Weka Street sign (2017). Mike Gooch. Word on the street image collection.
Weka Street sign (2017). Mike Gooch. Word on the street image collection.
Weka Street, at the end of Fitzroy Road, lies adjacent to a southern boundary of the Fitzroy Golf Club. Today it's a short no exit street, but it wasn't always intended as such.
The street is shown in survey plans as early as the 1890s. They were drawn up for Mr. William Courtney, a land owner in the Fitzroy area. Weka Street is shown as unformed, still only a proposed road.
It wasn't until 1920 that the New Plymouth Borough Council named it Weka Street. New Plymouth historian, the late Fred Butler, records that this part of Fitzroy was once known as 'Puke-Weka'. Puke is a hill or rise and weka is a native wood hen.
In the late 1940s the 'street' was still nothing more than "gorse and thick lupins", according to a surveyor. Then came one of the greatest property booms in New Plymouth's history. The first Weka Street housing subdivision was surveyed in late 1950 and building work started soon after.
It was originally intended that the eastern end of Weka Street connect to the eastern end of what is now known as Chatswood Grove. The connecting road was to be named Te Puia Street. In 1941 this plan was formally dropped and Weka Street remains one of the shorter no exit streets in New Plymouth.
This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.
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