Mardyke Street in the suburb of Halswell, Christchurch

Mardyke Street in Halswell and it is too new to be on the library website. Information from the council website. From Skibbereen Township in Ireland, the district where the family originated. Road names have been requested by Alan Ye for roads at the Cloverden subdivision on the corner of Halswell Junction Road and Murphys Road. The road names have been chosen in accordance with the theme of a historic connection to the Murphy family who landed in New Zealand in 1866 and farmed the property until recently. This street only had a couple of houses on it and I suspect that it will be extended but that land is still a paddock. I was actually walking down Conailus St when I saw the sign for this street. It actually looks like part of Conailus St. I asked a local and he hasn’t realised that there was a different street name. I searched Mardyke and found an area in Cork City but it was at least 79 to 85 km in distance from Skibbereen. More googling and I found a Mardyke Street in Skibbereen. This street has a heritage museum plus many older buildings. I couldn’t find the link between the Mardyke in Skibbereen and Mardyke in Cork City. My best guess is that Edward Webber who owned the land in Cork City also had land in Skibbereen. The Mardyke area was originally called Meer Dyke after Meer Dyke in Amsterdam and Edward Webber constructed the original dyke in 1719. Seems appropriate somehow that there is a street here named after a dyke that was built to drain marshy land.