The bridge to nowhere

The origin of an isolated bridge on the Puhinui stream near Manukau City

Bruce Ringer

Manukau City has it very own bridge to nowhere. Look downstream from the Puhinui bridge on the Great South Road just beyond the Pacific Events Centre, and you’ll see an old but well-built concrete bridge standing in isolation in the middle of the fields.

In 1929 the Dilworth Trust Board purchased a large plot of farmland between Browns Road and Kerrs Road, Wiri. It planned to move the Dilworth School there. Plans were drawn up by December 1930.

However, the Depression of the 1930s and war in the 1940s intervened. All that was completed was a drive leading to the proposed site and a bridge across the Puhinui Stream. In 1952 the board decided to expand the existing school at Epsom instead. The Dilworth bridge has stood in splendid and useless isolation ever since.

The bridge to nowhere isn’t the only Dilworth connection with Manukau. The oldest building on the Manukau Institute of Technology campus was built in 1915 for a short-lived Dilworth School of Agriculture.

Views of the bridge to nowhere, 31 October 2009. (Bruce Ringer, Manukau Research Library/ digital collections)

For more information: see Manukau’s Journey.

Publication record: first published in Connexions, no. 87, August, 2006, p. 4. Revised for publication on the Manukau Libraries website in September 2009.

Copyright © Manukau Libraries. This text may be freely used for the purposes of private study or research and for non-commercial publication provided that the author and Manukau Libraries are duly acknowledged.