Claudelands

Suburb of Hamilton, New Zealand

Alfred William East, a captain with the 4th Waikato Regiment, was one of the original owners of Claudelands. East Street in the suburb is named for him. Francis Richard Claude was an early wealthy settler from South America who bought of parcels of mainly swampy land from the original soldier settlers who were disgruntled with their land allocation. Claude subdivided most of it in 1878. An area of kahikatea forest was then cleared to create the racecourse. It was sold to the South Auckland Racing Club and then the Waikato A&P Association, who had their first show on 27 October 1892. Racing moved to Te Rapa Racecourse in 1925. Claudelands is one of Hamilton's oldest suburbs, with a large number of bay villas and bungalows dating from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although later development led to the construction of a large number of two storey blocks of flats, the unique character of the area was deemed worthy of preservation by the Hamilton City Council. To this end, strict rules governing alteration, demolition and new development were introduced.

Claudelands is home to the Claudelands Showgrounds original site of major agricultural shows and events in Hamilton, and a trotting and dog racing track. Since passing into council ownership, a large part of it (including the race track) has been converted into a large open park. The upgraded Claudelands Arena was opened in 2011. The Claudelands Event Centre hosted a mayoral debate in 2019. Claudelands is also home of one of Hamilton's oldest and most notable association football clubs, Claudelands Rovers.

Claudelands had a railway station from 1884 to 1991. The station was between Brooklyn Rd and Claudelands Rd, east of the old Hamilton station (1879 1969) and west of Ruakura (1/10/1884 1/1/1967). In 2020 double tracking and potentially reopening the station for events, were put forward as a COVID 19 recovery scheme, as part of a $150m scheme to relay tracks to Cambridge.

Peachgrove Intermediate is a state school for years 7 and 8 with a roll of The school opened in 1957. Patricia Avenue School is a state special school with a roll of It caters for students aged between 5 and 21 with intellectual disability. Southwell School is a private Anglican preparatory school (Year 1 8). It has a roll of The school was founded in 1911 and moved to its present site in 1921. All these schools are coeducational. Rolls are as of