Tothill Street

Tothill Street is a cul-de-sac in Frankleigh Park. It runs off Glenpark Avenue and is only a short distance from busy Brois Street.

Soon after the end of the Second World War, the government embarked on a range of ambitious state housing projects to boost the economy and provide homes for returning soldiers. In 1947 it was reported that the housing division of the Public Works Department was negotiating with landowners to purchase up to 86 acres [35 hectares] of land, covering almost the whole of the Huatoki Valley, with the intention to provide room for some 400 residences.

The following year the Taranaki Daily News published a plan of the development after the Huatoki Valley project was approved by cabinet. It showed a road winding through the valley, the location of houses, proposed plantings and a recreation area near a wide bend in the Huatoki Stream. The layout shown in this 1948 drawing is remarkably similar to what is there today, including Tothill Street clearly marked at the head of the valley.

Early in 1949 preliminary work on the site began. The project has been somewhat scaled back from the earlier estimate, but the hope was still to create a “garden suburb of 200 houses”. The following year the first homes were finished and ready for rent or, in some cases, ownership with the help of low interest government loans.  

Tothill Street is named after a thoroughfare with the same name in the English city of Plymouth, as was common here at the time. These were mostly random choices selected from a list of Plymouth street names. Whether by accident or design, in this case there was some logic behind the decision.  ‘Tothill’ comes from the Old English words tōt (meaning a look-out) and hyll (meaning hill). The location of the street at the head of the valley, overlooking Glenpark Avenue below, makes the choice of Tothill ideal.  

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.

Related items:

Taranaki DP6984 Sheet 1 (1949), ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)

Taranaki DP7218 Sheet 1 (1952), ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)

Possible housing project (Central Hawke's Bay Press 1 August 1947)

State Housing in New Plymouth (Gisborne Herald 14 March 1949 p.4)

New Plymouth State Housing sections for private sale (Wanganui Chronicle 24 June 1950)