Orontes Street in the suburb of Shirley, Christchurch

Orontes Street in Shirley – Named after the Orontes, a P. & O. liner. Developed on farmland previously owned by Arthur William Emmett (d. 1948) and sold after his death. Part of the land was bought by the government for a state housing area “laid out on modern town planning lines”. It was referred to as Emmetts Block. Named on 24 June 1948. First appears in street directories in 1950.A small amount of information from the library website. I walked this street in May but didn’t have time to research or write up because of June and July being so busy with frequent hospital visits. There was no information on Papers Past so nothing that I can add about the naming of the street. Going by the QV website many of the houses are dated from 1950s but the rest are from 2019. