Heritage Festival - Westhaven Marina before the Harbour Bridge

90 years ago, in the 1930’s, Westhaven and St Marys Bay looked very different. It was a time well before the Auckland Harbour Bridge existed, and because of that there was not yet any reclamation which shapes the current landscape we recognise today. 

Below is an aerial view of Westhaven Marina looking towards Auckland waterfront and wharves with the Eastern suburbs in the distance. In this photo you’ll see construction underway of the Westhaven Boat Harbour. In the right of the photo you’ll see the Shelly Beach Baths.

The Shelly Beach Baths were tidal saltwater baths and could be accessed via Point Erin Park.  They were opened in 1912 and were the first in Auckland to allow mixed bathing. Over 32,000 people used the pool in the first four months, and the baths remained a popular swimming spot until they closed in 1956 to make way for the Auckland Harbour Bridge construction.

If you didn’t want to go to the baths, Shelly Beach was also a popular swimming and picnicking area with the locals. It was a place where people congregated to enjoy the waterfront and experience all things marine. Below is a photo from 1939 which depicts how the area looked at the time.

If you were lucky enough to live in the area, you had direct water access to the beach as well as boat sheds and ramps within the marina, as shown in the below photo.

Without the Auckland Harbour Bridge and motorway in place, the houses on the hill in St Marys Bay were right on the water’s edge, as shown in the above photo taken in 1939. The entire foreshore of St Marys Bay was reclaimed in 1956, 3.5ha in total. All earlier built structures, such as the Shelly Beach Baths, the West End Rowing Club, Ponsonby Cruising Club, wharves and boat sheds along this entire area were demolished and/or buried to make way for the reclamation.

Westhaven Marina was established in the late 1930s when the breakwater was constructed along the Western end of St Mary’s Bay, and initial seawalls were built and progressively enlarged by reclamations through the 1920's and 1930's. A number of yachts were then housed on moorings, but it wasn’t until the 1960’s that the marina first introduced berths and started to take shape into what it is today.