Stokes Valley, New Zealand

Stokes Valley
The entrance to Stokes Valley. The foreground shows a large sculpture by Stokes Valley resident Guy Ngan. The right side foreground shows houses in the neighbourhood of Holborn which is part of Stokes Valley. In the distance are the bush clad hills at the top end of the valley.
Stokes Valley The red dot shows the location of Stokes Valley within the Wellington Region (large map), and within New Zealand as a whole (insert)
Basic information
Local authority	Lower Hutt City
Date established	1840–1843, settled in 1853
Coordinates	41°10′S 174°59′E / 41.167°S 174.983°E / -41.167; 174.983Coordinates: 41°10′S 174°59′E / 41.167°S 174.983°E / -41.167; 174.983
Population	9,198(2001)
Surrounds
North	Manor Park
Northeast	Pinehaven
East	Blue Mountains
Southwest	Taitā
West	Pomare

Stokes Valley, a major suburb of the city of Lower Hutt in the North Island of New Zealand, lies at the northeastern edge of the city seven kilometres northeast of the city centre. It occupies the valley of a small tributary of the Hutt River, called Stokes Valley Stream, which flows north to meet the main river close to the Taita Gorge. Stokes Valley was named after Robert Stokes, who formed part of the original survey team of 1840 commissioned to plan the city at Thorndon in Wellington.

Stokes Valley is a suburb in its own valley. It is partially separated from the main part of the city of Lower Hutt and is surrounded on all sides by densely forested hills. Its cultural identity, very similar to that of the rest of Lower Hutt, has progressed [some would jokingly disagree] a long way from the "congregation of old sheelbacks and whalers, men-o'-wars men and seamen, lags and hard cases, living in tents and whares ... [a] heterogeneous mass of misguided humanity" reported in 1855.

It has been suggested that the valley was formed during the ice age 10,000–20,000 years ago by glacial scouring, but considering that the Hutt Valley and the greater Wellington area have experienced major tectonic uplifting it is possible that the valley was formed through major earthquakes and erosion.

According to tradition, Māori arrived in the Hutt Valley in about 1250 AD when the two sons of Whatonga, a Hawke's Bay chief, settled in the area and named the Hutt River Heretaunga, after their old home. Although Māori had lived in the Hutt Valley for almost 600 years prior to Europeans, there has been no evidence of Māori habitation in Stokes Valley and the closest iwi (tribe), located at Waiwhetu, say they never used the valley for any significant purpose before Europeans arrived. Stokes Valley was located at the junction of the claimed territory of three major Maori tribes, the Te Ati Awa who sold it to European settlers,Ngāti Toa, and the Ngāti Kahungunu, and for this reason it would have in all likelihood never have been inhabited. This partially explains an extreme willingness to include this land in the sale to the early settlers.