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…
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 …
This intriguing photograph taken at the junction of Cashel and High Street draws us back to a typical summer day in Edwardian Christchurch in February 1913. A summer rain fall has just cleared, all…
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.
It was hard to avoid sinking up to your knees in wet weather in Market Square in 1862. This panoramic photograph shows Christchurch’s Market Place (later renamed Victoria Square) the damp ge…
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…
“Christchurch people of the younger generations and strangers to the city who wander among the ordered prettinesses of the Christchurch Botanical Gardens, and pace along the pleasant winding paths …
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…
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 …
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, …
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 …
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, …
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…
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…
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 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…
On the evening of February 7th, 1908 the headlines in the Star ‘screamed out’ A DISASTROUS FIRE, HUGE OUTBREAK IN THE CITY, CENTRAL BLOCK DEVASTATED, DAMAGE AMOUNTS TO HUNDREDS OF THOUS…
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…
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 incept…
“Bridges are as much a distinctive part of the Christchurch landscape as its well-planted appearance and its old Gothic style provincial buildings. The chance which placed the city by the river Avo…
The health benefits, cleanliness and exoticism of the Turkish Bath so appealed to Canterbury settlers that it became the height of fashion in the 1880s. Today we enjoy city operated spa facilities …
Cobb & Co, Corner of Cashel and High Streets c. 1880. Source: Christchurch City Libraries Photo Collection 22, Img 00803, Private Collection For as far back as 1856, when the first hansom cab p…
Sumner Beach was the last stop on the Sumner line. In this intriguing photograph, we can see the goings on of a typical summer’s weekend, one hundred and six years ago. Hundreds of city dwe…
The New Premises of the D.I.C. Cashel and Lichfield Streets, Christchurch From the ashes of the conflagration which ravaged the business heart of the city a year ago, there has arisen a wonderfully…
It was a warm fair day on the 16th December 1919, a light nor’easterly breeze was blowing through the city. Much the same weather was being experienced throughout the whole of the Dominion. T…
For one of our city’s most famous early women settlers, poor health had marred not only her voyage to New Zealand but also her arrival to her new home at Riccarton. From the moment Jane Deans…
Christchurch was the last of the four cities to introduce electric trams. They had tried to introduce the system in 1902, but it was prior to the amalgamation of the boroughs, so with the advent of…
A Packing Case on Wheels Local and General. Star, Issue 6789, 8 May 1900, Page 3 A weird-looking vehicle has recently been seen travelling through the streets of the city much to the amusement and …
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 …