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Story: Streets and lighting

Street building, late 19th century

Street building, late 19th century

A steamroller flattens a macadam surface (a mixture of metal and clay cement) on a Hastings street in the late 19th century. Macadam was the most common street surface until the introduction of asphalt or bitumen surfaces in the early 1900s.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library, H. N. Whitehead Collection (PAColl-3068)

Reference: 1/1-004745; G

by Henry Norford Whitehead

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

Adrian Humphris, Streets and lighting – Street construction and surfaces, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/24483/street-building-late-19th-century (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Adrian Humphris, published 6 April 2010.