Layard Street (Opunake)

Many people will remember Opunake’s ‘cottage hospital’. It’s appropriate that it was located on Layard Street, which was named after a man who provided medical services to people in coastal Taranaki in the early years.

Beville Brownlow Layard was born in India in 1845, lived in England and the United States, then arrived in New Zealand in the 1870s. Layard served as a medical dispenser for the Armed Constabulary, then took charge of the hospital on Marsland Hill. When hostilities ceased he was allocated land near Pungarehu and became a farmer.

His hospital training meant he could help people in cases of accidents and sickness, until a doctor could be found.  He was held in such high regard by local citizens that, in the 1880s, the street was named after him. Layard died in 1915.

Layard Street initially extended beyond the Tasman Street intersection into what is now Īhāia Road. It was one of the first Opunake streets to have metal put down. However the lower end had been disregarded, attracting criticism as still a “backblocks bush track” when the maternity hospital was opened in 1922. A few years later the entire street was sealed.

The ‘cottage hospital’ was closed in the 1980s and is now a rest home. Immediately behind the building is the southern headland of Middleton Bay. The area, initially planned for residential streets, was later declared a domain.

Eventually it became Opunake’s golf course. Nurses can remember doctors telling them “everything is quiet… I’m off to play golf,” then climbing over the backyard fence to the course. If the hospital suddenly got busy again, nurses would have to climb that same fence, going in search of the doctors to call them back to work.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.