Kawau Street

Kawau Street once ran from Gill Street in New Plymouth down to the western end of Molesworth, before Molesworth was joined up with St Aubyn Street in 1991.

Named after Kawau pā, which was located at the mouth of the Huatoki, the general outline of the little street can be seen on the earliest town plans but it doesn’t appear to have been named until many decades later. Remnants of the pā itself can still be seen on maps as late as the 1870s. In 1911 the Daily News printed an elderly resident’s description of Māori women drying shark meat on poles outside the pā in the 1850s, the smell of which meant the area was avoided by “pale faces”. They also remembered the same women washing baskets of potatoes in the Huatoki, using sand to clean and peel the skins.

A chapel at Kawau pā was apparently the site of Bishop George Selwyn's first church service in New Plymouth. But the spot’s rich history counted for little during the Taranaki Wars, when militia began excavation work on the pā, to the displeasure of its Ngāti Te Whiti residents. Despite being deemed kūpapa, or friendly (loyal to the Crown), they had been asked to leave town during the First Taranaki War and built themselves a new pā at Puketotara. The land of the Kawau Reserve was then offered for sale without consulting them.

In 1892 the Taranaki Rifles’ Drill Hall was built on Kawau Street, and marquees were often put up in the street during the annual Winter Show, displaying everything from milking machines to fresh produce. The Hall was used as a polling station for local body elections up until the First World War, with preliminary mayoral results announced to crowds outside. The street was also the site of the New Plymouth Gas Company and several railway goods sheds.

Kawau Street ceased to exist after Centre City mall was built in 1988.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.