Country New Zealand Island North Island | Population 3,789 (2006) City Upper Hutt | |
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Trentham is the most populous suburb of Upper Hutt, a city in the Wellington region of New Zealand. The suburb is located in a widening of the Hutt Valley, five kilometres to the southwest of the Upper Hutt city centre.
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Map of Trentham, Upper Hutt 5018, New Zealand
The name "Trentham" was initially given by Richard Barton, the first European Settler in the area, in honour of his former employer, the Duke of Sutherland. One of the Duke of Sutherland's subsidiary titles was Viscount Trentham, of Trentham in the County of Stafford.
The Barton family memory lives on in the area, with Barton Road, Barton Avenue and an area of native trees called Barton's Bush, which is within the reserve now known as Trentham Memorial Park. Richard Barton was interred in the grounds of St John's Church, and there are also memorials to him in the form of brass plaques within the Church building.
Due to the New Zealand tendency towards spelling pronunciations, the name is invariably pronounced /ˈtrɛn.θəmˈ/, rather than the traditional English pronunciation /ˈtrɛnt.həm/.
The suburb is home to the Trentham Racecourse, the base of the Wellington Racing Club (WRC), the site of Hutt International Boys' School and is also the site of the Trentham Military Camp, which was used extensively for training soldiers in preparation for World War I and is still a base for the NZ Army and Defence Force. Between 1967 and 1990, it was also home to a General Motors-Holden assembly plant.
The area was settled in the 1840s and is served by Trentham Railway Station.