Solway is an old-established residential suburb near the

Waingawa River The Waingawa River is a river of the Greater Wellington Region of New Zealand's North Island and a major tributary of the Ruamahanga River. The name Waingawa used to be Waiāwangawanga, wai meaning water and wangawanga meaning uncertain or tr ...

in the south-western part of

Masterton Masterton () is a large town in the Wellington Region, Greater Wellington Region of New Zealand that operates as the seat of the Masterton District (a territorial authority or local-government district). It is the largest town in the Wairarapa ...

, the principal town in the Wairarapa Valley of New Zealand's

North Island The North Island ( , 'the fish of Māui', historically New Ulster) is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but less populous South Island by Cook Strait. With an area of , it is the List ...

. It was a small part of Manaia run on which Masterton is built. It takes its present name from Solway House built in 1877 for W. H. Donald.

Solway College Solway College is a girls' boarding school in Masterton, New Zealand. It is an integrated school for girls from Year 7 to Year 13 (Forms 1 to 7) with a limited number of day girl places. The College was founded in 1916. History The College was ...

, a Presbyterian girls' boarding school, was established in Solway House in 1916 but Solway's central feature remains the near-moribund Masterton Agricultural & Pastoral Association's Solway Showgroundspreviously in Dixon Street opened in 1911. A Wairarapa Farmers Market for artisan produce is held under the grandstand each Saturday morning. Solway also has several parks and reserves, including the Masterton Trust Lands Trust's Millennium Reserve built over the

Acclimatisation Society Acclimatisation societies were voluntary associations, founded in the 19th and 20th centuries, that encouraged the introduction of non-native species in various places around the world, in the hope that they would acclimatise and adapt to the ...

's trout hatcheries and South Park, a softball field and dog-walking area.

History

Donald Donald (1854—1922) born at Manaia is reported to have said the original name for the area now known as Solway was Purātā, a Maori name for a flowering Rātā. Solway House was a Donald homestead built in 1877 on part of Manaia, a 30,000 acre run owned by partners W. B. Rhodes and William Hodgson Donald (1815—1885), manager of the run. Donald married in England and came to New Zealand in 1842. He first established his family at Pencarrow then by 1849 became one of the first European farmers to settle in the

Wairarapa The Wairarapa (; ), a geographical region of New Zealand, lies in the south-eastern corner of the North Island, east of metropolitan Wellington and south-west of the Hawke's Bay Region. It is lightly populated, having several rural service t ...

M.P. Haddon Donald was a descendant. Until the time of the showgrounds when the name Solway seems to have been generally recognised the 1877 homestead's address was Solway House, Manaia. W. H. Donald named Solway House after the

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is an area of North West England which was historically a county. The county was bordered by Northumberland to the north-east, County Durham to the east, Westmorland to the south-east, Lancashire to the south, and the Scottish ...

manor-house he was born and grew up in, the now-demolished Solway House on the banks of the Whampool River between

Anthorn Anthorn (pronounced ) is a village in Cumbria, England. Historically in Cumberland, it is situated on the south side of the Solway Firth, on the Wampool estuary, about west of Carlisle. It is the location of the Anthorn radio station, bro ...

and

Cardurnock Cardurnock is a small settlement in Cumbria, England. It is by the coast, west of Carlisle. The western extension of the Hadrian's Wall Hadrian's Wall (, also known as the ''Roman Wall'', Picts' Wall, or ''Vallum Aelium'' in Latin) is a ...

. Manaia run or station stretched from the Waingawa to the Waipoua, where it met with Te Ore Ore station, and the original run grazed cattle on most of the Taratahi. Brenda Donald married Archibald Kennedy Arnot, (1841—1872) East Indian Navy. was the first pakeha woman born in Masterton at Manaia 12 July 1851. Barney Rhodes sold up 14,000 acres including some 1300 acres of freehold in 1859. Donald Donald kept the 640 acres from Kuripuni triangle to the river known as Solway and his elder brother, Rhodes Donald (1847—1917), kept an adjacent portion with the name Manaia. The original Manaia house burned down. Rhodes Donald built a new house but soon sold to John and George Judd. That part of Manaia Road was renamed Judd's Road. The original Manaia woolshed built on the Waingawa side of what is now Judd's Road, the oldest pakeha building in Masterton, has been in Greytown's Cobblestones Museum since 1973 after a brief sojourn on the showgrounds. At Cobblestones the woolshed displays a Manaia invention and development, a Donald patented wool press. Made in both Perry Street, Masterton and Sydney NSW these presses were sent all over the world. A new 80-lot subdivision received planning approval in September 2013.

Demographics

Solway, comprising the statistical areas of Solway North and Solway South, covers . It had an estimated population of as of with a population density of people per km². Solway had a population of 5,805 at the

2018 New Zealand census The 2018 New Zealand census, which took place on Tuesday 6 March 2018, was the thirty-fourth national census in New Zealand. The population of New Zealand was counted as 4,699,755 – an increase of 457,707 (10.79%) over the 2013 census. Resu ...

