Paparangi

Paparangi is one of the northern suburbs of Wellington, New Zealand. It lies approximately 10 km north of the city centre, north-east of Johnsonville, north-west of Newlands and south of Grenada and Woodridge. The population was 2841 at the time of the 2013 census, an increase of 96 from the 2006 census population.

The area, originally farms and part of Newlands became a dormitory suburb of Wellington with major subdivisions in the early 1960s. Some of the street names (like Mark Avenue) are the first names of children living in the area then.

The suburb has a local shopping centre and a primary school, Paparangi School.

History

The area was settled by a farmer Thomas Drake from Devonshire who was a descendant of John Drake, brother to Sir Francis Drake. He obtained a Crown Grant of 332 acres of land in 1861. His widow Ceres Selina Drake sold the land to the Crown on 3 August 1897, and it was broken into small farms of the Paparangi Estate, as one of the Small Farms Settlements of Richard Seddon’s Liberal Government. Working men got a 2 hectare (5 acre) lease-in-perpetuity section on which they could grow fruit and vegetables and keep pigs, bees and fowls. In the 1920s Sid Styles had a dairy farm, Ocean View Farm in Paparangi supplying milk and cream.