Set amidst a richly historic area, Ōwairaka’s vibrant roots as the region’s food basket extend back centuries to the earliest days of Auckland’s residential settlement, with some of the earliest Māori farming and pā or fortified village sites. The Ōwairaka region is named for one of Auckland’s 48 volcanoes, the volcanic mountain Ōwairaka / Mount Albert, meaning ‘place of Wairaka’. The daughter of Ngati Awa Chief Toroa who was captain of the Mātaatua voyaging waka which arrived in New Zealand c.1350, chieftainess Wairaka fled north to Auckland from Whakatāne to escape an unwanted marriage. She established a hilltop pā as a fortress for her people on Ōwairaka.
Early days
In the seventeenth century, the mighty Ngāti Awa chief Tītahi developed the region’s volcanic hills including Ōwairaka / Mt Albert into terraced and defendable pā, fortified by ditches, palisades, and stone walls. These are traditionally known as Ngā Whakairo a Tītahi (the carvings of Tītahi). Ōwairaka pā settlement was highly desirable as the westernmost hill pā on the Auckland isthmus.
During the early eighteenth century, vast areas of the Auckland isthmus were populated by Te Waiohua / Te Wai-o-Hua confederation of tribes led by chief Kiwi Tamaki, including Ōwairaka. Kiwi further developed extensive terraces and cultivations on the mountain, and regularly stayed in the area during the kuaka (godwit bird) season. Kuaka were hunted in March and April, when the birds were at their fullest and ready for their arduous annual migratory journey to Siberia. Under Kiwi’s leadership, the population of Ōwairaka is thought to have reached its peak, with around 1,500 people residing at the settlement.
The northern-facing fertile slopes of Ōwairaka were terraced and cultivated for farming, including kumara, with historic kumara storage pits still evident today. Māori used Oakley Creek and its surroundings as a source of native crayfish, eels, weka, flax, and raupo. It was also home to water rats, herons, pukeko, and shags.
After a conflict between Waiohua and Ngāti Whātua in the mid-eighteenth century, the area came under Ngāti Whātua guardianship. As Ngāti Whātua preferred coastal areas with immediate access to shellfish, much of the Ōwairaka area fell into disuse.
The nineteenth century
Visiting Auckland in 1820, Reverend Samuel Marsden observed how uninhabited the area was with widespread bracken and manuka growth. He was the first European settler to climb Ōwairaka, and wrote, “Our road lay over the summit of the very high round hill called [Wairaka] from the summit of which there is the most extensive prospect.”
In 1836 Sydney trader Thomas Mitchell acquired extensive areas of Auckland including the Ōwairaka region from Ngāti Whātua chiefs Apihai Te Kawau, Kauwae, and Tinana Te Tamaki, through a trade exchange for goods and cash. The validity of this purchase was challenged by the Land Claims Commission, and the claim was vastly diminished to a parcel of land at Cornwallis.
After the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, Ōwairaka mountain and a portion of the district was named Mt Albert after Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert. In 1841 Governor Hobson added significantly to the Crown’s land holdings in Auckland by purchasing another 12,000 acres of land, including the wider area of Mt Albert and Ōwairaka. By 1847, the land had been on-sold to a small group of purchasers, to become farmland. Early European farming pioneers found the fertile wetland areas ideal for raising ducks and geese, and a good water source for cattle.
As the terrain of the area was very rough, the area was developed more slowly than other parts of the Auckland isthmus. In the 1860s, New North Road was established by the Mt Albert Highways District Board. It built toll roads for the previously inaccessible region. In 1901 early signs of urban life, including drainage and water supply services, began to be constructed across the area.
A mountain reduced
The heavy-handed quarrying of Ōwairaka for many decades from the 1840s for railway scoria and roading metal construction entirely removed the terraced top, obliterating a significant amount of archaeological evidence. Nineteenth-century locals became increasingly disenchanted with the quarrying, the destruction of Māori terracing, and the disfigurement of the cone. However, the government opposed the quarrying stopping. Eventually, the quarry was finally closed and the ballast rail line was uplifted in 1928. While decades of quarrying irrevocably damaged the natural landscape, some terraces, stone walls, pits, and middens can still be seen on the mountain today.
