Taranaki Stories
Showing stories tagged as Pukekura Park.
by Virginia Winder on 09 December 2009
1842 - Brooklands is established as a farm by Captain Henry King and becomes the agricultural showplace of the New Zealand Company.
1861 (March) - Captain King's house is burnt down by Maori at the end of the first Taranaki Land War. The remains of the chimney can be seen at Brooklands today.
1875 - German vintners Heinrich Breidecker and son Johann are...
by Virginia Winder on 09 December 2009
Pukekura Park has turned on its beauty for Hollywood actors, royalty and botanical stars.
And when the Tom Cruise-led movie, The Last Samurai, opened in December 2003, the park was able to be appreciated by a worldwide audience.
Members of the British Royal family, including Queen Elizabeth II and the late Queen Mother, have all wandered around the New Plymouth park. In fact, the...
by Virginia Winder on 09 December 2009
Bring the people back - that was Jack Goodwin's brief when he took over the reins of Pukekura Park in 1949.
And he succeeded, triumphantly.
In June 2003, about 26 years after retiring, Jack became a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for his services to horticulture.
But his time at the New Plymouth park didn't begin with such a flourish.
During World War II,...
by Virginia Winder on 09 December 2009
George Fuller is full of fascinating and frightening revelations about Pukekura Park.
The former curator, who worked in the New Plymouth park from 1965 to 1990, tells about a secret nightlife, a hidden tunnel, a private obsession and a memory that has haunted him forever.
Orchids and Jack Goodwin first lured George to Taranaki.
When the orchid collection of Taranaki horticulturalist Fred...
by Virginia Winder on 09 December 2009
New Plymouth has a park for a heart.
One that has thump-thumped with axes and spades and the clapping of wild crowds. It has quivered to the beat of world music, Split Enz and rock stars.
The lakes have pulsed with dancing water lights and rippled to the slow rhythm of rowboats.
There have been drum rolls for a Queen and her mother and brass bands banging out Christmas carols....
by Sorrel Hoskin on 09 December 2009
Under a galaxy of stars, walled by trees and with a glittering lake as its floor - nothing beats the TSB Bowl of Brooklands on a good night. From the soaring voice of Dame Kiri Te Kanawa to the din of an REM gig, demure young ladies in white frocks to Army howitzers, the TSB Bowl of Brooklands has seen and heard it all.
A bright idea
The Bowl is a result of one man's dream, thousands of...