< Back to previous pageA Snippet of our History
This article was written by Mary Perry, a Strathmore resident, and published in The Evening Post newspaper on 10 October 1964. (Reproduced without permission.)
This Area of Strathmore Has Seen Many Changes
The block of flats to be opened by the City Council shortly in Strathmore Park overlook an area that has seen many changes. It has been in turn swamp, market garden, dairy farm, rifle range, golf course, and now of course it is residential, with a shopping block nice and handy to the flats. When the Seatoun tunnel was opened in 1907 all the area south of Broadway was covered with scrub and flax and rough grass, except for the Signal Station, 433 feet above the sea on Beacon Hill. Later a Chinese market gardener grew his vegetables on the lower slopes, about where Cavendish Square is today.
Following him a dairy farmer ran his cows right up to Scots College boundary. I can well remember hearing him whistling and calling to his dogs at morning and evening milking time. His fences weren't good, and the cow used to get out and wander up Broadway (then unsealed) and ruin many a vegetable garden belonging to the new residences now being built on the high side of the road. I remember once we lost all our cabbages!
Those were the days when the milkman came to the back door with a can and ladled out the housewife's requirements into her jug or billy. There was a pond in the sandhills over on Strathmore known as 'the frog pond' and many happy hours were spent catching tadpoles and frogs after school. Where Monorgan Road ran into the hills the residents called it 'Snake Gully'.
There was a rifle range behind where the present block of shops stand and the population was so sparse that this caused no comment or protest! About this time naughty boys used to go into the gully below Cavendish Square with bird lime to catch caffinches [sic]. There was a lot of bird life in those days. The kingfishers were quite plentiful.
In the late twenties the Roman Catholic Church purchased a large block of the land with the intention of building their St Patricks College on it. However, they changed their minds and went to Silverstream and the property was sold. Mr James Stellin developed it, filled in some of the low lying parts, and offered sections for sale. The area was publicised as 'Strathmore Park, bathed in sunshine the livelong day!' About 600 sections came on the market and building was started.
During the depression of the early 'thirties building slowed down, and most of the land was used as a golf course. A small shed served as a golf house! In the early years of the Labour Administration the Housing Department bought up many of the unsold sections, and added to them by buying more of the hills. Since then hundreds of State housed [sic] and flats have been built. Building is still going on, as modern machinery has made it possible to cut down hills and fill in gullies to provide 'drive on' sections with beautiful level streets.
Next to the council flats is the old brick building that was [sic] the offices of the Miramar Borough Council before the borough was amalgamated with the City of Wellington in 1921. Later it became a pumping station. When that is demolished, as the council intends, Strathmore Park will have had a complete face lift.