Word on the street: New Plymouth’s version of old Plymouth’s Evelyn Place

Evelyn Place runs off Coronation Avenue in Welbourn, opposite Highlands Intermediate School. It was formed in 1971 and named after Evelyn Place in Plymouth, England.

Sadly, the meaning behind the original street name is now lost, with staff at the award-winning museum The Box in old Plymouth unable to confirm the origin of the name.

It may commemorate the famous writer John Evelyn (1620-1706), who wrote that “Friendship is the golden thread that ties the heart of all the world”.

He also said that “A gardener’s work is never at an end” which is apt considering Evelyn Place won Highly Commended in New Plymouth’s Best Street competition of 1978, in part because of its tidy sections. John Evelyn also had a pub, a school and a newspaper gossip column named after him.

Interestingly, Captain Francis Liardet, briefly Resident Agent in the colony of New Plymouth in 1841, was distantly related to John Evelyn.

Liardet, after whom another New Plymouth street was named, lost an eye when a gun exploded at Ngāmotu Beach and, understandably, left Taranaki never to return.

The site for Highlands Intermediate was acquired by the Education Board in 1948, on what used to be Highlands Estate.

Dubbed “the model garden suburb”, this part of town was described in a 1925 advertisement in the Taranaki Daily News as being “set amidst beautiful native bush” with “over ten motor ’buses or cars pass[ing] daily each way.”

Past pupils of the school have included actors Katie Wolfe and Melanie Lynskey.

In 1991, Highlands Intermediate established a sister school relationship with Drake Primary Academy in Plymouth – their Lord Mayor even visited Taranaki that year to strengthen ties between old and New Plymouth.

The original Evelyn Place is located near the University of Plymouth and provides a variety of student accommodation.

The Devon city’s Number 1 bus route runs past Evelyn Place on its way to and from Plymouth and the market town of Tavistock – yet another place name borrowed from the southwest counties for a street here in New Plymouth, common practice in the 1970s.

Contributed by the Taranaki Research Centre I Te Pua Wānanga o Taranaki at Puke Ariki. Find this and hundreds of other street histories on NPDC’s Puke Ariki website: https://terangiaoaonunui.pukeariki.com/story-collections/word-on-the-street