History – Warkworth in the 1950s

Warkworth and District Museum’s calendar this year features the photos of A.G.L Broomfield taken in the late 1940s and 50s showcasing the town during that era. His photos were gifted to the museum, as I mentioned last year in an article, some in digital format and some as glass plates. Broomfield was a local solicitor with offices in Queen Street, Warkworth, until he purchased the two-storey house in Neville Street in 1953, which was built by Charles Thomson the previous century. Here he set up his professional rooms and his home. He was chairman of the Town Board for some years, never married, would often smoke a pipe and, as we can see, was a keen amateur photographer.

My husband and I have been trying to remember the Warkworth of our childhoods. The one lane bridge, still surviving as a walkway after the new bridge was built in 1971. It stretched between Bridgehouse, the bakery and tearooms beside it, and the Rodney and Otamatea Times building on the town side, with the Oddfellows Hall opposite. Below was the river and weir; I remember swimming here and even jumping off the bridge!

Across the road on the corner was Rodney Motors, with Paddy McDowell’s IGA near by. Gubbs Motors was further along Queen Street on the other side, past the dairy factory and the manager’s house, and beside Collin’s Radio. Opposite there was the Hamilton Building, where Florrie and Ben Hamilton built an arcade-type building, housing several small shops – a chemist, tobacconist, haberdashery and draper, others too. An innovative idea at the time, which Florrie had picked up from a trip to America. Next door was Tony Anich’s takeaway shop, a favourite.

Stubbs Butchery, still very much part of the town, was on the corner of the road going down to the wharf where there was a big, dilapidated wharf shed, which we remember as housing R&O Transport after the river traffic ceased. Opposite Stubbs on Queen Street was the hotel built by Southgate in 1864, with its Norfolk pine planted 10 years later. The hotel still stands lovingly restored. The shady pepper tree, now no longer, was a place to linger on hot days.

North Auckland Farmers building and Salon Sandra were opposite each other at the bottom of Neville Street, with one or two houses along towards the Masonic Lodge (hall) and the tennis courts near where New World now stands. Up Neville Street there was Thomson House (Broomfield House) and just above that the very substantial building of the Bank of NZ. At the top of the hill on the corners of Alnwick and Neville Street were the post office building and town hall, both built in 1911. The town was a meeting place back then, busy in a different way to nowadays. Even then, some businesses were setting up outside of the town centre either due to costs or space.

Warkworth Museum calendars cost $22 and are available from the museum and the museum op-shop.