Newmarket, New Zealand

The Maori called this area, particularly the south of the current Newmarket, Te Tī Tūtahi, 'the cabbage tree standing alone' or 'the cabbage tree of singular importance', referring to a tree which stood on the corner of Mortimer Pass and Broadway (according to other references at the corner of Clovernook Road and Broadway) until 1908.[4] Some of the cabbage trees in the area are descended from this tree, after Alfred Buckland rescued a portion and replanted trees around Newmarket and as far away as Bucklands Beach.[4]

In the general area of Nuffield Street / Mahuru Street, no remnants today are visible of the Mahuru Spring, once sacred to the local Maori iwi. It is noted that the spring was named after the Maori word for the season of spring.[4]

The earliest subdivision of land in this location took place in June 1841. In 1842 Epsom Road was formed, running from the bottom of town up through Parnell towards the middle of the Auckland isthmus. This was later called Manukau Road before being given its current name, Parnell Road. The position of Newmarket at the start of several major roads to the east and south, including Great South Road, was to strongly influence its character as a transport hub and "Gateway to the South".[4]

In 1845 Khyber Pass Road was formed and the intersection of these three roads was called "Hobson's Bridge" referring to a small wooden bridge that crossed over "Hobson's creek" (more or less where the railway track passes near the Olympic Swimming Pool). A very small bridge was the most noteworthy landmark of the area, giving some idea of the rather empty nature of the landscape.

Around 1851 this area received the name Newmarket because it was the site of the 'New Market' for livestock. Farmers would drive their stock up the Manukau, Great South, or Remuera Roads to the market which was better situated than the earlier stock market in Auckland proper. The presence of the Newmarket railway station connecting it with Auckland, opened in 1873 after the completion of the first Parnell Tunnel,[2] was also a great advantage. The market was located to the south of Remuera Road and east of Manukau Road.

Overlooking Newmarket on a bluff to the south east is a 19th-century wooden house in the Gothic style called Highwic. The home of a local businessman Alfred Buckland, Highwic is now owned by the Auckland Council and administered by Heritage New Zealand. Another piece of Auckland land owned by Alfred Buckland located further out of town is still called "Bucklands Beach".

Newmarket's Broadway around 1950.

The main road of Newmarket is called Broadway. Originally Manukau Road, it was renamed Broadway in late 1912 by the Newmarket Borough Council to reflect the fact that it was no longer a muddy, dusty slushy street.[5] The Broadway Cinema opened in 1911 as the Adelphi Theatre and changed its name in early 1915. The picture hall was a brick and corrugated iron shed linked by a passage to a retail block on Broadway. The cinema lasted until late 1925. Like its New York namesake, Newmarket's Broadway developed a rather bright 'Moderne' flashy image in the 1930s & 1940s and by the 1960s had the biggest collection of neon signs in the country.

The Olympic Swimming Pool was constructed in 1939 to the designs of the borough engineer N. F. Alcock. This Art deco building was opened by the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Hon William Parry in 1940. As well as being the borough's only public amenity the Olympic sized swimming pool was a great asset for the whole of Auckland. Over the years it has been well used and facilitated the hosting of many sporting events by Auckland including the Empire Games in 1950. Recently the pool's streamline art deco form was considerably changed when a cinema complex was built over the pool, which was previously open to the sky. To the north of the Olympic Swimming Pools is the Olympic Park War Memorial.

Located to the south of the Olympic Pools is Lumsden Green. The Green occupies a triangle of land at the intersection of Parnell Road, Broadway and Khyber Pass which had been put aside as a reserve in 1878. The park is ornamented by a modernist fountain, a 19th-century cannon and a stainless steel sculpture by Marte Szirmay installed in 1969 to mark the centenary of the Newmarket Highway district. The park is named in honour of David Lumsden, the last Mayor of Newmarket before amalgamation with Auckland City in 1989.

For much of the 20th century, most road traffic leaving or entering Auckland passed through Newmarket. Leading off Broadway is the beginning of Remuera Road which is the way to the eastern suburbs while further south Broadway splits into Great South Road and the secondary southern route, Manukau Road. The constant flow of traffic only added to Newmarket's fast, modern image and helped a great deal with its prosperity. Around 1966, between 25,000-30,000 cars used the street per day.[6]

A significant change to the skyline was the Newmarket Viaduct erected in 1966 to take one of the early sections of the Southern Motorway over the railway and half a dozen streets. The new motorway system opened up the new industrial suburbs to the south such as Penrose, Mount Wellington etc. This resulted in much of the local industry moving out of Newmarket and along with it many of the working-class people who lived in modest houses in the surrounding streets.

Since the 1960s Newmarket has been largely a retail destination, although a certain amount of light industry still existed in the surrounding streets, the most significant of which is the brewing trade. Ever since the 1840s Newmarket has been the location of several breweries. Water falling on nearby Mount Eden emerges in several reliable springs in the Khyber Pass area. Flowing through large amounts of volcanic scoria it is very well filtered. The brewery buildings on Khyber Pass Road have recently (2014) been demolished, the land has been redeveloped as part of the University of Auckland.

