Draft:Waitangi Stream

Waitangi Stream is a culverted stream in Wellington, New Zealand.

The Waitangi Stream formerly flowed from around Wellington Hospital in Newtown along Adelaide Road to the Basin Reserve and then along what is now Kent and Cambridge Terraces.^[1] Its outlet was the Waitangi lagoon or swamp, formed by a shingle beach which periodically gave way, causing clumps of flax and toetoe to float out into the harbour.^[1][2][3] The lagoon used to harbour eels, fish, and shellfish, and was used by Māori for food gathering, fresh water, and waka launching.

The Waitangi Stream originally ran from Newtown to a lagoon located at what is now the Basin Reserve, part of a large wet swampy area which extended almost to the harbour and west past Tory Street.^[4][5][6]

Following the early European settlement of Wellington, the site was surveyed by William Mein Smith in 1840,^[7] with a view to deepen the Basin and connect it to the sea by a canal to create an alternative mooring place, with warehouses and factories along the proposed canal which would run between Cambridge and Kent Terraces along the line of the stream: an 1841 map names the area as 'Proposed Basin and Canal'.^[8] The land was set aside as the Basin Reserve and the Canal Reserve. However, the 1855 Wairarapa earthquake uplifted the area nearly 1.8 m (5.9 ft) and partially drained the swamp,^[9] making this impractical.^[10] The stream was later piped underground instead.^[11]

The recreated wetlands in the redeveloped Waitangi Park are fed by the outflow from the Waitangi stream, now lifted from stormwater drains and caused to flow through gravel and grass as part of the park's development.^[12][11]

Waitangi stream flowed from Newtown, past the Basin Reserve and down to the shore at the eastern side of Te Aro, forming a large swamp or lagoon that was used by Māori for food (eels and shellfish) and flax gathering.^[13] The stream flooded in heavy rain. Periodically the shingle beach that created the lagoon would collapse, draining the lagoon. This happened in spectacular fashion in March 1853:

On Thursday evening it commenced raining heavily and continued to do so without intermission during the whole of Thursday night and the greater part of yesterday. About four o'clock yesterday afternoon the large additional body of water which had accumulated in the swamp at Te Aro, in consequence of the rain, caused to burst the narrow bank which separated it from the sea with a loud noise which was heard to a considerable distance, and a thick turbid stream of mud poured forth with great rapidity into the harbour. From the head of the swamp, winding through its whole length, a regular channel has been cut of the average width of ten or twelve yards, and during the afternoon masses of earth, and small islands of flax were hurried with amazing swiftness by the stream and force of the current into the harbour, the surface of which was covered to a considerable extent with masses of floating mud and flax. The opening which has been made to the sea by this sudden eruption of the swamp extends over several of the town acres with water frontage at the head of Lambton harbour.^[14]

The 1855 Wairarapa earthquake uplifted Te Aro and drained the swamp. The area around the former swampy foreshore was redeveloped and opened in 2006 as Waitangi Park.

Category:Rivers of Wellington City