Upper Hutt, Wellington Region, North Island, New Zealand

🇳🇿 Upper Hutt (Te Awa Kairangi ki Uta) is a city in the Wellington Region of New Zealand and one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington metropolitan area.

History Upper Hutt is in an area originally known as Orongomai and that of the river was Heretaunga (today the name of a suburb of Upper Hutt). The first residents of the area were Māori of the Ngai Tara iwi. Various other iwi controlled the area in the years before 1840, and by the time the first colonial settlers arrived the area was part of the Te Atiawa rohe.

Orongomai Marae is to the south of the modern city centre.

In 1839, the English colonising company, The New Zealand Company made a purchase from Māori chiefs of about 160,000 acres of land in the Wellington region including Upper Hutt. The Hutt Valley is named after one of the founders of this company. Dealings from the New Zealand Company and following that, the Crown (after the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840), with local Māori regarding the land in Upper Hutt were flawed including not transacting with all the iwi that had claims on the land. Disputes arose and there were skirmishes and warfare in the Hutt Valley in 1846 between troops under Governor George Grey and Māori including chiefs Te Rauparaha, Te Rangihaeata, Te Mamaku and iwi including Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Rangatahi, Ngāti Tama and Ngāti Hāua-te-rangi.

Richard Barton, who settled at Trentham in 1841 in the area now known as Trentham Memorial Park, was the first European resident. Barton subsequently subdivided his land and set aside a large area that was turned into parkland. James Brown settled in the area that became the Upper Hutt town in 1848.

Having divided the land into 100 acre block, the settlers set about clearing the land of its indigenous forest and turning it into farmland. Sawmillers milled larger trees, such as Totara, for building materials and burned off the remaining scrub and underbrush.

Alarmed by unrest in Taranaki and sightings of local Māori bearing arms, settlers in the Hutt Valley lobbied for the construction of fortifications in Upper and Lower Hutt. The government and the military responded by constructing 2 stockades in the Hutt Valley in 1860. While the stockade in Upper Hutt was manned for 6 months, the threat of hostilities soon passed and neither installation ever saw hostile action.

The railway line from Wellington reached Upper Hutt on 1 February 1876. The line was extended to Kaitoke at the top end of the valley, reaching there on 1 January 1878. The line continued over the Remutaka Ranges to Featherston in the Wairarapa as a Fell railway, opening on 12 October 1878.

By the beginning of March 1914, the area of Upper Hutt controlled by the Upper Hutt Town Board had its own water supply. The supply capacity was increased when the Birchville Dam was built in 1930.

On the evening of 28 March 1914, fire broke out at the Benge and Pratt store in Main Street. An explosion killed 8 of the volunteers fighting the fire and destroyed the building.

For many years, Upper Hutt was a rural service town, supporting the surrounding rural farming and forestry community. Serious urbanisation of the upper Hutt Valley only started around the 1920s, but from the late 1940s onwards, Upper Hutt's population exploded as people moved from the crowded hustle and bustle of inner-city Wellington into a more secluded yet sprawling Hutt Valley. In 1950, Trentham Memorial Park was created with an area of almost 50 hectares. In July 1955, the electrification of the railway line from Wellington to Upper Hutt was completed, allowing fast electric multiple unit trains to replace steam- and diesel-electric-hauled carriage trains. Later in November, the 8.8 km Rimutaka Tunnel opened, bypassing the Remutaka Incline and most of the existing line between Upper Hutt and Featherston, and reducing the time between the two from 2.5 hours to just 40 minutes.

Upper Hutt continued to grow in population and became a city within the Wellington metropolitan area on 2 May 1966 after the Government Statistician certified that the population had reached 20 000, allowing the Town Clerk to make an application for city status.

On 9 April 1976, Upper Hutt became the first area in New Zealand to implement subscriber toll dialling (STD), allowing telephone subscribers to make national calls without operator assistance.

Residential subdivision in areas such as Clouston Park, Maoribank, Tōtara Park and Kingsley Heights continued into the 1980s.

In February 1979 Muhammed Ali came to New Zealand, staying at Upper Hutt.

In the 1980s, significant travel delays were being experienced through Upper Hutt, with State Highway 2 traffic travelling from Lower Hutt and Wellington to central Upper Hutt and further afield to the Wairarapa being funnelled down the two-lane Fergusson Drive and mixing with local traffic through Silverstream and Trentham. With the central government reluctant to fund any road improvements in the area, the Upper Hutt City Council commissioned the construction of a two-laned high-speed bypass along the banks of Te Awa Kairangi / Hutt River from the Taitā Gorge in the south to Māoribank in the north. River Road, as the road became known, opened in 1987. It promptly ran at full capacity and, after several serious accidents that were a legacy of its origins, it was enlarged and re-engineered to cope with the growing traffic volume. Today, River Road is a median-divided 2+1 road from the Taitā Gorge to Tōtara Park, with two-laned undivided sections over the Moonshine Bridge and from Tōtara Park to Maoribank.

