Highlands Place

Highlands Place runs off Heta Road in Highlands Park. Formed in 1980 but not named until 1982, the street pays tribute to the largest region of Scotland, home to the legendary Loch Ness.

The area between Te Hēnui Stream and the Waiwhakaiho River, including what is now Tūpare gardens, was the traditional home of Ngāti Tūparikino hapū. It remained mostly farmland until as late as 1968 and included the Puketōtara Māori Reserve which was progressively leased from the 1890s.

Development of the Highlands Park subdivision began in January 1974 although it did not appear on any maps until 1979. Parkdale Development Limited, based in Auckland, purchased around 240 lots and originally planned to call the area the Tableland subdivision. “Tableland” refers to an elevated region or plateau but that name was soon changed to the Highlands Park subdivision. The change was presumably inspired by Highlands Estate, a large section of native bush near Brooklands that was described as “New Plymouth’s garden suburb” when it began to be developed in the 1920s. The estate then led to the naming of Highlands Intermediate School in 1955. The change from Tableland also provided an opportunity to name many of the streets in Highlands Park after places in Scotland.

The Highlands region of Scotland covers a third of the country’s land area but has its lowest population density, with a mere eight people per square kilometre. It is also home to some of the tallest mountains in Britain and Europe’s largest “blanket bog”. Loch Ness contains nearly twice as much water as all the other lakes of England and Wales combined – not to mention a rather famous monster, of which there have been over 1000 sightings since 1933.

The Highland Clearances led tens of thousands of Gaelic-speaking Scots to migrate to colonies like Canada and Australia in the 1800s, where they were particularly well-represented in mining communities, although early Scottish migrants to New Zealand were more likely to be Lowlanders rather than Highlanders.

Now home to just over 3300 people, Highlands Park previously lay outside the New Plymouth City boundary but the suburb became part of the New Plymouth East Ward in 1990.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.