Historic HB: The story behind the names

An aerial view of Napier in 1947. Photo / Napier City Council

When Lieutenant James Cook sailed into what he would call Hawke's Bay in October 1769, the entrance to the inner harbour lagoon, Te Whanganui-a-Orotū, was at Keteketerau (Bay View). James Cook referred to Te Whanganui-a-Orotū as a "pretty lake of saltwater".

Tu Ahuriri was the son of Tu Maro, a Ngai-Tara chief. Setting out from Hataitai near Wellington, he arrived In Hawke's Bay and camped at what is now Ahuriri.

At this time, the entrance to the lagoon at Keteketerau was blocked. This was a problem as fresh water from the Tutaekuri River was filling up the lagoon and interfering with the health of shellfish, which depended upon a tidal flow of sea water. Some kāinga (houses) were also flooded.

Michael Fowler (mfhistory@gmail.com) is a contract researcher, commercial business writer of Hawke's Bay history.

Tu Ahuriri and his men opened a course at the present opening at Ahuriri, which was enlarged by the rushing flow of the water trapped in the lagoon.

Tu Ahuriri then left the district heading south and was not heard of again in the region, but in recognition of his opening up the lagoon, the area was named Ahuriri.

Perfume Pt Reserve (bottom left in the photo) received its name from the sewage works built near the site in 1915, and the resulting discharge outfall near the mouth of the Ahuriri estuary.

Sewage disposal into the estuary stopped in mid-1974 and shifted to Awatoto, but the area is still known and documented as Perfume Pt.

Hardinge Rd, fronting the oil tanks, was used as a storage site from about 1910 for cased petrol and kerosene for the Vacuum Oil Company (Mobil) and British Imperial Oil Company (Shell).

In 1926, Shell had built tanks where oil was offloaded at the Iron Pot - the sheltered harbour area to the left of the Ahuriri channel entrance - and put through a pipeline to the tanks.

Michael Fowler

Mobil also wished to build large storage tanks near the Ahuriri harbour entrance on their land, but this would not occur until the 1930s.

The 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake damaged both storage areas, and the uplift of the seafloor in the Iron Pot meant pipelines for Mobil and Shell would be built to the breakwater port.

The Shell Oil tank farm was discontinued in the 1980s and was turned into the car park between Bridge and Stafford Sts.

Napier City Council acquired the Mobil tank farm site in 1993 and turned it into a car park and the Perfume Pt Reserve.

On the south side of the Iron Pot, looking lonesome on what is now Custom Quay, is Napier's third customhouse, which was built in 1898. The primary purpose of a Custom House was to gather revenue for the government as a duty paid on goods brought through the port. Customs is the oldest government department, and the first one was established in the Bay of Islands in 1840.

The customhouse was used until 1953, when it moved into Napier city. It also housed the post office until one was built on Nelson Quay in 1903.

The building was bought in 1988 and restored by the Hawke's Bay Harbour Board.

To administer and maintain this historic building, the Old Customhouse Trust was formed in 1989. This building is open to the public during summer on Sundays 11am to 4pm.

At the opening of the Ahuriri post office in 1903, Napier Mayor, F W Williams, asked postmaster general, Sir Joseph Ward if he could rename the "not very pleasant name of "The Spit" to its old name of "Port Ahuriri", which happened on October, 1 1903.

Perhaps Williams had Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Aka Mark Twain) in mind when on a lecture tour of New Zealand during 1895, Twain made a pronouncement to the Napier public at the Theatre Royal. He said people have told him "See Naples and die. See Napier and live."

His own spin on this was "See Naples and die. See Napier and Spit." The assembled crowd, wholeheartedly expecting a compliment, gasped with horror at his unfortunate play on the words.

At what was known as the Western Spit (Westshore), the North British and Hawke's Bay Freezing Company (bottom right), opened in March 1888 on the Rangatira reef.

Stock for the works was transported across the Westshore bridge from Ahuriri, but the collapse of this bridge around 1910 meant stock could not be brought from the South until a rail link was completed to the works in 1919.

The Rangatira reef began to subside leaving the works almost isolated on a shingle spit.

In 1924 the works were closed, and the buildings removed in 1933, after the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake had severely damaged them.

The former north (centre left) and south (right of centre) ponds – so named because the area was under water, can be seen to the left of Coronation St.

Wool stores, with their "sawtooth" roof profiles are scattered over Ahuriri, most rebuilt after the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake. The sawtooth roofs were designed with glass panels facing away from the equator to block the light and heat of direct sun exposure to provide a natural light over a large area.

Corunna Bay (top right), previously really was a bay with tidal waters against the railway line before the earthquake uplifted the land. To the right of this area was the former Embankment aerodrome.

Ahuriri today is a far cry from the industrial and fishing port it was for most of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Mayors Alan Dick and Barbara Arnott and other visionary businesspeople and developers have since the early 1990s turned Ahuriri into a desirable residential, retail and commercial area.

Michael Fowler's book on the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake From Disaster to Recover: The Hastings CBD 1931-35 is for sale until December 24, 2020 at the Hastings Community Arts Centre in Russell St for $30.