Newspaper Article 2005 – Lagoon gave way to ponds

Lagoon gave way to ponds

Great quake of ’31 played part in changes to Napier Hill, writes ROGER MORONEY.

Once upon a time, between Scinde Island (Napier Hill) and the frontier-like seaside settlement of Ahuriri, there was a road.

More a track, really. A built-up strip of compacted fill which allowed travellers to cut across the great expanse of marshes which lay between the hill and the seaside spit of land.

The road, the first to cross what had been called “The Lagoon”, was given the name Coronation Street, and of course still crosses from Battery Road to the edge of the Ahuriri seafront district.

The construction of the road, as seen in this 1926 shot from the hill, turned what had been the lagoon into the North Pond and the South Pond.

The Napier Harbour Board of the day had big plans for the swampy land, and reclamation got under way later in the decade.

But the bulk of the work was carried out by the 1931 earthquake, which raised and drained much of it.

The North Pond area was completed first, and in the early 1940s the Ahuriri borough council, under an agreement with the harbour board, began to reclaim the South Pond area of approximately 8 hectares.

The south has stayed as a grassed reserve, while the north is now dotted with industry, homes, a bowling green and a school.

Photo caption – Then… and now.