Green Hill, New Zealand facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Green Hill
Mātanginui, Greenmount
Aerial view of Green Hill in 1949, before the majority of quarrying had been undertaken.
Highest point
Elevation	78 m (256 ft)
Geography
Green Hill Location in New Zealand
Geology
Volcanic arc/belt	Auckland volcanic field

Green Hill is a cool volcano found in East Tāmaki, a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand. It's also known by its Māori names, Mātanginui or Greenmount. This hill is part of the Auckland volcanic field, which has many volcanoes.

Green Hill erupted about 20,000 years ago. Its top, called a scoria cone, was 78 metres above sea level. That's about 48 metres higher than the land around it. The hill used to have a special group of karaka trees. It was also once home to a Māori fort, known as a pā, built by the Ngāi Tai iwi (tribe).

History of Green Hill

Early Māori Settlement

Green Hill was known as Mātanginui by the Māori people. It was an important place for Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki, a local Māori tribe. The name Mātanginui can mean "The Pā Taken with Much Crying" or "Big Breeze."

A very old ancestor named Toi-te-huatahi once visited this site. He planted a grove of karaka trees there. By the 1500s, the land around the hill was used for large stonefield gardens. This was because the volcanic soil was very good for growing food. A strong defensive pā was built at the top of the hill to protect the people. Ngāi Tai lived on Mātanginui until the early 1800s.

European Farming and Quarrying

Later, the Styak family farmed Green Hill and the land nearby. They named it Green Hill because Mrs. Styak's home in Randalstown, Northern Ireland, was called Green Bank. Around 1870, people started digging up the hill for its rock. This process is called quarrying.

Green Hill and another nearby hill, Otara Hill, were sometimes called Bessy Bell and Mary Gray. This name came from an old Scottish song.

From Park Gift to Landfill

The Styak family owned the hill for a long time. In 1932, Sarah Jane Lushington, who was a Styak, gave 40 hectares of land to the Manukau County Council. She wanted it to become a public park called Styak-Lushington Park.

However, the council didn't make a park. Instead, they rented out the land for farming and more quarrying. By the 1960s, most of Green Hill had been dug away by quarrying.

Later, the council started using a small part of the site as a landfill. A landfill is a place where rubbish is buried. By 1979, the whole area that used to be the quarry became a landfill.

Modern Restoration Plans

By 1992, something interesting happened. Methane gas from the buried rubbish was collected and used to power a gas plant on the site. This was a way to use the gas for energy.

The landfill was finally closed in 2005. From 2006 to 2016, work was done to fix up the site. They used clean fill (clean dirt and soil) to build the hill back up again.

Now, there are plans to turn the site into a new urban park. It will have a flat-topped grass hill about 70 metres high.

Gallery

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  Basalt dry-stone wall with former site of Green Hill in distance

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  Aerial view of the site of Green Hill in 1964, during quarrying

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  Aerial view of the site of Green Hill in 2009, after being quarried and used as a landfill