Word on the street: Weymouth St

Surveyor Frederic Carrington, who was contracted by the Plymouth Company to lay out New Plymouth’s streets, only borrowed the names of two English towns on his plans.

Holsworthy Rd was named after the birthplace of several settlers who arrived on the Amelia Thompson. But why Weymouth St?

One theory is that James ‘‘Worser’’ Heberley was born in the Dorset town.

Heberley had accompanied the German explorer Ernst Dieffenbach on his climb up Taranaki Maunga on Christmas Day 1839, and probably met Carrington in Wellington.

Another theory is that Carrington was honouring the viscounts of Weymouth.

Whatever the reason, the name ultimately derives from the River Wey.

The town overlooks the English Channel and became the summer holiday residence of King George III in the 1780s, the arrival of the railway in 1857 spurring its growth as a tourist destination.

Thousands of Anzacs recuperated in Weymouth after being injured at Gallipoli during World War I.

The town was targeted by German bombers during the next war, and tens of thousands of Allied troops departed Weymouth for the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. Notable residents of Weymouth St have included W.H. Phipps who ran the Mount Egmont Pigeon Post for those making the trek up the mounga in the early 1900s, and chemist David Teed who built himself the grand villa at number 12.

The triangular piece of foreshore at the northern end of the street was a popular picnic spot before World War I and residents improved the view by cutting back the rampant gorse and lupins. Weymouth St got its first sewers around the same time, laid by the borough council’s drainage committee. When trams began operating