On the north east corner of Cathedral Square, the Commercial Hotel, owned by John Etherden Coker (1832 – 1894) was opened in 1863. The name Warner’s was not used until the hotel’s…
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…
Before Christchurch had a morgue, the gruesome task of storing a dead body was left to Christchurch’s public hotels. On practical terms, they had the space to hold a coroner’s inquest a…
On an empty beach near Sumner, a young boy and his Irish Spaniel stand at the shoreline as the photographer captures the moment. Further down the beach, beneath the original formation of Clifton Sp…
Sandwiched between the White Hart Hotel and the Universal Boot Depot at 223 and 225 High Street, was the business founded by Mr James Freeman, pastry cook and caterer. After browsing through Messrs…
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…
Sandwiched between the iconic White Hart Hotel and the Universal Boot Depot at 223-225 High Street, was the business founded by Mr James Freeman, a pastry cook and caterer. Opened in 1891, the buil…
In 1907, a former public house on the corner of Durham and Battersea Street, Sydenham, was opened as the first women’s maternity hospital in Christchurch. Founded by the Right Honorable Richa…
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 …
Bathing machines are at last to be established at Sumner, and they will supply a want which has long been felt. There is one already at New Brighton in connection with the Hotel, but I should imagi…