| Southdown | |
|---|---|
The containers stacked in the primarily industrial Southdown can sometimes evoke a "table mountains" horizon. |
|
| Basic information | |
| Local authority | Auckland City |
| Facilities | |
| Train station(s) | Southdown Train Station |
| Surrounds | |
| North | Penrose |
| Northeast | Mount Wellington |
| East | Sylvia Park |
| Southeast | Westfield |
| South | (Mangere Inlet) |
| Southwest | (Mangere Inlet) |
| West | Te Papapa |
| Northwest | Oranga |
Southdown is an industrial suburb of Auckland City, New Zealand. The former main company in the suburb was the Southdown Freezing Works, part of a large industrial zone located near the main trunk railway at this point. The buildings were decommissioned during the 1980s & 1990s releasing large areas of land to be redeveloped as office parks.
For many years the abattoirs located here were discharging large amounts of untreated waste into the Manukau Harbour. This had had a detrimential effect on the ecology of the harbour which at the turn of the 20th century had been a popular and attractive place to swim, sail, fish and gather shell fish. For most of the middle of the 20th century it was a health hazard and its shell-fish a probable source of food poisoning. Since the freezing works were fully closed in 1981,[1] the water quality has improved greatly.
Portage Road in Southdown is roughly aligned along one of the old overland routes between the two harbours of Auckland (and thus the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea). Here the Maori would beach their waka (canoes) and drag or carry them overland to the other coast, thus avoiding having to journey around North Cape. This gave the area of immense strategic importance in both pre-European times and during the early years of European occupation.