Earthquakes in Christchurch are not unusual events, we’ve been beset with them since European settlement began – and no doubt long before. What is most disturbing of all is that our Eur…
The construction of government buildings have long attracted opinion and criticism and the Italian Renaissance style Government Buildings on the corner of Worcester street and Cathedral Square were…
The Canterbury College Students’ procession as part of the capping festival took place on the morning of 13 June 1915, and despite the enormous crowd of spectators that crammed every inch of …
‘Ice Cream Charlie’ operated a well-known ice cream cart in Cathedral Square for much of the first half of the twentieth century. He was reknowned for his friendly nature and delicious …
The wide stretches of the Avon River provided a suitable stretch of water for rowing to become a major sport and past time for Christchurch residents. The Canterbury Rowing Club was formed in 1861 …
“…the advent of a new Company that will sell goods at reasonable profits for cash…” To the Editor of the Press. Dear Sir, All undertakings of a public beneficial nature, whi…
“There are two classes of Christchurch postcards – those with the Cathedral and those without.” [1] The elegance of a lost age is captured in this exquisite photochrom post…
For £55, reports The Press in 1909, an Antipodean may travel to London and back via the Cape, and secure a very pleasant holiday. For boarders and employees at Alfred and May Burn’s ‘Silver Grid’ b…
During the past year or two it has been customary for a number of parties of young men to go into camp at Sumner for the summer months, and to come up to Christchurch during business hours. Special…
Christchurch’s newest and grandest hotel in the first decade of the 1900s was the Clarendon Hotel situated on the corner of Oxford Terrace and Worcester Street. It replaced the former two-sto…
The underlying geological issues hidden beneath Christchurch’s swampy plains meant that the city’s founders and their surveyors who chose this site for their planned city, knew nothing …
By Helen Solomons Mortimer Cashman Corliss was a true Victorian patriarch, gentleman and government servant who lived in Christchurch for most of his adult life, contributing to the city’s de…
For nearly forty years, the Municipal Tepid Baths provided the Christchurch public with heated swimming facilities from 1908 – 1947. The site on Manchester Street was formerly occupied by Jam…
After World War One, there was a growing appetite for the glitzy glamour of the ‘Jazz Age’ and Hollywood. Christchurch residents were hungry to embrace American culture and its new comm…
Whale at Sumner Provides Amusement for Trippers “Considerable excitement was caused at Sumner at about 3 o’clock yesterday afternoon, when it was reported that something like a large upturned boat …
Sadly, Sumner’s sumptious famous Edwardian Cafe Continental only stood on the Esplanade opposite Cave Rock in Sumner for three years. Built in 1906, by Mr Martin Ridley of Christhchurch firm,…
There is great excitement in the households around Christchurch today. It’s the Labour Day holiday and many families are going to Wainoni Park for the opening of the season. Everyone has been…
When Christchurch was Young Written for Ellesmere Guardian by Mr W. A. Taylor, 1944 The Avon river (Otakaro) predates its sister stream the Heathcote (Opawaho) as a navigable course to Christchurch…
Our city is a repository for the social and historical narrative of our past Each street, wall, facade, interior is an integral part of the people who walked passed them, shopped in them, worked in…
The Commissioner of the Christchurch Constabulary Department, Robert Clarke Shearman, was undeterred. He saw Little River, a pivotal stop between Akaroa and the plains, as a prime location for figh…
The first part of the twentieth century was the heyday for the department store in New Zealand. The iconic department store, Hays, was a ‘household name’ in Christchurch from its incept…
Christchurch Described Christchurch, New Zealand, is called the “City of the Plains” for its streets are as level as a billiard table, giving the visitor an impression that each street…
New Zealand’s first skyscraper was built on the corner of Manchester and Hereford Streets between 1905 – 06 for the New Zealand Express Company. This state of the art seven storey buil…
(From our correspondent.) Christchurch (N.Z.) Ten years ago I visited Christchurch for the first time, and recorded my impressions of the place in the columns of The Daily News. A decade means a go…
For the first Catholics in Christchurch, the purchasing of land within the city boundaries was met with great difficulty. Their first hurdle was to secure land from the Anglican dominated hierarchy…
Synonomous for offering the best quality goods and clothing since its humble beginnings back in 1854, is the iconic department store of Ballantynes. On the new town’s swampy plains, newly arr…
1884 Outside the City Hotel, a stream of Hackney and Hansom cabs wait for fares at ‘Cabstand Corner’ (later known as the ‘Triangle’.) The year is 1884 and it appears t…
The busiest intersection in the central city heaves under a rush of pedestrians, buses, trams, cyclists and private motor cars, pushing passed each other as they head for various parts of the city.
An open field along the west side of Manchester street, bounded by a row of well-grown English Poplars and known as the Circus Paddock, was regularly used for touring circuses which came to town.
Drunkeness was a serious problem in Christchurch by the late 1870s. It didn’t help that for a city of its size, there were 47 hotels and breweries as opposed to just 10 dentists and chemist …