its opening, the store was one of the 'must visit' destinations for New Plymouth's shoppers. As well as the wide variety of goods available it featured a cafeteria and eventually a children's playground on the roof.

'Farmers' continued to expand its activities and by the late 1960s owned or operated sixteen branches in Taranaki employing a total of about 650 people. A third floor was added to the New Plymouth department store in 1980.

But diversification, beyond its core activities, was the undoing of FCOS. By the 1980s high interest rates, a decline in the rural economy and a lack of equity combined to force the company into a severe restructure, selling or closing down many of its operations. The surviving part of the business became known as Taranaki Farmers.

Somewhat ironically, the lane was not named after 'Farmers' until the early 1990s, several years after the FCOS Company had sold the building.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.

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