Takapu Valley


Takapu Valley, one of the northern suburbs of Wellington, New Zealand, is a rural area. The only road, Takapu Road, which runs by the Takapu Stream, goes down past Grenada North to the intersection with the Johnsonville-Porirua Motorway, and to Tawa where most facilities are. There is a supermarket and the Takapu Road Railway Station near the motorway intersection, but neither are in the valley itself.
Takapu Valley had a population of 306 people at the time of the 2013 census, an increase of 72 people from the 2006 census.

History

The valley was settled in the 19th century, when country sections were sold by the New Zealand Company, many to absentee landowners. An early farmer was John Edwards who arrived in Wellington on the ‘’Catherine Stewart Forbes’’with his wife Phoebe and eight children in 1841. Three of their sons Edward, Thomas and William farmed in the valley.
Access was via the Old Porirua Road which passed the entrance to Takapu Valley.
The Takapu Road School operated from the 1890s to the 1920s.
James and Lionel Nairn transferred their dairy herd to Takapu Road in the 1920s, as in Khandallah houses were replacing the remaining farms.
In 2017 the Woodman Farm in Takapu Valley which had been in the same family for 150 years was up for sale.