Overview / Freeman’s Bay / Herne Bay / St Mary’s Bay & Westhaven / Grey Lynn & Westmere / Sources

ST MARY’S BAY AND WESTHAVEN

Bishop Pompallier's Catholic Community

On the development of St Mary's Bay, a Heritage Study (please refer to Sources) says:

   “One of the earliest centres of population in the area was the Roman Catholic community in St Mary’s Bay. Bishop Pompallier bought a fourty acre farm called ‘Clanaboy’ on the western arm of Freeman's Bay in February of 1853.

He had already acquired a Crown grant of about five acres adjacent to this and he renamed the whole area ‘Mount St Marys’ On this land, during the late 1850s, the Roman Catholic Church established a seminary, a school for Maori boys, a convent and a girls’ boarding school (St Anne’s College).

College Hill

Merchants wishing to be in the neighbourhood of the school for trading purposes soon established themselves in the vicinity and the track leading up to the settlement from Freeman’s Bay became known as College Hill.”

   “Boat building was established in St Mary's Bay by the 1880s and continued there until the boat sheds were demolished to construct the approaches to the Harbour Bridge in the early 1960s.”

Did you know that Westhaven Marina has been designed, built and paid for by volunteers? Glenys Hopkinson (please refer to Sources) notes:

“Motorway on-ramps constructed in the 1950s separated residents from their harbour (…). When the construction almost destroyed St Mary's Bay, locals joined forces in 1975 to form the St Mary's Bay Association (…) to preserve the area.

   The association separated the tiny suburb from Ponsonby and renamed it St Mary's Bay, which is now protected with residential one status (…). They stopped the old harbour board from filling Westhaven with concrete (…), to create a marina, and the architects, engineers and business people among them voluntarily designed Westhaven Marina, for free, to produce the outstanding facility Aucklanders enjoy today.”