KELBURN VIADUCT

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 35, 5 November 1928, Page 10

KELBURN VIADUCT

RESULT OF UPLAND LAND SETTLEMENT PRIVATE LANDOWNER’S PROPOSAL The Kelburn viaduct, the traffic bridge over the old Karori Road, which .connects Kelburn with Northland, and now so much in the public eye, was erected as the result of the development of Kelburn lands by the Upland Estate Company. The rapid growth of settlement was due in large measure to the erection of the Kelburn-Karori cable tramway. The late Mr. Charles Pharazyn, a member of a very well-known family for many years connected with early Wellington, owned tlie greater part of Northland, which was then little more than a sheep-run, and, in those days, was considered very bleak and remote from the city because of its elevation and exposure to every wind. But the beginning of settlement in Kelburn, at first along the terraces facing the harbour, and later aloug the ridge (where formerly stood Moxham’s Farm), put ideas into Mr. Pharazyn’s head. He thought, when the Upland Company was reading the estate in Kelburn west, that, if they were to construct a through highway on the level (for the first road designed was somewhat undulating), there was tlie means of a new and easy access to his lands at Northland. So he approached the Upland Company and suggested that if they won! I consider erecting a viaduct over the Karori Road gully, he would pay a proportion of the cost, pointing out to the company at the same time that the people who settled Northland were prospective patrons of the tramways that the company was to construct or bad then constructed. Tlie provision of such a bridge, too, would mean a highway through the estate, instead of a dead-end above the gully. The company saw the wisdom of the proposal, and an arrangement was made to go forward with the work. Mr. J. E. Fulton, who now lies seriously ill at his home in Grant Road, was the engineer who designed the viaduct for the company, the cost of which it is understood was under £50.000. The viaduct is uow about twenty-seven years of age.