Stokes Valley

Suburb in Lower Hutt, New Zealand

Stokes Valley
Suburb
The entrance to Stokes Valley, with the large sculpture Mating Worms by Stokes Valley resident Guy Ngan in the foreground. To the right side are houses in Holborn, which is part of Stokes Valley. In the distance are bush-clad hills at the top end of the valley.
Coordinates: 41°10′S 174°59′E / 41.167°S 174.983°E / -41.167; 174.983
Country	New Zealand
City	Lower Hutt
Local authority	Hutt City Council
Electoral ward	Northern
Established	1840–1843, settled in 1853[1]
Area [2]
• Land	967 ha (2,390 acres)
Population  (June 2024)[3]
• Total	10,770

	Manor Park	Pinehaven
Pomare	Stokes Valley	Blue Mountains
Taitā

Stokes Valley, a major suburb of the city of Lower Hutt in the North Island of New Zealand, lies at the edge of the city, seven kilometres northeast of the city centre. It occupies 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 Taitā Gorge. Stokes Valley takes its name from Robert Stokes, who formed part of the original survey team of 1840 commissioned to plan the city at Thorndon in Wellington.

Stokes Valley comprises a suburb in its own valley, physically separated from the rest of Lower Hutt. It is surrounded on all sides by densely forested hills.

Its cultural identity, very similar to that of the rest of Lower Hutt, has progressed [some would jokingly disagree] a long way from the "congregation of old shellbacks and whalers, men-o'-wars men and seamen, lags and hard cases, living in tents and whares ... [a] heterogeneous mass of misguided humanity"^[4] reported in 1855.