Lombard Street is one of two early Wellington streets, along with Cornhill Street, that is named after a street in London. In the Middle Ages, Lombardy was established as an early medieval state in Italy named after the Germanic Lombards or Longobards; in the 12th Century, goldsmiths and merchants from Northern Italy settled in the street, which was London’s financial center at the time. Interestingly, London’s Lombard Street is referenced in Karl Marx’s Das Kapital as a hub of money-lending.
It is fitting that Wellington’s Lombard Street was home to Wellington’s first bank, The Union Bank of Australia, which was opened on the corner of Featherston Street and Lambton Quay in 1839 and moved to the corner of Lombard and Manners Street in 1851.
The corner of Lombard, Manners and Victoria was also home to the New Zealand Post Office, which was used as the Allied Services Club during World War II. This was the site of the ‘Battle of Manners Street’, after United States servicemen allegedly refused to let Māori servicemen into the club. The dispute turned into a four-hour brawl between over 1,000 servicemen, and eventually spread from outside the former Post Office to Willis and Cuba Street.
Lombard Street is perhaps best known for its imposing parking building, which began construction in 1967. Although the parking building still stands, in 2018 the area was revitalised into a shopping and dining precinct.
Whilst working to upgrade Lombart Street to Lombard Lane in 2018, Wellington City Contracters unearthed something quite special: a drain and a wooden post pre-dating 1850. These are believed to be part of a defensive redoubt, and among the earliest examples of settler infrastructure in Wellington.
