Kitchener Street (Eltham)

Kitchener Street in Eltham is a short cul-de-sac on the right as you leave town heading toward Hāwera. New Plymouth has a Kitchener Terrace in Moturoa, and both were named after Field Marshall Herbert Horatio Kitchener (1850-1916), known as Earl Kitchener.

Kitchener was a British Army officer and colonial administrator who was appointed Secretary of State for War at the outbreak of the First World War. However, less than two years after the conflict began Kitchener was aboard the HMS Hampstead when it was struck by a German mine near Orkney and sank.

Kitchener Street is located on a block of land acquired by the council shortly after the end of the Great War. In April 1919 a meeting was held in Eltham to discuss a “peace memorial”. Local Member of Parliament Charles Wilkinson suggested purchasing a block of land south of the school which could be turned into a reserve as well as providing land for “worker’s cottages”, given the pressing need for housing for returning soldiers.

Eventually, about 45 acres was acquired and named Soldiers’ Memorial Park. The land on the Mountain Road boundary was set aside for housing and by 1922 eleven worker’s cottages had been built. In 1924 the Eltham Borough Council voted to name a new road providing access to the reserve Kitchener Street.

However, work on developing the reserve into the vision that had originally been imagined was slow. While hundreds of trees were planted by relief workers during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the largely neglected reserve acquired some unwelcome nicknames including Blow Fly Flat, Statue Alley, Poverty Flat and Snakes Gully.

These names became so commonplace that in 1975 the local council was forced to issue a statement stating that they would only reply to correspondence using what was by then the official name of Soldiers’ Memorial Reserve.

The reserve is now a multi-purpose area boasting a community swimming pool, playground, skate park, playing fields, walkway and – at the end of Kitchener Street – the entrance to Eltham Golf Club.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.

Related items:

Taranaki DP4178 Sheet 1 (1920), ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)

Taranaki DP4285 Sheet 1 (1922), ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)

Still a Paddock (Hawera & Normanby Star 11 April 1921

The Soldiers Memorial Park (Taranaki Daily News 11 May 1934)

Park Offered to Golf Club (Taranaki Herald 1 March 1961)

Protest Against Lease (Taranaki Herald 26 May 1961)

Year Of Progress (Taranaki Herald11 Feb 1963)