Birchville

For other places with the same name, see Birchville (disambiguation).
Birchville
Suburb
Birchville


Birchville, Upper Hutt

Coordinates: 41°05′29″S 175°05′54″E / 41.09134°S 175.09834°ECoordinates: 41°05′29″S 175°05′54″E / 41.09134°S 175.09834°E
Country New Zealand
Island North Island
City Upper Hutt

Birchville is a suburb of Upper Hutt, New Zealand in the North Island. Its centre lies at the entrance to the Akatarawa Valley, in the north of the city, near confluence of the Akatarawa Stream with the Hutt River. It is about a 5 km (10 minute) drive north from the centre of Upper Hutt. The Birchville community is spread out along both banks of the Hutt River in a long fairly narrow valley.

Originally described as being part of Akatarawa or Mungaroa in early news paper reports. The "Town of Birchville" only appears in land registry records during the mid-1920s, when the Commissioner of Crown Lands offered week-end cottage sections on the banks of the Hutt River for sale or lease. Other land owners also subdivided their land on the opposite river bank, when the sections in the original subdivision all sold and many were built on. These subdividers noted that Birchville was a popular week-end holiday resort.

Europeans first explored this area in 1840. On 4th (or 5th) August that year, a party of 5, led by Dr. Ernest Diffenbach, using a punt to travel up-river, had reached the Akatarawa Stream junction.[1] The party appears to have stopped on the riverbank to brew tea before continuing up the Akatarawa Stream.

The locality was first settled in the late 19th century. In the mid-1860s the Provincial Government proposed building a road and/or railway line between what was then called Mungaroa in the Upper Hutt Valley and Waikanae, to overcome the difficult route of the Paekakariki Hill Road. Lands in the Akatarawa Valley were put up for sale and a line of road had been surveyed by 1878. Over the next couple of years work proceeded in driving the road up the Akatarawa Valley.

In 1880, the Hutt County Council accepted tenders to build two wooden bridges across the Hutt and Akatarawa Rivers and subsequently cut a bridle track to Waikanae. A water-colour by Christopher Aubrey of the Akatarawa Valley painted in 1890 shows these "black bridges" and the Akatarawa Road as it then was.[2]

During the 1890s the Black Bridge Mill[3] was established between the two bridges,[4] on what is now known as Bridge Road. The mill was served by a bush tramway.[5]

During 1914 the Upper Hutt Borough Council purchased an area of land to supply water for Upper Hutt. Then, in the early 1930s, the Birchville Dam was built for the Upper Hutt Borough Council.[6]

About 1915, Hutt County Council proposed building a concrete bridge across the Hutt River just north of the Akatarawa Stream because the wooden bridges could no longer carry the traffic loads.

In December 1939, flooding of the Hutt River washed away one mid-channel pier of the concrete bridge as well as causing damage to the deck of the Black Bridge near the Akatarawa Store. While the pier on the concrete bridge was replaced, the wooden bridges were redecked and pressed into service to provide an alternative route for Akatarawa Road traffic.

However, over the next few years the state of these wooden bridges deteriorated so much that eventually they were restricted to pedestrian traffic. In 1954, the Hutt County Council replaced the bridge across the Akatarawa Stream with one that had a concrete deck supported on a single concrete pier of the original wooden bridge in the middle of the stream. This bridge has a name plate calling it Andrews Bridge. However, the County Council did not repair the wooden bridge over the Hutt River and instead chose to remove the deck, leaving only the substructure that carried the Upper Hutt water supply and other services. In October 1998 another flood so damaged the remaining piers and structure of this 1880's vintage bridge that it needed to be demolished. There is now little physical evidence to show where this bridge crossed the Hutt River other than power lines that align with a paper road shown on some maps.

Around 1980, a two lane concrete bridge was built immediately upstream of the Akatarawa Road concrete bridge built in 1917 and because that bridge was no longer safe to use it was demolished. The remains of this first concrete bridge's piers and abutments can still be seen in the riverbed and on the river banks today.

Stop Banks were also constructed north of the new bridge to prevent flooding of the Parkdale subdivision that was being developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

When the Parkdale subdivision was developed during the 1970s, confusion arose over what was the appropriate name for the suburb should be. In 1982, the New Zealand Geographic Board clarified that Birchville, rather than Parkdale, Rivervale, Akatarawa, or Gillespies Road was the official locality name.[7] The Upper Hutt City Council again affirmed, during the first decade of the 21st century, that the suburb of Birchville included all the housing developments along Akatarawa Road and Gemstone Drive between State Highway 2 and the Akatarawa Cemetery.

The Hutt River Trail now provides formal walking paths for tourist and residents along both banks of the river from Totara Park to the Akatarawa Stream. In places, the remains of the old waterworks can be seen beside the trail in some places. Also, the Cannon Point Walkway track, which passes the Birchville Dam, can be accessed from the river trail at the end of Bridge Road. North-east of the Akatarawa Road bridge, the river trail extends on both banks but there is no crossing available upstream.

At Twin Bridges Park - near the Akatarawa Road Bridge and Andrews Bridge - is the Birchville Picnic Area, which has a Tea Shelter and several picnic tables. Beneath the bridges are two popular swimming holes.

Notes

  1. ↑ Smallfield p 8
  2. ↑ Christopher Aubrey, "Akatarawa Valley", 1890 - Digitised Image from Collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library Reference Number: C-030-029. Retrieved 14 January 2011.
  3. ↑ Campbell
  4. ↑ Collins p 23
  5. ↑ Campbell
  6. ↑ IPENZ Engineers New Zealand, Engineering Heritage New Zealand, Birchville Dam, retrieved 28 December 2010.
  7. ↑ New Zealand Geographic Board Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa, P7, New Zealand Gazetteer of Official Geographic Names (16 December 2010), retrieved 28 December 2010.

Further reading

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