Living in Vauxhall, I was aware of nearby Waverley being named after Sir Walter Scott’s first novel of that name, but I was intrigued to discover two more local streets named in connection with what we know as Scott’s Waverley novels.
When I want some vigorous exercise, I walk up the southern end of Kenilworth St which must surely compete with Baldwin St as one of the steepest streets in Dunedin.
Kenilworth is, of course, the title of another of Sir Walter Scott’s 26 historical Waverley novels.
That literary association doesn’t stop there. Heading along the harbour’s Portobello Rd, you pass Ivanhoe Rd at The Cove.
Only a seagull’s swoop down from Waverley, Ivanhoe Rd is also named after Sir Walter Scott’s most popular Waverley novel, Ivanhoe.
However, street names of writers with some Dunedin literary connection are scarce as hens’ teeth.
I managed to find a couple of long-standing examples, and maybe readers can enlighten us further.
Vogel St commemorates Sir Julius Vogel, New Zealand’s eighth premier and co-founder of the Otago Daily Times. In 1889, at the end of his political career, and having fallen on hard times, he published Anno Domini 2000; or Woman’s Destiny.
This entertaining but flawed utopian novel was reasonably close to the mark in its vision for the year 2000, and its author is lauded today by science fiction and fantasy fans in the annual Sir Julius Vogel Awards.
Bracken St is now absorbed as an entranceway into the Mitre 10 Mega carpark.
It is possibly still an official street, but has faded into obscurity, as it is no longer signposted.
The street, formed as part of the Otago Harbour Southern Endowment reclamation, was surely named after Irish-born Thomas Bracken, journalist, politician and composer of New Zealand’s national anthem.
Arriving in Dunedin about 1869, he lived in Dunedin on and off for nearly 30 years and his extensive poetic output included the very popular, Not Understood and Dunedin from the Bay.
Dunedin has been outdone by other towns in New Zealand in their naming of streets after famous writers, including some associated with Dunedin.
Upper Hutt has a Janet Frame Way, and Cambridge, with a whole network of literary street names, has Dallas Pl, Frame St and Baxter Pl.
That’s not to say our city can’t follow suit.
The Dunedin City Council has criteria for road naming to ensure social and cultural appropriateness.
There is also a road name register with suggested names that developers have the option to use and which the public can contribute to.
Roads from new subdivisions, private roads and private ways are popping up all the time so there are opportunities for notable Dunedin writers of the past to be recognised.
Writers that do appear on the council’s road name register are Charles Brasch, Ruth Dallas, Denis Glover and Hone Tuwhare. The name of poet, Ruth Dallas, a longtime resident of Dunedin, has since been allocated and appears as Dallas Lane for the private way into a townhouse development in David St, Caversham, as has poet Hone Tuwhare whose name appears as Tuwhare Lane in a Mosgiel subdivision.
All said and done, we can’t have Sir Walter Scott hogging the limelight.
■ Tony Eyre is a Dunedin writer and author of The Book Collector: Reading and Living with Literature.
