"LOST SUBURB"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22099, 3 May 1935, Page 13

"LOST SUBURB"

THREAT TO PONSONBIf DIMINISHING BOUNDARIES OTHER AUCKLAND CHANGES FASHIONS IN ADDRESSES # Ponsonby, as a correspondent pointed out in yesterday's Heham>, is in danger of becoming a lost suburb. Heme Bay is enveloping it from the north; its eastern slopes are merging intoTreeman's Bay; and to the south and west Richmond and Westmere are press,ing hard on its diminishing boundaries, liven the Thre<3 Lamps axe only a memory. It is a point which opens lip the very wide topic of place names in general, with the consideration of what may or may not constitute a fashionable address

It appears that the glory that was I'onsonby's has departed. There was a time when the sunny harbour slopes were known to a colony of merchant princes as "Pun.sonby," a very subtle and highly English distinction as against those other slopes where lesser mortals congregated. There was even the name Dedwood, which uaed to be applied to the actual neighbourhood of the Three Lamps, • but which now survives only as the appellation for a terrace, which some might hold to be in Ponsonby and others in Heme Bay. English Associations

As Mr. J. A. Hughes pointed out in Lis letter to the Herald, Ponsonby in the first place was all that area westward of the Pcnsonby reservoir and from Richmond II oad to the. waterfront. Parts of the district, chiefly those bordering on Ponsonby Road, have become among the most dt'iliely-settled areas in Auckland. A densely-settled district is generally not .a fashionable residential area, and, with a tramway destination sign to help them, those who dwelt amid their carefully-tended gardens on the s;award slopes frowned on Ponsonby anc, adopted Herne Baj'. According to some, there is a strictly limited area which is entitled to he called Herne Bay. It con.sists of the waterfront area bounded by Wallac© Street and Jervois Road. But custom seems to have sanctioned a considerable widening of these boundariei;. A& element of humour may be found in the fact that, in England, Ponsonby is a name of some social distinction. Indeed, English visitors might well expect Ponsonby, :from its name, to Be the most exclusive suburb of Auckland, rather than a district which has the comparatively barbarous name of Remuera. On the other hand, Heme Bay, socially preferred many to Ponsonby, is a name borrowed from that of a watering place oil the Kentish coast, which gu;ide books descril)© as being much favoured by trippers.

Names and Postal Bimtricts

The Ponsonby-Herne Bay argument opens up a much wider question, however. Place names in Auckland have undergone considerable changes during the last few years and an Aucklanc'ler, revisiting the city after a fairly lengthy absence, might reasonably be puzzled in an effort to locate Sandringham, Balmoral, Westmere, Owairaka and Meadowbank. Eden Terrace has lost its identity in "New North Road; Newton is now known almost universally as Karangahape Road; and it is hard to tell where Epsom' ends and Remuera begins. Newmarket as a residential address is almost non-existent.

There is an increasing tendency, too, to know whole ciistricts by the names of roads. Great South Road and Dominion Road are cases in point-and for this lack of definition in place names tramway destination signs are perhaps largely to blame. It has displaced an older' fashion, definitely English in origin, to name districts after inns and public house!!. There was almost a Dickeusian suggestion about a Journey to the Harp of Erin, this locality to which the now vanished hostelry gave its name, but nowadays one talks", instead, of going to the Great South Road terminus.

Ifc was suggested yesterday that tlie subdivision of the city and suburbs into postal districts each with a, distinguishing letter and number may still further reduce the use of place names. London copies to mind in this connection, but it is a fact that there the locality name, particularly of fashionable districts, persists with the postal designation. While some wore disposed to find humour in the desire of householders for a fashionable address, there were others who contended that the subdivision of Auckland's old-time districts into smaller ones with names had some advantages. As one protagonist in the Ponsonby-Herne Bay argument put it: "I do not know the names of all the streets in the Pousonby postal district and a named street; might be anywhere from the reservoir to the tram terminus and on either side of the ridge. Tell pie .that vou live in Herne Bay, or Richmond, or Westmere and I can fix the address easily."