Dyers Pass Rd – Governors Bay Road Named after John Dyer (1828-1876). One of the oldest ways over the hills. The Maori used this way to travel to their villages and their pallisaded pa at Governors Bay. First used by Europeans as a horse track. Road formation was undertaken by the Provincial Government 1862-1863. Dyer bought Rural Sections 228, 442, 443 and 1874, all parcels of land in “Governor’s Bay, Port Lyttelton”. Dyers Pass Road is first mentioned in the Star in 1869 and first appears in street directories in 1911 with a see ref. to Governors Bay Road, Heathcote. First appears with residents listed in 1914.
A reasonable of information from the library website.On Papers Past I found information from 1869 and one was a letter to the editor complaining about the state of the road. Another was a surveyor’s report about the road being unsafe. Several ads with sections being sold in 1937. The QV website had houses dated from as early as 1905 but there are at least two historic buildings dating in the 1890s. Two well known buildings on this road are Sign of the Takahe and Sign of the Kiwi. Papers Past has the Rhodes Convalescent Home with a Dyers Pass address.
There is a real mixture of houses on this road and most are lovely old houses with a few modern ones. There was one particularly large building from 1910 which is the most fantastic looking house but I just couldn’t found out the history of the house or who originally owned it.
Most of the housing is on the Christchurch side of the road and on the Lyttelton Harbour side there would only be a handful of houses but most are near Governors Bay.
I obviously didn’t walk the full length of this road as it goes from Cashmere Rd and over the hill to Governors Bay. I did find an article on Papers Past where a group of people had walked the full length but it was in a safer era. I walked up the road on the Christchurch side until the footpath ended. It wouldn’t have been safe to have attempted to walk any further and on a lovely Sunday afternoon the traffic was busy.
There is a small group of shops at the Hackthorne and Dyers Pass corner with a couple of cafes. Just below this corner there is an entrance to Cashmere Primary School and there is a pedestrian crossing here. This corner is not safe for pedestrians and there is no footpath to get to the pedestrian crossing and it is safer to go through the school grounds from Hackthorne Rd. There is a Masonic Lodge on the corner of Hackthorne Rd and Dyers Pass Rd and I was tempted to ask the man who was working on the building if I could look through it.
Lytteltonwitch's Walking the streets of Christchurch Project 