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Word on the street: Kawau St

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

Named after Kawau pa¯, 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 pa¯ itself can still be seen on maps as late as the 1870s.

word

In 1911 the Daily News

on the

printed an elderly resident’s description of

How your street

Ma¯ori women drying

got its name

shark meat on poles outside the pa¯ 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 pa¯ 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 pa¯, to the displeasure of its Nga¯ti Te Whiti residents. Despite being deemed ku¯ papa, or friendly (loyal to the Crown), they had been asked to leave town during the First Taranaki War and built themselves a new pa¯ 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 St, and

street

Opinion

en-nz

2021-09-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-09-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/281685437992510

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