Stokes Valley

Stokes Valley is a major suburb of Lower Hutt, in the North Island of New Zealand. It is located at the northeastern edge of the city seven kilometres northeast of the city centre, in the valley of a small tributary of the Hutt River, called Stokes Valley stream which flows north to meet the main river close to the Taita Gorge. Stokes Valley was named after Robert Stokes who formed part of the original survey team of 1840 commissioned to plan the city at Thorndon in Wellington.

Stokes Valley is a suburb in its own valley. It is partially separated from the main part of the city of Lower Hutt and is surrounded on all sides by densely forested hills. Its cultural identity is very similar to that of the rest of Lower Hutt and has progressed a long way from the "congregation of old sheelbacks and whalers, men-o'-wars men and seamen, lags and hard cases, living in tents and whares ... heterogeneous mass of misguided humanity" that existed in 1855.