Heaton Street in the suburb of Strowan, Christchurch

Heaton Street in Strowan. Named after Robert Heaton Rhodes (1861- 1956). His grandmother’s maiden name was Theodosia Maria Heaton. Rhodes opened up his land for development in 1914. At the time he stipulated that houses built there cost at least £3000 and be “of a certain style”. Tenders are invited for “the erection of a house in Heaton Street” in an advertisement by architect B. J. Ager in The Press in 1915. No. 146 was the first house built in the street. First appears in street directories in 1916. After the land was acquired for Elmwood Park, Heaton Street was extended through to Strowan Road. A reasonable of information from the library website and I think that Robert Heaton Rhodes is well known enough that I don’t need to research him. I believe that he was known as Heaton because he had the same name as his father. Most of the articles that I found on Papers Past were either about Elmwood school or Elmwood Park. In 1936 there was talk about new building for the school. There was also talk about reconditioning the existing buildings. In the same year there was debate about which site to use for the primary school and which to use for the intermediate school. In the same year there was a letter to the editor from someone against the school as the squealing and yelling from the children was intolerable. In 1945 there was mention of land for the new school. As Elmwood school is on Leinster Rd and Heaton Intermediate is on Heaton Rd it is fairly obvious where the primary school ended up and where the intermediate ended up. There was a house called Elmwood on this street that belonged to Heaton Rhodes. The original house was destroyed by a fire but Heaton had another house rebuilt. The Governor General stayed there in 1928. There were many garden fetes and garden parties held here and they were frequently fundraisers especially for St Georges Hospital. It looked like a lovely house but it was demolished in the 1950s to make way for Heaton Intermediate. In 1924 there was talk about a new park at Elmwood between Heaton Rd and Normans Rd on the western side of Heaton Rhodes house. I also found mention of the park in 1919. I believe Heaton Rhodes donated land for the park. In 1939 a developer was refused permission to build a block of flats on the corner of Heaton Rd and Circuit St. Reason was that the area was zoned as a special residential area. There was the usual birth and death notices for the street. Elmwood Park and Heaton Intermediate take up a fair amount of space on one side of the street. On the other side is an entrance for St Georges Hospital. The hospital is on the corners of Heaton Rd, Papanui Rd and Leinster Rd. The houses on this street cover most decades from 1910 to 2018 but most are from 1920s. The older houses are gorgeous and are big wooden villas. They are very similar in style and this was a condition when buying a section that you had to have a certain style of house. Some of the older houses have been demolished since the earthquakes and modern houses have replaced them. Most of the modern houses on this street are dreadful and not in keeping with the rest of the street. Calling them toilet block style is actually being kind. I obviously didn’t like the new houses here.