Upper Hutt is in the bed of an ancient river flood plain and as such was prone to flooding. In the 1970s and 1980s, a stop bank was built alongside the eastern side of the river from northern Upper Hutt to the mouth of Te Awa Kairangi / Hutt River in Lower Hutt to prevent further flooding.

Geography The Upper Hutt city centre lies approximately 26 km north-east of Wellington. While the main areas of urban development lie along the Te Awa Kairangi / Hutt River valley floor, the city extends to the top of the Remutaka Pass to the north-east and into the Akatarawa Valley and rough hill-country of the Akatarawa ranges to the north and north-west, almost reaching the Kāpiti Coast close to Paekākāriki. Centred on the upper (northern) valley of Te Awa Kairangi / Hutt River, which flows north-east to south-west on its way to Wellington harbour, the flat land widens briefly into a 2500-m-wide floodplain between the Remutaka and Akatarawa Ranges before constricting nine km further downstream at the Taitā Gorge, which separates Upper Hutt from its neighbour, Lower Hutt. The city's main urban area spreads over this plain. A smaller flood plain lies upstream, above the Kaitoke Gorge, but has experienced little urban development.

Local government Upper Hutt City Council administers the city with its surrounding rural areas, parks and reserves. Its area is 540 km2, the third-largest area of city council in New Zealand, after Dunedin and Auckland. New Zealand local authorities with a large land area are usually termed districts, but Upper Hutt maintains its status as a city largely because of its high degree of urbanisation.

Upper Hutt was originally administered by the Hutt County Council, which was constituted in 1877. The Town Board was proclaimed on 24 April 1908. Upper Hutt became a Borough on 26 February 1926 and a City on 2 May 1966. On 1 April 1973, the Rimutaka Riding of Hutt County was added to the city. When the Hutt County Council was abolished on 1 November 1988, the city took over administration of the Heretaunga/Pinehaven ward, which was incorporated into the city on 1 November 1989 when the Heretaunga/Pinehaven Community Council was abolished.

Parliamentary representation Today, Upper Hutt City falls entirely within the boundaries of the Remutaka electorate, current held by Labour's Chris Hipkins. Upper Hutt was represented by the Heretaunga electorate prior to the introduction of MMP in 1996, when the seat was merged with Eastern Hutt to form Remutaka.

Suburbs The main suburbs of Upper Hutt, from north-east to south-west, include: Te Mārua, Akatarawa, Rimutaka, Parkdale, Emerald Hill, Birchville, Timberlea, Brown Owl, Kaitoke, Maoribank, Ebdentown, Upper Hutt Central, Clouston Park, Mangaroa, Maymorn, Whitemans Valley, Tōtara Park, Kingsley Heights, Elderslea, Wallaceville, Trentham, Heretaunga, Silverstream and Pinehaven.

Developments in the area include Mount Timbale Marua, Marua Downs, Waitoka Estate, Wallaceville Estate, and Riverstone Terraces. A development called The Lanes was proposed but rejected by the Lanes Commissioners appointed by the council. This decision was made as to ensure the maintenance of the significant rural character and amenity in the Mangaroa Valley.

Transport: Road State Highway 2 is the principal highway through Upper Hutt, connecting with Lower Hutt and Wellington's motorway system to the south, and the Wairarapa region via the Remutaka Hill Road to the north.

Fergusson Drive is the main thoroughfare through suburban Upper Hutt, passing through the city centre and connecting to State Highway 2 at Silverstream and Maoribank. It formed part of State Highway 2 before the River Road bypass opened in 1987.

State Highway 58, while only briefly in Upper Hutt itself, intersects with SH 2 a short distance to the south of the boundary of Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt, and provides a link between Upper Hutt and Porirua.

State Highway 1 (as the Transmission Gully Motorway) briefly touches Upper Hutt at the Wainui Saddle (the tripoint of Upper Hutt, Porirua City and the Kāpiti Coast District), but otherwise does not pass through the region.

Transport: Bus Bus services, planned and subsidised by Greater Wellington Regional Council under the Metlink brand, are centred around the Upper Hutt railway station and operate from Monday to Saturday on most routes, with the 110 route between Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt operating 7 days a week. All of the urbanised areas of the city are served by public bus routes, and the rural areas are served by school buses.

Transport: Rail Upper Hutt is on the Hutt Valley Line, Metlink electric trains operated by Transdev Wellington run between 4:30 am and 11 pm weekdays, (midnight Fridays), 5 am till midnight Saturdays and 6 am till 11 pm Sundays. Service which reaches Waterloo in Lower Hutt in around 20 minutes and Wellington in around 45 minutes. Express peak hour weekday trains reach Wellington in around 38 minutes. Services run every 20 minutes between 6 am and 4:30 pm weekday and half-hourly Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. Evening services run hourly from 8 to 11 pm.

The railway continues beyond Upper Hutt to Masterton, becoming the Wairarapa Line, which is not electrified. Masterton is about an hour away by morning and afternoon diesel hauled trains. There are services five times a day each way Monday to Thursday, six on Friday, and twice a day, each way on Saturday, Sunday, and public holidays. A notable feature of this section of railway is the Rimutaka Tunnel, the second-longest railway tunnel in New Zealand, which replaced the Rimutaka Incline in 1955.

