Halls Beach is on the west side of Stokes Point (also known as Northcote Point) on the North Shore and Waitematā Harbour. Access is from Queen Street, and it makes a nice add-on to a visit to Stokes Point and Te Onewa Pā underneath the north end of the Harbour Bridge.
From the road, find the sign for the steps that go down the steep sides of the point to the beach. The main feature is the old pōhutukawa trees, which are quite surreal. Below the trees is a narrow strip of sand, so it is pleasant when the tide is in. As the tide goes out, it is more of a rocky platform. There are some interesting eroded rocks. Once upon a time, the beach had more sand and was popular for swimming, with toilets and changing rooms that date back to this time.
The beach was named after Peter Hall of Winks & Hall, a well-known cabinet-making company in Auckland. In 1870, he purchased land next to the beach, hence the name. The Fraser family purchased the land around 1900 and later built the Onewa Picture Drome, now the Bridgeway, one of Auckland’s few remaining independent movie theatres. A curiosity is that the area just south of the beach and before the tip of the point was used for boat building for about 50 years, from 1911 to the 1960s.
Halls Beach is also a section of the Stokes Point Path.