Newmarket from Mount Hobson looking northwest.

Newmarket has become the second shopping and specialty store centre of Auckland City, and also a main entertainment hub. At the same time, the location on one of the major thoroughfares into and out of the city also led to increasing bottleneck issues, with some claiming during the middle of the 2000s that Council was neglecting the area (though projects like the Central Connector have helped to alleviate this). Traffic gridlock was one of the reasons why a plan for a major new Westfield Group shopping centre near the railway line was hotly contested by the Newmarket Protection Society, a group composed mostly of residents and some local business owners. Partly due to these objections, Westfield abandoned the plans and instead bought the Two Double Seven shopping centre,[7] which is undergoing a major expansion as of February 2021.

Traffic remains a major factor in the area, as Broadway carries over 40,000 vehicles a day, limiting the ability of pedestrians in the shopping district to cross the main road.[8][9] An ambitious earlier plan from 2003 to construct a "road over rail" above the railway line, from the northwest end of Newmarket near Park Road, to the southeast near the St Marks Road interchange, did not go ahead, even though this could have significantly reduced vehicle traffic on Broadway.[10] A late 2000s upgrade has however provided new high-quality bluestone footpaths along Broadway and some of the side-streets.[11]

The Auckland Regional Council has designated Newmarket as a 'strategic managed growth area' in the Regional Growth Strategy, meaning that high-density mixed use (residential and commercial) buildings are encouraged. This is to encourage areas in which work, living and entertainment can be achieved close to each other, limiting the average amount of [especially car-] traffic required every day. Good public transport connections are also considered to assist these policy goals.[12] Partly due to the increasing attractiveness of living in the city, large apartment buildings are now increasingly springing up in the area, a process partly encouraged by Council via new planning rules.[10] However, many of the apartment buildings that were created in the suburb in the 2000s have been heavily criticised, and termed clusters of "shoe boxes" or "rabbit hutches", for their small unit sizes and bland exterior.[13]

Māori Television Headquarters has been located in a building at the edge of Newmarket and Parnell since 2004.

In 2007, the Lion Brewery declared its intention to leave Newmarket in the mid-term and sold its 5ha site north of Khyber Pass Road for NZ$162 million. The area is likely to become a mixed-use development within the next half decade, marking "the end of Newmarket's industrial age",[12] especially after Hayes Metal Refineries Ltd, the other previously remaining industry, had also decided to move in 2008, after the owners had resisted development offers to be bought out in the 1980s.[14]

In 2012 an initiative between Newmarket Business Association and the arts resulted in the creation of the town's first fully professional theatre company, Newmarket Stage Company. The brainchild of Adey Ramsel, the company's first Artistic Director, the company aimed to build on the infrastructure of transport, cafe's, restaurants and bars. Operating out of The Factory Theatre in Eden St, the company launched with Educating Rita by Willy Russell and Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom and Jeffrey Hatcher. Kiwi actor George Henare became the company's inaugural patron in 2014. Henare played the lead in the company's first two productions.

Newmarket shopping area's wireless CCTV system, a system cooperatively operated by the police and the Newmarket Business Association, has been described as "never having been done on this scale in a New Zealand town centre", and was credited partly for significant falls of some sorts of crime in Newmarket in recent (2009) years.[15]

• William John Suiter, 1885–1887
• William Morgan, 1887–1891
• George Kent, 1891–1893
• Federick George Clayton, 1893–1895
• John McIntyre Laxon, 1895–1899
• John McColl, 1899–1904
• Francis Bennett, 1904–1909
• Ernest Hyam Davis, 1909–1911
• David Tedd, 1911–1915
• James McColl, 1915–1917
• Christopher Leek, 1917–1921
• Samuel Donaldson, 1921–1944
• Richard Edward Newport, 1944–1944
• Charles Hugh Kay Mountain, 1944–1947
• Frederick Phillpott, 1947–1953
• George Albert Hardley, 1953–1957
• William "Bill" White, 1957–1974
• David Hadley Lumsden, 1974–1989

• The Heart of Colonial Auckland, 1865-1910. Terence Hodgson. Random Century NZ Ltd 1992.
• Colonial Architecture In New Zealand. John Stacpoole. A.H & A.W Reed 1976
• Decently And In Order, The Centennial History of the Auckland City Council. G.W.A Bush. Collins 1971.
• Auckland Through A Victorian Lens. William Main. Millwood Press 1977.
• The Changing Face Of Mount Eden. Faye M. Angelo. Mount Eden Borough Council. 1989.
• Newmarket Borough Council Centenary 1885-1985, Kevin Male. Newmarket Borough Council 1985.
• Newmarket, Lost and Found. Dinah Holman. Newmarket Business Association. Bush Press Of New Zealand 2001.