March 2, 2025
A number of major roads converge on the suburb of Newmarket from all parts of Auckland and from early settlement times, it has been a retail center. Around 1850, it received the name Newmarket because it was the site of the new market for livestock, where farmers would bring their cattle and sheep for sale. Now it is the home of one of Auckland’s largest shopping malls, surrounded by narrow streets lined with trendy boutiques.
In the 1980s, the New Zealand government changed the country’s immigration laws to make it easier for Chinese to immigrate to New Zealand. Many took the opportunity to send their children to New Zealand to get their education. Newmarket is in the acceptance zone of two on New Zealand’s most prestigious public high schools, Auckland Grammar School (AGS) for boys and Epsom Girls Grammar School (EGGS) for girls. Wealthy Chinese began to buy homes in the Newmarket area so that their children could attend those schools. When Mal attended AGS in the 1980s there were barely any Asian students. Now the majority of students in both AGS and EGGS are Asian. Newmarket itself is now majority Asian with many living in new apartment buildings and townhouses that have sprung up on the northern edge of the neighborhood.
The new development has not stretched far, however, and further afield the streets of older single family homes still dominate.
We found interesting, the juxtaposition of this traditional home and its modern neighbor.
Tucked in behind the new developments and old neighborhoods is Newmarket Park. Its Maori name is Te Rua Reoreo which derives from the rua-reoreo (echoes) that could once be made when shouting across the valley where the park sits. In 1841, Apihai Te Kawau, the chief of the local Ngati Whatua tribe gifted 3000 acres of land to the Crown to establish Auckland city. That, supposedly, included the land on which the park sits, although Ngati Whatua still dispute this, arguing that the border of the grant was west of the park. The land was not always the pretty park it is today. It has been among other things, a garbage dump in the 1920s and 1930s, a golf driving range and a soccer stadium. In fact, a visiting Manchester United played there before 26,000 fans in 1967. In the 1980s, it was the home of the Auckland Grammar Old Boys rugby club. The clubhouse where Mal enjoyed many an after match beer has now been replaced by a playground.
Mal and Lauren 