Mortimer Place – A blind alley laid out in 1873. At a city council meeting held on 5 April 1880 councillors were told that Mortimer Place has been “channelled, formed and shingled”. First appears in street directories in 1885.
A small amount of information from the library website. The earliest information I could find on Papers Past two items in 1881. One article was about the blind alleys of Lyttelton St and Mortimer to be taken over by the council. Second one was about Lyttelton St being laid out in 1862 ands Mortimer Place being laid out in 1873. In 1890 a Mr Connell was selling a large property with larges stores plus land suitable for cottages to be built. Property was on Manchester St, Eaton Place and Mortimer Place. This sounds like the same property that S K Bassett purchased in 1891. There was a death notice in 1882 for an Arthur Bailey. I couldn’t find anyone with the surname Mortimer in the right time line for naming of the street. What I did find was an article about Rev H C Harper and before he came to Christchurch to be the Bishop he was vicar of Mortimer and he also went to the school Eton. The article used two spellings for this school and they were Eton and Eaton. Might explain the neighbouring street Eaton Place..My research wasn’t helped by the ancestry website playing up.
A rundown looking street and it leads to Burger King which is near Countdown supermarket.
Lytteltonwitch's Walking the streets of Christchurch Project 