MEMORIAL OF TREES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 120, 24 May 1938, Page 8

MEMORIAL OF TREES.

" NEW ZEAUUTD AVENUE."

New Zealand Avenue." Prominently displayed at each end of a beautiful avenue a mile in length, the name perpetuates an association formed during the war years at Walton-on-Thames near London.

"It is a picturesque memorial to New Zealand soldiers," said Mr. Victor Wheatley, a Canadian, who arrived by the Wanganella from Sydney this morning, and he recalled that the thoroughfare had been dedicated to the memory of troops from the Dominion, many of whom were buried in the vicinity." . Having visited the locality many times while he was engaged in motion picture production at Sound City, he declared that the avenue was to-day much admired by tourists, and stringent building restrictions were in force to preserve its beauty. Recently a new theatre, costing £50,000, vhich was among the most modern in England, had been completed, and it was the intention of the authorities to maintain a high architectural standard. Planted with oaks and other English trees, the avenue was leafless in winter, added Mr. Wheatley, but at other seasons it had the fresh green of sprint aiul early summer, or, the golden tints of late summer and autumn. Mr. Wheatley said he had come to New Zealand chiefly to meet his sister, whom he had not seen for 2l years, since her marriage to a New Zealand soldier in England.