St Patricks's Square history
History of St Patrick's Square |
19th century changes |
20th and 21st century changes |
St Patrick's square upgrade
History of St
Patrick's Square and Federal Street Park
St Patrick's Square, incorporating Federal Street
Park, is on the western ridge of the Central Business District of Auckland,
between Albert and Hobson Streets. The site close to the Hobson Street ridge was
an ideal location for a Catholic chapel in Auckland in the mid 19th century,
with the Anglican St Paul's Cathedral close to Point Britomart, and the
Presbyterian St Andrews up on the lower Symonds Street ridge, both to the east.
Much of the landmark appeal of the site has been
eliminated by the development of new buildings and towers dwarfing St Patrick's
Cathedral - yet, this remains a hidden treasure in Auckland. In the early 1970s
a park was added onto the northern terraces below the cathedral and a pedestrian
mall was created. In 2009 an upgrade of St Patrick's Square was completed. As
the only significant area of green open space between midtown and the
waterfront, the upgrade has transformed St Patrick's Square into a more an
attractive and user friendly space for all the enjoy - a real urban oasis.
Pre-Contact
situation
While there are no
known specific studies into the pre-contact archaeology of this area, the site
of St Patrick's Square lies close to Freeman's Bay to the west (called Wai
Kokota, or 'the place where cockles could be harvested), 1
with Swanson Street apparently where a Maori track called Te
Tarapounamu led up the ridge towards a pa site. Below the Square in the Queen
Street valley flowed Te Waihorotiu, renamed Ligar Canal during European times.
To the east was the site of an old pa, Te Rerenga-oraiti, on the former
headland, which was once Point Britomart. 2 The site was therefore close to food sources and pathways linking
pa and small settlements.
Origins of Chapel
Square
Soon after
Governor William Hobson declared Auckland to be the new capital of New Zealand
in 1840, his Surveyor-General Felton Mathew drew up a plan in 1841 for the new
city, which included two grand residential squares, Wellington Square and Hobson
Square, both along the line of Hobson Street and to the south-west of the
present day St Patrick's Square. Neither of these ever came to exist. What was
to become Chapel Street (later Federal Street) from the harbour to Wyndham
Street appears to have only been intended as a service lane within the
Wyndham-Albert-Customs-Hobson block, ending in a T-shaped right-of-way.
3 This came to be known as Section 18 of the City of Auckland for
land registration purposes.
Mathew's plan of
five lots along the northern frontage of Wyndham Street on that block was
changed that year when it was apparently resurveyed. The lots were divided up
into: Lots 32 and 33 fronting Hobson Street; Lots 1 and 2 fronting Albert
Street; and Lots 34 and 35, which came to be the site of the cathedral in the
middle. A road is clearly visible on the allotment maps for the City of Auckland
from this time which would come to be called Chapel Street, leading from the
harbour straight up to the cathedral site, where it then squared around that
site, becoming two entrances off Wyndham Street,
4 before continuing south.
1 Auckland's
Original Shoreline, Heritage Walks booklet, Auckland City, 2005, p. 10
2 ibid, p. 21
3 See Felton Mathew's plan of Auckland, c.1841.
4 Map of Section 18, City of Auckland, LINZ records
