Hammond House (Hammond Place)

The suburb of Birkenhead would have developed very differently if not for the vision and abilities of William Francis Hammond. Hammond was an architect of the Royal Institute of British Architects and a surveyor who migrated from London to Auckland with his family in 1872. For seven years he lived in Ponsonby, but after his wife died in 1877, he relocated to Birkenhead, where he married Annabella Alston of Lucas Creek in 1879.

Hammond became the chief surveyor and real estate agent for the Birkenhead area from the early 1880s. He plotted out many of the subdivisions that exist today. He also built the footbridge over Little Shoal Bay to Northcote, which today is Maritime Terrace, and he successfully petitioned the Auckland Harbour Board to establish a wharf at Birkenhead and extend a road from there to the top of the ridge, which became Hinemoa Street.

This short driveway into the Highbury Shopping Centre, which is built on a property named after his parents’ estate in London, is an inadequate tribute to the man who helped make Birkenhead what it is today.

Continue along Birkenhead Avenue.