Freemans Bay is the name of a former bay and now inner city suburb of Auckland, in the North Island of New Zealand. The bay has been filled in to a considerable extent, with the reclamation area now totally concealing the ancient shoreline. Historically a poor and often disreputable quarter, it is now a comparatively wealthy and desirable neighbourhood known for its mix of heritage homes and more recent single-dwelling houses, as well as for its two large parks.
Geography
Since the turn of the 20th century, extensive land reclamation (partly using stone quarried from nearby headlands) has seen Freemans Bay itself disappear. The reclamation of the old bay was finished in 1901, and Victoria Park was created on most of the resulting flat area.[1] It is still public land used mostly for sports purposes.
The coastline shifted more than one kilometre to the northwest of the city centre and is now composed of the concrete wharves of Viaduct Basin and the Tank Farm or as it is now renamed, the Wynyard Quarter.
Industry and slums
While settled as one of the earliest parts of the country by Europeans,[3] the area was never seen as a desirable place to live. The rich favoured the other side of Queen Street, clustering around the governor’s mansion (where the University is now located) and enjoying views of the harbour and Rangitoto, this was even referred to as the ‘right side’ of Queen Street.
On the “wrong side of Queen Street” were located most of the smelly and noisy industries including the abattoir and the gasworks of theAuckland Gas Company. As well as Brick works by 1883 the area was the location of nineshipyards, three sawmills, a brass and ironfoundry, a glassworks, an asphalt works as well as several coal and lime traders. Also found here were several public facilities like the citymorgue, a night soil dump and from 1905 the city rubbish incinerator (known as the ‘Destructor’, now Victoria Park Market).[2]
Around these occupations were gathered some of the more modest houses in 19th century Auckland. Two land auctions in 1864 in this area were the “Brookville” estate (121 sites) and “Alma Place” (152 sites). The large number of building sites are probably an indication of the very small size of the building sections. These workers cottages were built very close together and often poorly constructed, sometimes being little better than hovels with dirt floors. Not all the housing in the area was so modest however, on Franklin Road, which rises up the hill towards the Ponsonby ridge, were built larger houses, including several two storied houses and in 1873 the street was beautified by the City Council by planting it with Plane trees. Many of these larger houses subsequently became boarding establishments for male workers from the adjacent industries.