Snells Beach

Snells Beach is a small coastal town in the north of Auckland Region in the North Island of New Zealand. It is situated on the eastern coast of the Mahurangi Peninsula and its namesake beach faces east across Kawau Bay to the scenic Kawau Island, where the historic mansion house is located, once the private home and land of the Governor Gray. The nearest town is Warkworth, 8 km to the west.

Features and attractions

The Brick Bay Sculpture Trail, an outdoor gallery showcasing contemporary sculpture amongst native trees, palms, birdlife and green pastures, is located at the western entrance of Snells Beach. Snells Beach contains the Rodney District’s regional television broadcaster Family TV and the Mahurangi Shopping Centre. To deal with problems involving drinking in public places, Snells Beach has an overnight liquor ban from nine o’clock in the evening until six o’clock in the morning during the daylight saving period each year.

History and in the media

Cornish miner James Snell arrived in Kawau in 1854 and bought Snells Beach. The beach had been known as Long Beach. Dalmatian immigrants would live in tents on the beach and dig for kauri gum when the tide was out. Maori called Algies Bay 'horahora wai' meaning encroaching waters. Scottish immigrant Alexander Algie and wife Mina, née Deerness, bought the land near Martins Bay, where his brother Samuel had settled in 1867. The family had a boarding house on the beach during the late 1890s but it had closed by 1941. A metal road was built along the eastern peninsular in the 1930s.