Hereford Street in the Central City, Christchurch

Hereford Street – Named after the bishopric of Hereford. Named by surveyors Captain Joseph Thomas (b. 1803?) and Edward Jollie (1825-1894). One of the original streets of Christchurch named in 1850. The names were taken from bishoprics listed in Burke’s Peerage. First mentioned in The Lyttelton Times in 1852 when 1/4 acre sections are advertised for sale there. A reasonable amount of information on the library website and nothing that I can add about the name of the street. Papers Past had a huge number of entries and again I concentrated on pre 1870. The same names appeared in the thousands of ads. Mitchell’s Repository would have been the most frequent and they seemed to deal with livestock and the products of livestock. Edd’s Repository was also on this street and a further ad gave me more information of William Edd’s horse repository. Hill’s Veterinary Infirmary moved to the street in 1866 and it sounded like Thomas Hill lived at the premises as well going from the birth notices. C W Turner was a wholesaler for alcohol. Harman and Stevens had an office here as well as the auctioneers Burnell, Bennett & Sprot. In 1870 H E Alport moved to new auction rooms on Hereford St. The BNZ opened in 1866 and a full description was given of the building and with the columns and other features it sounded like an impressive building. The police stores were on the street as well as a police station. In 1862 the council called for tenders for forming and metalling the road. There were possibly other hotels but I only found mention of the Golden Age Hotel and this stood on the corner of Hereford and Colombo where the ANZ used to be before the earthquakes. I found a website that mistakenly said that this was the Warners Hotel Hotel but that was wrong. The hotel was renamed Hereford St Hotel. The Shades is mentioned as early as 1866 many businesses were in a building called Stiffe’s building. Would have been named after S B Stiffe a land and estate agent. In 1869 Bonded Store’s previously Louisson’s to be renamed as The Queen’s Bond. Wynn Williams the solicitor had an office here. Freemasons had a lodge and it was new in 1868. A few familiar names from the street were John Coker, Captain Westenra and Dewsbury. I walked from Fitzgerald Ave to Rolleston Ave and it is mostly residential at the Fitzgerald Ave end apart from a fitness centre. A few older wooden villas from about 1910 and one was dated from 1880. Many modern apartments crammed together and at least two blocks looked like social housing. The City Mission is on this street near an old church that is fenced off. A couple of big empty sites. The Transitional Cathedral ( cardboard cathedral) is on this street where a church used to stand. Walk past Latimer Square and there is a huge number of brand new apartments and again they are crammed together. As you get closer to the city centre there is the new parking building plus shops. On the old BNZ building site is the Spark building. Cross the road and the old ANZ site is still an empty section. The Ibis Hotel is practically next door to the old ANZ and for those of us who worked in the ANZ when the Ibis was being built must remember how our building shook when they were pile driving. The Telecom building was next to the Ibis and I remember it as the Post Office in the 1970s. On the opposite site there are new buildings and shops and I was too busy trying not to trip over the fake homeless who sit there begging to remember what the new shops are. The businesses that I remember from pre earthquake are the Boardroom Cafe and Drexels as we often visited them. There was an arcade that went through to Cashel Mall and the only shop that I remember was the sandwich shop. I used to buy lovely roast pork sandwiches every chemo week in 2005 for my lunch. Never felt well enough in the morning before going to work to make my lunch. Then there was a building housing a government dept and it was possibly Internal Affairs. A bit further along was the older wooden building called Shands Emporium which has now been moved to Manchester St. I vaguely recall that years ago the building housed an eye specialist but can’t remember what business was in it in later years. On the corner of Hereford St and Oxford Tce there are new building housing restaurants but I remember Couplands Bakery being here. I used to visit the bakery on my way home on a Friday night as they reduced the sandwiches to half price and sometimes if I was lucky I got free sandwiches. I was saving up to go travelling and I wasn’t too proud to turn down free sandwiches. Cross the bridge and there are new buildings where the Police Station used to be. On the opposite side is the Christchurch City Council Civic Offices and when it was the postal centre it used to have the PO Boxes here. Cross Montreal St and there is the building that used to be Dux de Lux and the Art Centre. On the other side is the YHA and and few older houses and then finally the YMCA. They are working on the YMCA at the moment and it is closed to the public including the coffee shop in the building.