, an increase of 651 people (12.6%) since the 2013 census, and an increase of 882 people (17.9%) since the 2006 census. There were 2,241 households, comprising 2,841 males and 2,967 females, giving a sex ratio of 0.96 males per female, with 1,182 people (20.4%) aged under 15 years, 1,143 (19.7%) aged 15 to 29, 2,403 (41.4%) aged 30 to 64, and 1,077 (18.6%) aged 65 or older. Ethnicities were 83.7% European/

Pākehā ''Pākehā'' (or ''Pakeha''; ; ) is a Māori language, Māori-language word used in English, particularly in New Zealand. It generally means a non-Polynesians, Polynesian New Zealanders, New Zealander or more specifically a European New Zeala ...

, 22.3%

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...

, 4.3% Pasifika, 5.4% Asian, and 1.2% other ethnicities. People may identify with more than one ethnicity. The percentage of people born overseas was 12.2, compared with 27.1% nationally. Although some people chose not to answer the census's question about religious affiliation, 49.3% had no religion, 38.2% were

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

, 1.0% had

Māori religious beliefs Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...

, 1.3% were

Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...

, 0.6% were

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

and 1.4% had other religions. Of those at least 15 years old, 519 (11.2%) people had a bachelor's or higher degree, and 1,194 (25.8%) people had no formal qualifications. 444 people (9.6%) earned over $70,000 compared to 17.2% nationally. The employment status of those at least 15 was that 2,199 (47.6%) people were employed full-time, 723 (15.6%) were part-time, and 135 (2.9%) were unemployed.

Education

Solway School is a co-educational state primary school for Year 1 to 6 students, with a roll of as of . Hadlow Preparatory School is a co-educational Anglican state-integrated primary school for Year 1 to 8 students, with a roll of .

is a state-integrated Presbyterian girls' intermediate and secondary school for Year 7 to 13 students, with a roll of . It is a boarding school founded in 1916.

Transport

Roads and bus services

Solway is served by many forms of public transport. State Highway 2 (or High Street), runs straight through the middle of Solway. There are two bus services serving Solway: *200 – To/from central Masterton, Carterton, Greytown, Featherston & Martinborough. Runs all week. *202 – Travelling from Central Masterton through Solway and Kuripuni and back again. Runs 4 times daily on weekdays.

Rail services

connects residents to the cities of

Upper Hutt Upper Hutt () is a city in the Wellington Region of New Zealand and one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington#Wellington metropolitan area, Wellington metropolitan area. History Upper Hutt is in an area originally known as Orongo ...

Lower Hutt Lower Hutt () is a list of cities in New Zealand, city in the Wellington Region of New Zealand. Administered by the Hutt City Council, it is one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington#Wellington metropolitan area, Wellington metropoli ...

and

Wellington Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...

. Its close proximity to

makes it popular with its students, which board in

and live in

Hood Aerodrome

Hood Aerodrome Hood Aerodrome is an aerodrome, located in Masterton, New Zealand, it is located 1 NM South West of the town centre in the suburb of Solway. The aerodrome was named after George Hood, a pioneer Masterton aviator who died trying to make the fi ...

is in Solway though as of 2015, there are no commercial flights from it. From early 2009 until late 2013 Air New Zealand provided flights to Auckland, operated by subsidiary

Eagle Airways Eagle Airways was a regional airline based in Hamilton, New Zealand, Hamilton, New Zealand and was wholly owned by Air New Zealand, operating regional services under the Air New Zealand Link brand. The airline was disbanded on 26 August 20 ...

six days a week, mainly to serve business customers in the Wairarapa. There have been a few other unsuccessful attempts at commercial air travel in Masterton, mostly failing due to its proximity to major airports in

and

Palmerston North Palmerston North (; , colloquially known as Palmerston or Palmy) is a city in the North Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Manawatū-Whanganui region. Located in the eastern Manawatū Plains, the city is near the north bank of the Manaw ...

. The most significant was by South Pacific Airlines of New Zealand (SPANZ), which operated daily flights using DC3s during the sixties to destinations nationwide until the airline's closure in 1966.

Peter Jackson Sir Peter Robert Jackson (born 31 October 1961) is a New Zealand filmmaker. He is best known as the director, writer, and producer of the ''Lord of the Rings'' trilogy (2001–2003) and the ''Hobbit'' trilogy (2012–2014), both of which ar ...

is an avid

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' include fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air aircraft such as h ...

enthusiast and owns a collection of over 40 flyable World War I-era

warbird A warbird is any vintage military aircraft now operated by civilian organizations and individuals, or in some instances, by historic arms of military forces, such as the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, the Royal Australian Air Force's No. 100 ...