From rural to suburbia
In the 1920s, the Ōwairaka region was predominantly rural. From the 1930s, the area experienced suburban growth. The first school in the area opened in 1929. Initially known as Richardson Road School, the name was changed by parents’ vote to Ōwairaka School a year later. In 1936 the Ōwairaka tram terminus was opened to enthusiastic crowds, thrilled to have tram access to the wider region and the central city. By the 1940s Ōwairaka comprised a mixture of rural areas and suburban housing.
Ōwairaka on the world map
Sport placed Ōwairaka on the world map, with the area fostering a number of the country’s top sporting figures of the twentieth century. Locally based athletics coach and champion marathon runner Arthur Lydiard was internationally renowned as the inventor of jogging. He coached top talent runners nicknamed “the Lydiard boys” during the 1950s and 1960s, including multiple Olympic Games winners such as New Zealand Athlete of the Century Peter Snell, Murray Halberg, and John Davies. Halberg and Snell’s gold medals in Rome in 1960 were a source of overwhelming national pride. In a streak of Kiwi ingenuity, shredded truck tyres were mixed with bitumen and then steamrolled to form a springy, black surface for the creation of the Lovelock Track at the Ōwairaka Athletics Club in 1961.
The fascinating area of Ōwairaka has a strong history of welcoming a diversity of residents, as a highly desirable and popular location to live.
Our boutique Ōwairaka homes are situated on Hendon Avenue, right near famed Murray Halberg Park and backing onto the greenery of Alan Wood Reserve. Each home presents considered and contemporary architecture, showcasing modern living convenient to excellent local amenities and the central city.
Selected sources:
“The Maunga at Mt Albert: a History of Ōwairaka” by Lisa J Truttmann, self-published, New Zealand, 2020.
“Mt Albert: Then and Now: a History of Mt Albert, Morningside, Kingsland, St Lukes, Sandringham and Ōwairaka” by Deborah Dunsford, Mount Albert Historical Society, Auckland, 2016.
“Not Just Passing Through: The Making of Mt Roskill” by Jade Reidy, Auckland Council, Auckland, 2013.
“In Old Mt Albert” by Dick Scott, Southern Cross Books for Mt Albert City Council, Auckland, 2006 reprint, originally published 1961.
Ōwairaka / Mt Albert Heritage Walks Brochure, Auckland Council, May 2011.
Photos (from top):
“Mt Albert nearby Auckland: an extinct volcano”, 1845, watercolour painting by John Guise Mitford, reproduced with permission Alexander Turnbull Library C-089-013;
Mount Albert from Mount Roskill, Looking north west from Mount Roskill, to Mount Albert (centre background), c. 1890-1910, Joseph Hibbs, reproduced with permission Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 3-ALB61-82;
Scoria line running from Mt Albert Station to pit on Mt Albert, towards Allendale Rd from New North Rd, no date, George St John Biggs, reproduced with permission Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira PH-NEG-C11769;
Mount Albert and the rail line leading into the quarry, c. 1880-1909, James D. Richardson, reproduced with permission Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 255A-106;
“When will it cease? The Government Railway department’s great scoria quarry on Mount Albert, Auckland, whereby one of the most picturesque of the city’s volcanic mountains is being spoilt in defiance of public opinion.” Auckland Weekly News, 17 April 1913, p.11, reproduced with permission Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19130417-11-02;
Owairaka, Auckland, 17 Aug 1961, aerial photograph by Whites Aviation, reproduced with permission Whites Aviation Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library WA-55692-F;
“Mrs Pera Rukutai, a descendant of the chieftainess Wairaka, planting a tree to mark the occasion of the opening of the new Owairaka School at Mount Albert, Auckland, last week.” Auckland Weekly News, 17 December 1930, p.50, reproduced with permission Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19301217-50-04;
“Jogging the Lydiard Way”, by Arthur Lydiard, reproduced with permission Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira EPH-HRC-7-7;
“Peter Snell jogs around Eden Park”, Auckland Star, 20 January 1962, reproduced with permission Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira PH-NEG-ASTAR-Athletics-Snell-Peter-20/1/62;
Owairaka shopping centre, March 1990, Christopher Matthews, from a series commissioned by Auckland Libraries, reproduced with permission Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 273-MAT301.
