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The story of Randwick Park
Bruce Ringer
On the evening of 13 June 2008 several hundred residents of Randwick Park gathered in Riverton Drive for a candlelight vigil. This event was held both to mourn the death of local store owner, Najtev Singh, who had been shot in the chest during a robbery six days earlier, and to symbolically reclaim the neighbourhood for the community.
Where is Randwick Park - a usually quiet neighbourhood, which came to national prominence in such tragic circumstances - and what is its story?
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The early years
Until the 1970s the block of land that became Randwick Park was a pleasant but anonymous tract of farmland to the east of the motorway at Manurewa. Its open fields sloped gently southward from Alfriston Road towards the Papakura Stream. The area had been cut off from Manurewa by the development of the southern motorway in 1963, but could equally have been described as part of Manurewa, part of Alfriston, or part of Takanini.
Part of rural Takanini in 1943. Alfriston Road crosses the map at an angle left to right, with the area that later became Randwick Park below. The southern motorway today cuts across the southern end of Scotts Road, while Wallace Road is now called Porchester Road. (Detail from topographical map, Manurewa, Department of Lands & Survey, 1943, 1:25,000)
Perhaps its closest links were with Takanini, two or three kilometres to the south. For many years Takanini was a prominent site in Auckland’s racing industry. As early as 1874 a Mr W. Walters built a private racecourse on his property, Glenora Park. For some decades afterwards this was the site of annual race meetings.
Glenora Park was also famous as the site of the first confirmed successful controlled aeroplane flight in New Zealand. On 9 February 1911 the pioneer aviators Leo and Vivian Walsh first successfully flew their newly assembled biplane, Manurewa, there.
Walsh Brothers plane at Glenora Park, Takanini, February 1911. (Courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, reference no. MNZ-2066-1/4-F. Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.)
In the 1920s a company called District Training Tracks Ltd bought land from the Glenora Park Estate to develop a horse training track. The enterprise was bought out by the Auckland Racing Club in 1944.
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