There are six railway stations within the boundaries of the city: Silverstream, Heretaunga, Trentham, Wallaceville, Upper Hutt (the main station for the city and outer terminus of electric services), and Maymorn (a request stop on the Wairarapa Line).

Upper Hutt's main railway station was originally built in 1876 but has been rebuilt twice, firstly in 1955 and more recently in 2015. The most recent rebuild, jointly funded by NZTA and the Upper Hutt City Council, cost $3.5m and features a coffee bar, public toilets and an upgraded ticket office featuring real-time information of arrivals and departures of trains in a larger waiting room than the 1955 building.

The Blue Mountains Campus at Wallaceville is to be the location for KiwiRail 's national train control centre, which is to move from the Wellington railway station; to house a team of 120 train control team members in a 2,700 m2 (29,000 sq ft) train control room. It will be next to the rail network.

Remutaka Incline To assist with the 1 in 15 grade of the Rimutaka Incline on the Featherston side of the range, the Fell engines that used a raised centre rail to haul trains up the steep grade were employed. The less steep 1 in 40 grades between Upper Hutt and the small settlement and shunting yard at Summit could be managed by ordinary steam locomotives. The only other rolling stock able to traverse the incline unaided were small bus-like Wairarapa railcars, colloquially known as "Tin Hares".

By the 1950s, the Fell system had become too expensive to operate and was closed on 29 October 1955. To replace it, the Rimutaka Tunnel had been constructed, opening on 3 November 1955. In conjunction with the tunnel, the laying of a new route, new bridges and substantial realignment and double-tracking of the rest of the line from Wellington to Trentham had occurred by 26 June 1955.

The course of the incline is open to the public as part of the Remutaka Rail Trail.

Sports and recreation Walking and mountain-biking is popular along Te Awa Kairangi / Hutt River and on the tracks in many parks, including Karapoti (focal point of the annual Karapoti Classic), Kaitoke, Cannon Point Walkway, Tunnel Gully and the Remutaka Rail Trail. Popular team sports include Cricket, Netball, Rugby, Rugby league, Soccer, and Valley Gridiron American football.

Expressions Whirinaki Arts and Entertainment Centre is home to Upper Hutt's public art gallery including Golden Homes Gallery and Mitre 10 Mega Create Gallery, these two galleries feature a diverse programme of Local and National exhibitions. The Expressions Whirinaki complex also includes Gillies Group Theatre; the city's performing arts venue, and the civic hall known as Professionals Recreation Hall. Close by is the central library of Upper Hutt Libraries - Ngā Puna Mātauranga o Te Awa Kairangi ki Uta and swimming pool H2O Xtreme.

Upper Hutt is home to the biggest junior football club in New Zealand. The club was formed when Tararua Sports Club Inc and Upper Hutt City Soccer merged to create one club. The club now carries both of the old clubs' names. The club primarily plays its home games at Maidstone Park but also plays at Awakairangi, Harcourt Park and Trentham Memorial Park.

The city has one of New Zealand's largest Inline speed skating clubs, Valley Inline which has many successful skaters and holds the annual Speed King Tour that celebrated its 22nd year in 2012.

Popular recreation sites include: • Staglands Wildlife Reserve at Akatarawa • Taekwon-Do with United ITF New Zealand at Heretaunga • Royal Wellington Golf Club at Heretaunga • Te Mārua Golf Club at Te Mārua • Wellington Family Speedway at Te Mārua • Wellington Naturist Club at Te Mārua • Kartsport Wellington Raceway at Kaitoke • Wellington Racing Club at Trentham • Trentham Memorial Park at Trentham • Cannon Point Walkway • Birchville Dam • Upper Hutt Rugby Football Club at Maidstone Park, Upper Hutt • Rimutaka Rugby Football Club at Maoribank, Upper Hutt • Upper Hutt United Cricket Club at Trentham, Upper Hutt • Upper Hutt City Soccer Club at Maidstone Park, Upper Hutt • Harcourt Park diskgolf course at Harcourt Park, Upper Hutt • Upper Hutt Roller Skating Club at Upper Hutt • Wellington Model Aeroplane Club Inc at Trentham, Upper Hutt • Upper Hutt Hockey Club at Maidstone Park, Upper Hutt.

Education Primary schools • Fraser Crescent School • St Brendans School, Heretaunga • Trentham School • Birchville School • Tōtara Park School • St Josephs School, City Centre • Upper Hutt School • Plateau School • Silverstream School • Mangaroa School • Maoribank School • Pinehaven School • Plateau School • Oxford Crescent School • Brown Owl Primary School; Intermediate schools • Maidstone Intermediate • Fergusson Intermediate; Secondary schools • Heretaunga College • Hutt International Boys' School, Trentham • St. Patrick's College, Silverstream • Upper Hutt College.