Ninia Road (Sentry Hill)

Ninia Road runs between Corbett and Te Ārei Roads near Sentry Hill. It was named after Te Ninia Pā, a stronghold of Puketapu hapū, which once stood near Mangateranoho Stream, between the present-day industrial block where New Plymouth’s first airport was situated and what is now Mountain Road.

Te Ninia Pā had been home to Rāwiri [David] Waiaua, leader of Puketapu hapū, whose murder in August 1854 sparked what became known as the Puketapu Feud. Despite hostility from other Te Ātiawa chiefs like Te Waitere Kātātore and Wiremu Kīngi Te Rangitāke, Rāwiri had sold the Hua block (Hua Village was later renamed Bell Block) to the land purchase commissioner. Local tribes opposing further alienation of Māori land met in May 1854 and swore to retain as much of their whenua as they could, a pledge referred to by dismayed Pākehā as a “land league”.

Rāwiri then offered to sell even more land. He and 26 of his men went out to cut the boundaries of the disputed block even though Kātātore had warned them not to – confrontation was inevitable and on 3 August 1854 Rāwiri and several his followers were ambushed and killed.

In May the following year Rāwiri's people, under the leadership of his relative Arama Karaka, were besieged at Te Ninia by Kātātore and Te Rangitāke with their Te Ātiawa followers and Ngāti Ruanui allies. Sympathetic settlers supplied the occupants of the pā with munitions, helping to ensure that Te Ninia remained in the hands of kupapa or “friendly” Māori. Fighting continued among Te Ātiawa factions but peace was finally made early in 1857, with Kātātore agreeing to give back the land on which Rāwiri had been slain and he and Te Rangitāke no longer preventing the sale of any land to which they did not have personal claims.

Te Ninia Pā was later destroyed during the First Taranaki War in September 1860. The earliest mention of Nina Road appeared in the Taranaki Herald in 1873.

A concrete memorial cross was erected by the Government to honour Rāwiri Waiaua near the site of his former pā, where he was reportedly buried, in 1941.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.