The Hastings Blossom Festival train in Hastings in 1958. The aerial view shows the railway yards over the west side of the railway line. Photo / Hawke’s Bay Knowledge Bank, Houston Collection
OPINION
Today at 2pm, 150 years ago — on 8 July 8, 1873 — Edward Lyndon auctioned for owner Francis Hicks, 100 acres (40.4ha) subdivided into 198 sections.
The auction continued the next day, with a champagne lunch thrown in by a jubilant Francis Hicks.
Hicks then moved to Cambridge a wealthy man — and bought land for a farm.
A valuable settler had been lost to the district, along with his nephew, Tobias Hicks.
In Cambridge, he was the prime mover in establishing a school and ending up marrying — at age 40 — the teacher employed. The union was most fruitful and produced 13 children — eight daughters and five sons.
After an absence of some 36 years, Francis Hicks visited Hastings in January 1911.
Seventy-one-year-old Hicks was reported to have “wandered around the town, from one street to another, giving way to a sentimental mood in thinking of bygone days until he completely lost himself”.
He regretted one aspect of what he had done — the creation of the railway reserve. One of his daughters, visiting Hastings in 1923 for the 50th anniversary of its founding, echoed this.
She said by handing the 1.5 acres (0.607ha) to the railway for a station, goods shed and yards, her father had hoped to advance the town of Hastings (and of course, himself). When he saw this land on his walkabout in 1911, he “expressed himself as very dissatisfied with the class of buildings erected in Russell St and considered the whole block an eyesore and a blot on the town”.
Francis Hicks, according to his daughter, was to shortly return to the town and “move on the matter” and “the government be asked to erect suitable premises on the sites” but three weeks later, unexpectedly, he died on his farm near Cambridge.
What had occurred on the railway reserve in Russell St North between Heretaunga and Queen Sts, was the railways had allowed businesses to lease land directly in front of the sections sold in 1873.
Due to the short term of the leases from the Railways, none of the businesses wanted to establish permanent structures, and instead basic wooden buildings described as a “shanty town” were put up, hence Francis Hicks’ dismay at seeing them. The only substantial building was the Hastings Post office on the corner of Russell and Queen Sts, opened in 1910.
The position of the railway station, due to the growth of Hastings, had caused congestion problems, and the station building and goods shed were removed in 1894 to be further along Russell St North (opposite the present Kmart carpark). The original railway shunting yards remained, however.
The area in front of the leasehold-land buildings on the railway reserve was vested in the Hastings Borough Council in 1907 as a road and named Station St.
This was never designated as a road, but became a de facto one as it was accessed from Heretaunga and Queen Sts.
Another problem for the Hastings people was that Queen Sts East and West were separated by the railway line, as there was no railway crossing.
The ordeal of pedestrians having to walk to the crossings at Heretaunga St or St Aubyn St to get to the post office became another source of great frustration.
Around 1920, Railways took a test case to court to stop pedestrians crossing the tracks at Queen St — and won it.
A request for a footbridge over the Queen St railway crossing in 1921 was denied by Railways, despite — as pointed out by the Hastings Borough Council — the significant revenue from the leases of the Station St leasehold properties.
This money, they argued, should be invested in Hastings, and improvements made in this part of the central business district.
More-secure leases and rights of renewal in the 1920s gave some business owners the confidence to build grander buildings on the reserve land in Russell St (renamed from Station St in August 1922).
What would become known as Poppelwell’s building was established in 1924 and Webbers (after a fire) was completed in 1928. The last remaining wooden building was destroyed by fire during the 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake and rebuilt in ferro-concrete as the R & R building (Noodle Canteen premises).
After the 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake, the Hastings Chamber of Commerce called for the Queen St crossing to be opened to pedestrian and vehicle traffic.
The increase in motor vehicles was causing congestion from them turning into Russell St from Heretaunga and St Aubyn Sts. However, Queen St remained boarded up until 1961, when finally, traffic — both pedestrian and vehicles — could cross the railway line.
For many years the town had also wanted to move the railway station further north — past St Aubyn Street — but Railways was not keen on spending the money. Pioneer landowner James Nelson Williams had even donated land past St Aubyn St for this purpose about 1912 — but it refused.
Finally, in 1962, a new station and yards were built north of St Aubyn Street.
This meant the land formerly used as railway yards (as pictured in 1958) — an unsightly blemish to many in the central business district — could in the future be developed.
The Heretaunga St railway crossing was sealed off in June 1972 when the Hastings ring road was introduced in the CBD (since abandoned for another traffic scheme).
In 1990, Railway Rd was stopped at the intersection of Eastbourne St, and the areas north of it on the former railway yards to Queen St were later turned into carparks, businesses and a public space.
Michael Fowler mfhistory@gmail.com is a Hawke’s Bay historian.
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