Waihorotiu (from the

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 C ...

Wai Horotiu), sometimes called the Waihorotiu Stream and the 'Queen Street River', is a stream that ran down the Queen Street gully in the

Auckland CBD The Auckland Central Business District (CBD), or Auckland city centre, is the geographical and economic heart of the Auckland metropolitan area. It is the area in which Auckland was established in 1840, by William Hobson. It is New Zealand's lea ...

, New Zealand, into the

Waitemata Harbour Waitemata or Waitematā may refer to: * Waitematā Harbour, the primary harbour of Auckland, New Zealand * Waitematā (local board area), a local government area in Auckland, New Zealand ** Waitematā Local Board, a local board of Auckland Council, ...

. It has long since been covered over and put underground by the urbanisation of the area.

History

Originally this was an open stream that was one of the tributaries of the Waitemata River, now submerged by rising sea levels in the Waitematā Harbour. The Waihorotiu carved out the Queen Street valley millions of years ago. The upper part of that valley now forms Myers Park. The references to a spring feeding the stream in the area of the Baptist Tabernacle in Myers Park are problematic (no historical document references this and if a spring existed it is unlikely it would have been built over). The stream ran through a swampy area (now Aotea Square), formed when lava flows from the

Albert Park Volcano The Albert Park Volcano was one of the volcanoes in the Auckland volcanic field in New Zealand. A small volcano that erupted approximately 145,000 years ago, the volcanic remnants were quarried during the early colonial history of Auckland be ...

blocked the flow of the Waihorotiu Stream approximately 145,000 years ago. From here, it flowed northwards between Queen and Elliot Streets until the vicinity of Victoria Street, where, emerging behind the Courthouse, it flowed down into what is now the lower part of Queen Street. It entered the harbour at what is now called Fort Street but in the early colonial period was called Fore Street, a shortened form of Foreshore. The lower reaches of the stream above the Fort Street will have been tidal; doubtless pre-European

fished in this area. The swampy area now occupied by Aotea Square was probably used to trap birds and possibly eels. A side tributary (occupying the gully between Wellesley and Airedale Streets) possibly provided drinking water for both Māori villages and the first European colonists of Auckland, although the still existing Spring just to the north of Waterloo Quadrant (later utilised by the Grey & Menzies Mineral Water Company) may have been preferred as more reliable. The stream flowed into Horotiu Bay (called

Commercial Bay Commercial Bay ( mi, Onepanea) was a bay on the southern side of the Waitematā Harbour that defined the original extent of the Auckland waterfront in Auckland, New Zealand. It was framed by two substantial headlands, Smale's Point dividing ...

after European settlement). In Māori mythology, the stream is the home of Horotiu, a

taniwha In Māori mythology, taniwha () are large supernatural beings that live in deep pools in rivers, dark caves, or in the sea, especially in places with dangerous currents or deceptive breakers (giant waves). They may be considered highly respected ...

(roughly speaking, a local nature spirit). Initially European settlement of the central area tended to be on the

Shortland Street ''Shortland Street'' is a New Zealand prime-time soap opera centring on the fictitious Shortland Street Hospital, first broadcast on TVNZ 2 on 25 May 1992. It is New Zealand's longest-running drama and soap opera, being broadcast continuously ...

rise and the Albert Park Hill area. However, as the population grew the Queen Street valley began to fill up with buildings, partly due to a big fire in the Shortland Street area. An open stream in the centre of the road created problems especially in a period before any sewerage system was in operation. The sides of the stream crumbled in wet weather and there were only a few place to cross (sometimes just plank walkways), resulting in people and carriages periodically tumbling into the river. The river was used as a source for well water, however had become heavily polluted by the mid-1860s. Around the middle of the century the Surveyor General Charles Ligar attempted to regulate the stream by building sound walls to constrict its waters (this was referred to as the Ligar Canal).
Auckland WaterPark
' - Bradbury, Matthew; abstract, The Landscape Architect, IFLA Conference Papers, May 2006 This proved inadequate (being called "an abomination, a pestiferous ditch, and the receptacle of every imaginable filth")Ligar canal long forgotten
. Auckland's ''City Scene'' magazine, Sunday 25 June 2006 (originally from ''

The New Zealand Herald ''The New Zealand Herald'' is a daily newspaper published in Auckland, New Zealand, owned by New Zealand Media and Entertainment, and considered a newspaper of record for New Zealand. It has the largest newspaper circulation of all newspapers ...

'', approximately 1870) and eventually the stream was bricked over in the form of a sewer – water percolating through the soil under Myers Park still runs into the old drain under Queen Street to the sea, discharging under the Ferry Building. A sewer east of the canal began construction in 1854, however progress was slow, and eventually it was completed in 1873. Citizens of Auckland were unhappy with sewage being delivered directly into the ports of Auckland, and by March 1914 a sewage plant at Ōkahu Bay in

Ōrākei Ōrākei is a suburb of Auckland city, in the North Island of New Zealand. It is located on a peninsula five kilometres to the east of the city centre, on the shore of the Waitematā Harbour, which lies to the north, and Hobson Bay and Orakei ...

was opened, directing the city's sewage further east along the Waitematā Harbour. In 2011, a local artist proposed that, as part of the Council's city centre masterplan, the stream be uncovered and become a centrepiece of a more people-friendly inner city.

References

External links

From stream to sewer
(from the

Auckland City Council Auckland City Council was the local government authority for Auckland City, New Zealand, from 1871 to 1 November 2010, when it and Auckland's six other city and district councils were amalgamated to form the Auckland Council. It was an elected b ...

website)
Waihorotiu - A Short Documentary
(A short film on the Waihorotiu Stream)

held in Auckland Libraries' heritage collections. * ttp://discover.elgar.govt.nz/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3266264?lang=eng Auckland, I love youA zine about Waihorotiu. {{coord, -36.854351, 174.762054, type:landmark_region:NZ, display=title History of Auckland Geography of Auckland Rivers of the Auckland Region Rivers of New Zealand Auckland CBD Subterranean rivers Waitematā Harbour catchment