Butterfield Avenue in the suburb of Linwood, Christchurch

Butterfield Ave in Linwood – Formerly Cemetery Road. Named because it ran from Buckleys Road to Linwood cemetery. Re-named Butterfield Avenue. May be named after Thomas Henry Butterfield (1879?- 1951). In 1884 William Attwood (1835?-1889), a farmer of Ferry Road, offered to donate land for a road from Buckleys Road to the new cemetery at Linwood. The road to the “Cemetery Reserve” was finished later that year. Attwood was chairman of the Heathcote Road Board in 1878. He owned large areas of land in Christchurch, Woolston, Sumner and Linwood. Cemetery Road first appears in street directories in 1908. Re-named Butterfield Avenue in 1934. Butterfield was a prominent local body politician.A reasonable amount of information from the library website. I searched Papers Past and the Ancestry website and couldn’t find out much about either Thomas Butterfield or William Attwood. There was also a huge number of cemetery roads in various suburbs and towns. There was one very brief paragraph about the name change for the road. In the 1930s there was improvement to the footpath, the road tar sealed and a public phone box installed. Also in 1938 the Housing Corp purchased a large block of land for housing and the same year there was a new recreation grounds of four and half acres. This is now called Bromley Park and today a large extended family group were having a New Year’s Day picnic. There was very little in Papers Past about either man except that William Attwood lived at a property called Sandhills. There was another Thomas Butterfield who had many entries in Papers Past and this Thomas in 1917 was described as an old man with over 54 convictions including ill treating his wife. This Thomas Butterfield didn’t seem to be related to Thomas Henry Butterfield. Personally I think that it is a pity that the road wasn’t named after William Attwood if he provided the land for the road.The houses here date from one in 1905 and one from 1920. Several from 1930s, 1940s and 1970s. Most are in good condition with some nice gardens. The houses are only on one side of the road as the cemetery and Bromley Park are on the other side of the road.