Raycroft Street in the suburb of Waltham, Christchurch

Raycroft St in Waltham – formerly Reycroft Street. Also part of York Street. First mentioned in The Press in 1898. First appears in street directories in 1909 as Reycroft Street. Becomes Raycroft Street in 1914. York Street north of Opawa Road was incorporated into and renamed Raycroft Street on 1 September 1948 when 120 streets were renamed. A small amount of information from the library website and I am going to disagree with some of the information on their website. I only found the name Reycroft about four times and three were death notices for the same person and the fourth was an ad for a house being sold in 1930.In 1894 there was a cottage for sale on the corner of Ball’s Rd and Raycroft St. An ad in 1913 is used Raycroft St and was described as being off Ball’s Lane. In 1939 the street was described as being off York St. In 1922 the mayor inspected the street after complaints from residents about coal dust from the Railway coal dump. It was mentioned that there were only a few houses on the street. No houses on the street now and it only has businesses on it. It looked very dreary. The only memorable thing about this street was the man who chatted me up. He even wanted my address and that was not going to happen. I don’t know where the name came from as I couldn’t find anyone with that surname living in Christchurch.