Notes

Article from the New Zealand Herald
27 August 2010: As Auckland merges to create a supercity, the Herald looks back at how Auckland has changed over the years.

Auckland gazed across the harbour at its north shore for 119 years before it built a bridge.

On that shore the first settlers had built waterfront houses and used boats for journeys to town. Even nuns at the first convent school at Shoal Bay rowed themselves about.

A ferry service was set up in 1854 from Stokes Pt (Northcote), Barry's Pt and Flagstaff, as Devonport was known. The North Shore was Devonport for the best part of a century. Devonport's rugby club is still called North Shore.

A tram service to Cheltenham existed by the 1870s buses were running to the beach at Takapuna and right up the coast to the hot springs at Waiwera by the end of the century.

But well into the 20th century the rest of the Shore remained a collection of harbourside and coastal villages comprising mostly retirement homes and baches. Farm houses dotted the hills and valleys behind the bays and there were few sealed roads beyond Takapuna.