OXFORD STREET

The area lying between the bank and the Waipoua River, to the west of Opaki Road, was known to Mastertonians at the turn of the century as Adamsville, after William Adams, the first white person to have lived on the site of Masterton. Adams bought a block of land in the area, and lived in a large house approximately at Terrace End. When Adams sold the land in the early 1900s a consortium of Masterton businessmen purchased the area for development, and named it Oxford Street, after the English city. For many years the maps of Masterton recorded the top of Oxford Street (from Opaki Road to below the hill) as being an extension of Bentley Street which would connect with Oxford Street if the river were bridged. This piece of Oxford Street had houses on it before the turn of the century.