Argyle Place

Argyle Place runs off Heta Road in New Plymouth. Constructed as part of the Highlands Park subdivision which began in January 1974, it was formed and named by 1979. Parkdale Development Limited, based in Auckland, purchased nearly 250 lots in the area and had planned to call the new neighbourhood Tableland due to its elevated position. But the name was soon changed to Highlands Park, inspired by Highlands Estate, a large section of native bush near Brooklands described in the 1920s as “New Plymouth’s garden suburb”. The change from Tableland provided the perfect opportunity to name many of the streets in Highlands Park after places in Scotland.

Argyle is the archaic form of Argyll, Earra-Ghàidheil in Scottish Gaelic, meaning a coast or border region. The county is located on the western side of Scotland and includes 3723 kilometres of coastline and 23 inhabited islands. Local clan seats feature famous names such as Campbell, Macdougall, Macfarlane and Colquhoun. The region is also home to no fewer than 61 castles, 40 lochs, 24 distilleries and rare wildlife including golden eagles.

With signs of human settlement dating from as early as 3000 BC, the area has Scotland’s richest prehistoric landscape. It played a crucial role in the birth of the Scottish nation and the spread of the Christian faith when the "Scotti" people arrived from Ulster to form the Kingdom of Dalriada in Argyll around 500 AD. The Irish missionary Saint Columba then helped introduce Christianity, establishing a monastery on the Isle of Iona.

Known as the great Argyll diaspora, the 18^th and 19^th centuries saw tens of thousands migrate from this part of Scotland to countries like New Zealand. This was a result of land clearances and “improvement”, the creation of larger, more efficient farms that replaced traditional systems and a large peasantry. Scots made up a quarter of all British emigrants to New Zealand between 1840 and 1880 – during the same period fully 12 per cent of all Scottish people who emigrated overseas came to Aotearoa.

There is also an Argyle Street in Hāwera, named for the same Scottish region.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.