Alfred Street in the Central City, Christchurch

Alfred Street in the Central City – formerly Pyke Street and Kensington Place. Formerly Pyke Street. Named after William Pyke (1852?-1918). Re-named Kensington Place. Later re-named Alfred Street. Named after HRH Prince Alfred Ernest Albert, Duke of Edinburgh & Saxe-Coburg Gotha (1844-1900). Pyke, an upholsterer and cabinetmaker, is a resident of the street in 1885. The formation of Pyke Street is mentioned in the Star in a report of a meeting of the Christchurch City Council held on 7 November 1881. Kensington Place is first mentioned in The Press in 1887. Renamed Alfred Street by 1898.A reasonable amount of information from the library website. Found a couple of mentions in Papers Past about the forming of the street. It is mentioned as being a new street in 1882. Another mention in 1882 talks about the channelling being completed and that the channelling and shingling was done at the expense of the owners in 1881. In 1882 William Pyke was charged with not properly draining his premises. In 1884 there was a city surveyors report about a deed being received requesting council consent to dedicate Pyke St to the Queen. Pyke St was still being used in 1885 and 1886 when a house with land was for sale. In 1887 there was a public auction on the street with instructions from the bailiff. It was headed Packer v Pyke and under a distress warrant. As Kensington Place there were mostly death notices plus a section for sale in 1887. The earliest mention that I could find for the Kensington name was in 1886 and the latest in 1896. Pyke St and Kensington Place overlapped for a couple of years as the name of the street. Alfred St was a very common name as every town in New Zealand seemed to have one and even narrowing my search to four newspapers there were thousands of entries in Papers Past. I am not sure if Alfred St in city was the same street as Alfred St in Linwood. There were stables here in 1916 and 1945 was the last year that I could find a mention of the street but did restrict my search to the central city. It does look like the street as residents died became more industrial. William Pyke moved his furniture business around with premises at times being in Kilmore St and Victoria St. In 1904 his business in Victoria St was damaged by fire. When he died in April 1918 aged 66 he was living and working in New Brighton possibly in partnership with his son Edward. His name appeared a few times in the court news and mostly connected with money disputes. My favourite mention is from 1877 when he had a cow impounded. It sounds like this cow frequently trespassed onto his property. The owner of the cow a Mrs Brown was upset about this but the courts sided with William Pyke. In the same year Mrs Brown’s husband was in court for using threatening language towards William Pyke. It was over the cow business. Mr Brown received a fine. I actually walked this street about a month ago but I am a little bit behind with researching and writing up streets. I will keep going away to do geocaching in other towns. The street runs off Fitzgerald Ave and google maps have it going to Ferry Rd but you would have to climb tall fences to manage to walk to Ferry Rd. There is an entrance to St Pauls Trinity Pacific Presbyterian Church on this street and the church takes up a big section on the corner of Fitzgerald Ave and Alfred St. The rest of the street just seems to be the back of businesses that are on either St Asaph St or Ferry Rd.