Corstorphine, New Zealand

Corstorphine is a suburb of southwest Dunedin in the South Island of New Zealand. It is located on the slopes of Calton Hill - a spur of Forbury Hill - between Caversham Valley and the Pacific Ocean. The suburbs of Saint Clair and Forbury lie to the east and south, and Caversham and Lookout Point lie to the north.

Corstorphine
Location of Corstorphine within Dunedin

Corstorphine is a largely residential suburb, containing a substantial amount of state housing built from the 1930s to the 1960s. Its main roads include Middleton Road, Sidey Street, Riselaw Road, and Corstorphine Road. A small group of shops is located at the top of Middleton Road.

State housing in Corstorphine

To the west is largely rural land, connected via the rural Blackhead Road and Green Island Bush Road to Green Island and Waldronville. The popular Tunnel Beach lies 1.5 kilometres from the top of Middleton Road and is accessed via Blackhead Road.

On the lower slopes lies the smaller suburb of Kew. Here, Easther Crescent runs along a terrace at the edge of the hill, connecting with Saint Clair at Allandale Road to the south and descending to Forbury Corner and Caversham in the northeast. Kew Park lies at Forbury Corner itself. To the north of Corstorphine, the smaller suburb of Calton Hill connects Corstorphine with the upper Caversham Valley and Lookout Point by way of Riselaw Road.

The name "Corstorphine" comes from the house and land owned by early settler John Sidey, who arrived in Dunedin in 1848.[1] It originates from Corstorphine, a village near Edinburgh,[2] though the names are pronounced differently (the Scottish village has the emphasis on the second syllable, rather than the first). Many of the streets in Corstorphine and Kew are named after places in Scotland, among them Skibo Street, Dornoch Street, and Lockerbie Street.

Sidey's son Sir Thomas became a prominent local and national politician during the later nineteenth century. Sidey's residence, Corstorphine House, was built in 1864 and was substantially extended in 1910.[3] It is one of the suburb's main landmarks.

References
  1. Herd, J. and Griffiths, G.J. (1980) Discovering Dunedin. Dunedin: John McIndoe. ISBN 0-86868-030-3, p. 47
  2. Reed, A. W. (1975). Place names of New Zealand. Wellington: A. H. & A. W. Reed. ISBN 0-589-00933-8. p. 92
  3. Herd, J. and Griffiths, G.J. (1980) Discovering Dunedin. Dunedin: John McIndoe. ISBN 0-86868-030-3, p. 47


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