Marlborough’s Blenheim to be renamed?

Blenheim, the capital city of Marlborough in New Zealand, should be renamed to use the wine industry’s fame to boost its fortunes it has been argued.

A group of business men and women from the region, including many from the wine and hospitality sectors, have argued that a name change to ‘Marlborough City’ would help attract more visitors.

Allan Scott Family Estate and Moa Brewing are two companies that back the idea. Allan Scott Estate’s general sales director, Mitchell Gardiner, told stuff.co.nz that Blenheim had much to recommend it – it was sunnier than Queenstown and smelled less than Rotorua for example – but that very few people seemed to know about it or visit; even Kiwis.

Although there are only 26,550 people living in Blenheim according to the last census – some way below the 50,000 generally accepted as constituting a city.

Moa’s founder, Josh Scott, told the paper: “Technically we’re not a city, but we’re not really getting stuck up on the semantics, it’s about giving us more of a profile.”

The group is now sounding out local government and residents to see what support, if any, there might be for such a change.

What is now Marlborough was originally part of neighbouring Nelson and the town of Blenheim was known as ‘Beaver’.

When the region split from Nelson in 1859, then governor, Sir Thomas Gore Browne, chose the name of Blenheim for the town and Marlborough for the new province.

Blenheim was a famous military victory for the British over the French during the War of the Spanish Succession. Sir John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, was commander of the British forces at the battle.

In 2014 astronaut Chris Hadfield told the BBC that Blenheim and surrounding wine region of Marlborough had been one of his favourite places to look at from space.