Oak Avenue, which forms part of Ormond Road, Hastings, was originally planted in 1874 as a private drive to Karamu (1876), a homestead built for John Davies Ormond (1831?-1917). Ormond, a politician and landowner, has been variously described as ‘one of the giants of New Zealand’s early history’, ‘The Master’, and an ‘anti-social, taciturn man’. Oak Avenue has historical significance for its association with Ormond. It also has aesthetic value and social significance as a scenic place that has been both preserved and celebrated for 150 years.

Tangata whenua settled in what is now Hawke’s Bay around 1250-1300 AD, particularly along its coast and inland waterways. The people who became known as Ngāti Kahungunu arrived in the 1500s. The Heretaunga plains comprised a system of wetlands, swamps and lakes, which, along with coastal fisheries and bush, provided rich sources of food, medicine and materials. Pākehā established whaling and trading stations in the region from the 1830s, and the government started purchasing land in the 1850s, most of which was leased or sold to settlers who established sheep or cattle stations. By 1859 almost 1.5 million acres of Hawke’s Bay’s land had been purchased from Ngāti Kahungunu.

In 1864 Hēnare Tomoana, a Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāti Te Whatu-i-āpiti leader, leased the Heretaunga block of over 17,000 acres to Thomas Tanner. Tanner led a group known as the Twelve Apostles, which was found to have first illegally leased the land and then purchased it through persuasion and force in 1870. Ormond had acquired a share in this land, comprising 1,200 acres, and it became Karamu, one of 117 early Hawke’s Bay stations and regarded as ‘one of the best known racing studs in Australasia’.

Hannah Richardson married Ormond in 1860 and Hannah wished to stay in town, leading to the construction of the family home Tintagel in Napier. It has been claimed that Hannah spent one night at Karamu and refused to spend another. Ormond, by contrast, spent his final years at both Tintagel and Karamu, visiting the latter on alternate days.

Early Pākehā settlers regarded the transformation of a wilderness into civilised land as progress, replacing native bush with farmland and English trees. In the spring of 1874, George Williams, Ormond’s estate steward, planted rows of oak trees along the driveway of Karamu; the acorns were from the Ormond estate at Wallingford on the River Thames, England. Planted amongst the more than 200 oaks were a smaller number of trees of other species.

It is not known when the Karamu driveway was deeded to the county council as an accessway but part of Karamu estate, including the land on either side of Oak Avenue, was subdivided in 1929 for two of Ormond’s sons, George Canning and John Davies. Most of the property had been sold in 1920, three years after Ormond’s death, and the farm, homestead and stables were left in the possession of Ormond’s son Francis (known as Frank).

The avenue was tar-sealed and some of the oak trees were uprooted by a severe gale in 1939. Otherwise, Oak Avenue is little altered. As at mid-1985, the length of Oak Avenue was 1.4 kilometres and it comprised 211 English oak trees, interspersed with 41 elm trees, forty plane trees, three lime trees, four cedrus and three redwoods. In 1974 a plaque was erected to mark the centenary of the planting of the trees. In 1991 the condition of the trees raised concerns, leading residents to petition Hastings District Council to ban heavy traffic from the road; drought conditions were also blamed. A speed limit of 60 kilometres per hour was imposed. Considered to be ‘one of the most magnificent plantings of its sort in the country’, Oak Avenue is often advertised as a tourist destination