Up until February 22nd, 2011, the city of Christchurch was a unique, historic and cultural living and breathing entity. Inherited from a long list of valuable contributors dating back to its incep…
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…
Beside Christchurch’s Town Hall, stood Solomon Nashelski’s hardware and ironmonger’s shop. Called ‘Melbourne House’, this small shop was later replaced with a permane…
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 …
In response to the loss of our inner city of Christchurch, we were inspired to create this website, Lost Christchurch, as a freely accessible archive of photographs, social history and memories of …
One of Christchurch’s most well known and successful chemist and druggist shops was on Colombo street and owned by George Bonnington.
Wendy Riley A relative newcomer to Christchurch, Wendy has deep-rooted connections to the city. Her ancestors, like many colonial New Zealanders, traced their origins to Scotland and England. After…
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…
(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…
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…
The Royal Exchange’s beautiful tower, dome and decorative facade is taking shape as the building nears completion. Fresh to the shores of New Zealand, the Australian architect brothers …
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…
Christchurch has a frontier appearance about it in this photograph taken by Dr. Barker in 1860 from the tower of the Canterbury Provincial Buildings. With little beyond the immediate streets, it c…
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…
The red brick, cream stone and plaster building on the corner of Manchester and Hereford Street, proudly displays the architectural features becoming commonplace in the commercial confines of this…
The moving of the Post Office from Market Square to its new site in Cathedral Square, was a significant development in Cathedral Square’s importance in Christchurch business and city life. Th…
Dominating a once simpler Cathedral Square, are the formidable buildings – Government Life Insurance Building, the Grand Theatre, the Crystal Palace Theatre, the Reuters Telegram Company Buil…
The growing permanence and sophistication of Christchurch, is evident in this photograph of Lichfield Street. Taken by the Burton Brother’s, the photograph shows us that the little frontier …
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…
During the year 1857, developments moved closer towards making colonial Christchurch a working city. The Bridle Path opening in March, provided emigrants direct access to and from Lyttelton, on a s…
“Of all the beautiful places in New Zealand – Christchurch is one of the prettiest. As the metropolis of the Canterbury province, the city has been built in the old Elizabethan style, …
The streets are quiet – a parked car sits outside Dalgety’s, a lone tram rumbles towards the tram sheds and a tired delivery horse stands with his head bowed, eating chaff from his feed…
William Potter Townend owned Townend’s Chemist and Druggist Store in the Crystal Palace Building on Colombo Street, at the corner with what was Chester Street and across the road from the Oxf…
Here we look upon one of Christchurch’s beautiful public gardens which spans Durham Street and the River Avon. This photograph shows how carefully the city authorities went about landscaping …
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,…
Tiny British-made locomotive engines first began chugging between Ferrymead’s Wharf on the estuary and the city on December 1st, 1863. This was New Zealand’s first public railway line, …
The magnificent, four storey Strange’s & Co Furniture Department Building was built in 1900 on the corner of Lichfield and High Streets, replacing a row of old dilapidated weatherboard sh…
‘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 …
Written by Helen Solomons In 1879, my great grandfather, Mortimer Cashman Corliss, was promoted to head telegraphist in Christchurch’s newly built Post and Telegraph Office in Cathedral Squar…
On this summer’s day in 1906, the ten o’clock morning tram to Sumner is about to depart from outside the Royal Exchange in Cathedral Square. An excursion to Sumner was a popular outing …