From Tauranga City Library’s archives
A monthly blog about interesting items in our collection
Mr. Barry in 1872, advertised for sale an established boot making business describing it as “admirably situated on the Beach Road, Te Papa”. Where is this Beach Road?
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| Bay of Plenty Times, 1872 (September 20 ) |
The Strand we know and love today, was originally a beach and simply described as “the beach” before becoming Beach Road and then Beach Street. “Beach road” wasn’t just briefly used pre-European settlement either. As Mr Barry has shown us, even when Tauranga was large enough to publish its own Bay of Plenty Times, businesses advertising still used “Beach Road, Te Papa”, or “Beach Road, Tauranga”, only later switching to “The Strand, Tauranga”. This image below from within the papers of Earnest Edward Bush (1909-1988) (AMS 361) shows the Strand just 7 to 10 years after the Battles of Pukehinahina and Te Ranga. The ragged shoreline shows no sea wall and the water appears alarmingly close to the shop fronts.
The first sea wall came in the late 1870s, first as a wood wall and then later upgraded to stone after some reclamation in 1902. Later still in the 1920s, significant land reclamation was made to make way for a rail line and then again in the 1960s and 70s for parking space. But for now, in the early 1870s, a good gale would bring the sea right over the road and into the shop fronts. Already there are many buildings along the road, including a general store simply described as “Te Papa Store”. To the right of Te Papa Store, and still under construction, is David Asher’s store. David Asher was an industrious early resident of Tauranga town, describing himself in 1880 as storekeeper, draper, auctioneer and insurance agent. He also ran a boarding residence up on Wharepai Domain. Such diversity often typified what it took to survive or thrive in such a small town of just a thousand or so people, during the early years of the international "long depression" (1873-1896).
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| Beach Road, Te Papa (or The Strand, Tauranga) (Image 16-011) |
Next to Asher’s store is the iconic Masonic Hotel (est. 1865), advertised as “first-class accommodation for boarders and travelers”, boasting it’s “billiard room (to be) one of the finest in the colonies”. There were three hotels along this stretch, as well as a boarding house, and right at the end a Māori Hostel catering to Māori visiting the area, often for Native Land Court hearings. But it was Rotorua’s pink and white terraces that were bringing in a lot of the Pākehā visitors. After arriving by boat they would overnight before catching a coach over to Rotorua, spending a night on the Strand again on the return leg. The boats were received at either the public Wharf at the end of Wharf Street (1871- 1920s), later called Coronation Pier, or by the private Victoria Wharf (1878 – 1920s ) at the end of Harington Street. These Wharves were also where supply shipping from Auckland arrived.
Beside the Masonic Hotel would eventually be a bakery, the remains of which were discovered in 2014 and are now fenced off and visible within the Masonic Park area. We can see that bakery in this next, and slightly later photograph from the latter part of the 1870s.
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The Strand, Tauranga in the mid to
late 1870s (Image 04-213)
We know it’s later because we can see the first seawall, and in the background the old military hospital and former missionary agricultural school, has been torn down (1874) and replaced with the first government building ( - 1902). The bakery, visible between the Masonic Hotel and the Medical Hall, was owned by John Maxwell (1836-1904). The very first edition of the Bay of Plenty Times (September 4, 1872) carried his advertisement:
Maxwell’s Belfast Bakery had some competition just a few doors down past the auction rooms, on the corner of The Strand and Hamilton Street. The Phoenix Bakery, run by the Butt brothers was the relative newcomer to the Strand and the two bakery’s competed fiercely, and sometimes in verse, through the Bay of Plenty Times whose offices were just over the road on the other side of Hamilton Street.
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| Portion of Image 04-213 |
At the right-hand end of our photograph from the late 1870s is The Tauranga Hotel, known for its boisterous musical events and it’s own stables. The hotel burned down in 1881, along with many other buildings on that block. This was sadly repeated in 1936. Fire was an ever present hazard during this time, striking the government building in 1902, and the Strand in 1916, taking out the entire block between Hamilton and Wharf Street.
An 1880 street directory of Tauranga , printed in the Bay of Plenty Times is just a few years too early to include the iconic Bond Store, built by James Mann in 1883 at No. 1, The Strand. The Bond Store would play an important role in storing restricted goods such as alcohol, tobacco and other items subject to an import duty. By 1908 it was sold to Guinness Bros. Using the street directory however, we can build up a picture of the kinds of business on the go at that time in 1880.
Working backward from the Tauranga Hotel was a stationer and bookseller, a drapery and fancy goods store, a boot and shoemaker, restaurant and oyster saloon, the Belfast boarding house and finally a general store on the corner of the Strand and Hamilton street. Then on the other side of Hamilton street was the Phoenix Bakery, storekeeper and drapers (as well as auctioneers and insurance agents), a cabinet maker and funeral undertaker, a hairdresser and fishmonger (and oyster saloon), a butcher, a chemist and druggists (our Medical Hall mentioned earlier), the Belfast Bakery, the Masonic Hotel, Storekeeper (David Asher) and beside him not in any of our photos, a furniture warehouse and fire inspector next to a general draper. Lastly a storekeeper and ironmonger on the corner of the Strand and Wharf Street. The directory continues down toward Spring Street, covering the buildings in the image below.
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| The Commercial Hotel on The Strand (Image 04-212) From Wharf street heading toward Spring street was an auctioneer land agent (and insurance agent and general store), a tailor, a tinsmith and plumber, the Commercial Hotel, another auctioneer who was also a civil engineer, land surveyor and land agent. Then a timber merchant, livery and stables, painter, glazier and paperhanger, a solicitor, a butcher, and finally a hardware and seed merchant and ironmonger.
Sources: Bellamy, A.C. (1982), Tauranga 1882-1982 Journal of the Tauranga Historic Society, No 28, page 14 Pae Korokī (https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/) Paperspast (https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/) Tauranga Heritage Study (2008), page 33 Tauranga Street Directory, 1880 (Ngā Wāhi Rangahau, Tauranga Central Library) Wai 215, D007 page 49 |
Written by Harley Couper, Heritage Specialist at Tauranga City Libraries.
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