When Miramar Was A Lake
Source of the following text: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nationallibrarynz/12195282443 Artist: James Coutts Crawford. Watercolour 165 x 254 mm. A-229-003. Alexander Turnbull Library Published in FishHead magazine, December 2013 Here is Miramar in the mid-1840s, viewed from Lyall Bay, looking toward Mt Crawford in the distance. The lake and surrounding swamp covered much of what is Miramar now. Early Maori inhabitants called the lake Rotokura. More recent arrivals from Taranaki called it Para, and began to stock it with eels from the Hutt Valley. When the European settlement of Wellington was established the lake was renamed Burnham water. This sketch was done by James Coutts Crawford, a lively figure in early Wellington history, who then owned most of what you can see in his picture. Clearly he was a better businessman than he was an artist. That is his new farm house, Glendavar, up on the slopes of Mt Crawford in the distance. Burnham water was picturesque, but it wa
