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…
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…
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 …
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 …
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, …
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…
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…
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 …