Stratford

Stratford District is 2,170 square kilometres. It has four distinct regions:

The alpine and bush environment of the Taranaki Maunga (Mount Taranaki/Egmont).

The dairy farming country of the Taranaki Maunga (Mount Taranaki/Egmont) ring-plain.

The frontal hill country. This land lies between the ring plain and the eastern hill country. It is mostly utilised for sheep and beef farming.

The relatively steep hill-country of eastern Taranaki, some areas of which are farmed mostly for sheep and beef farming. Some areas are abandoned farmland reverting to bush while some land remains in original bush.

It has on its boundary two National Parks:

Taranaki Maunga (Mount Taranaki/Egmont) (33,543 ha, established 1900) comprises all the land in a 9-kilometre radius of the volcanic mountain’s summit and some outlying areas to the north. The symmetrical cone of the dormant volcano is a provincial landmark.

It has over 140km of tracks that explore a range of landscapes, including forests, wetlands and sub-alpine shrub lands.

Today New Zealand’s only glockenspiel clock tower plays the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet three times a day. The spoken words are provided via external loudspeakers.

Stratford is the gateway to two National Parks – Egmont National Park to the west including the mountains only ski field, and Whanganui National Park to the east along the Forgotten World Highway .

History: Stratford was established on the Patea River in 1877–78 and named after William Shakespeare’s birthplace Stratford-on-Avon. Many of the streets are named after Shakespearean characters, including Oberon, Cordelia, Titania, Juliet and Hamlet. The town is central Taranaki’s main rural servicing centre, and the administrative base of the Stratford District Council and the Taranaki Regional Council.

The first talking movies in the southern hemisphere were shown at the King’s Theatre in 1925. Stratford has seven war memorials; a hall of remembrance at the old municipal buildings displays framed photos of all of the district’s First World War dead.

The Waihapa oil and gas field, discovered in 1988, and its production station are 6 km south-east. The Stratford Mountain House and Dawson Falls Lodge in Taranaki Maunga (Mount Taranaki/Egmont) National Park can be accessed from the town.