Pembroke Street (New Plymouth)

Pembroke Street in Westown runs from Clawton Street all the way through to Waimea Street.

Pembroke Street was the name requested for the new street by the developer and then City Councillor Carl William Henry Frank. Prior to moving to New Plymouth he had farmed for many years on Pembroke Road at Stratford. It is thought that the name Pembroke originally came from a town in Wales.

In the late 1950s New Zealand was in the midst of a post-war housing boom. Westown was one of several suburbs with large subdivisions underway. Frank’s 40 acre [16.2 hectares] development off Clawton Street was the largest of the projects. Clawton and Pembroke Streets were two of the first roads to be formed and houses built.

A novel way of marketing the new homes was the so-called ‘Parade of Homes’. As part of this New Zealand Government scheme to promote home ownership a group of houses built by private builders were put on public display.

In February 1963 New Plymouth’s fourth ‘Parade of Homes’ featured 12 homes in Pembroke Street. All were priced about £3000 and had a floor area of about 1200 square feet [111.5 square metres]. The Minister of Housing John Rae officially opened the parade and commented that they were “good family homes, well planned and priced within the means of the average home-seeker”.

As part of the conditions of the subdivision land was set aside adjacent to the Waimea Stream for a reserve. It now forms part of a larger section of public land including the Salaman Simpson Reserve on the other side of the stream.

The Waimea Street Reserve was chosen as the site for a commemoration of 150 years since the first Plymouth Company ship arrived. On 5 June 1991 Mayor David Lean unveiled the Founders Plantation Plaque and 1991 native trees were planted, some sponsored by the descendants of the first European arrivals to New Plymouth.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.