Cameron Road, by Lyn Harpham

When Lt. General Sir Duncan Cameron marched his troops to their defeat at Gate Pā, the road that bears his name was little more than a track with hills and hollows. At its northern end the first paving material to be used was seashells. Barged from Mount Maunganui, shell was also used on streets and footpaths on The Strand (then known as Beach Road) and surrounding areas.

Cameron Road was often very muddy, until during World War I it was reduced to one level and paved with rough metal. In the levelling process many houses were left high above the street while others were below it. One house on the corner of Second Avenue and Cameron Road remained more than two metres above the footpath until Mr N. Blockie and his family left it in the 1950s; then the hillock was removed and a tyre company built premises on the area.

On the western side of Cameron Road, at intervals to the end of the “old borough” at Seventeenth Avenue, some raised sites still remain while many others have basements where land slopes away from the street. The most notable existing high site on Cameron Road is that of St Mary’s Church, between Elizabeth Street and First Avenue.

From early days paving was central to the street with groups of trees here and there along wide verges where grass was kept short by household cows that roamed and grazed all the residential streets during daylight hours, until 1938.

In the 1950s the present style of Cameron Road with its central islands and flowering trees became a feature of the town.