Norton Place

The council record on the origin of local street names says that Norton Place is named after a street of the same name in Plymouth, in the United Kingdom.

The Plymouth and West Devon Record Office contains documents from the 1880s recording the sale of building lots at Norton St, as well as mortgage arrangements on the same lots. Today, Google Maps shows Norton Ave as a neighbourhood of terraced houses. The houses on one side are larger, and each house boasts a bay window. The houses on the opposite side of the street, though smaller in frontage, have more extensive back yards. It appears that the original Norton St is no more.

Norton is also a famous brand of motorcycle. They were popular racing machines made in Britain. One highly successful road model was the Norton Commando, which was produced for 10 years from 1967. The Motor Cycle News magazine declared it the winner of the "Machine of the Year" award for five years in a row from 1968-1972.

Also famous was Peter Norton, a software engineer operating as The Norton Computing Company. He produced a successful file manager for personal computers in the time before Windows. The business was sold to Symantec, which is a big player in the world of computer security.

Visitors to Sydney will be familiar with inner-city suburb Leichhardt's Norton St. Named for James Norton, the original owner of the estate from which Leichhardt was developed, the street was populated by Italian migrants after World War Two. They have left their mark, and the street now contains many Italian-themed eateries and is widely known as "Little Italy". Our own Norton Place, in Spotswood, is a cul-de-sac a short walking distance from the nearest dairy.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.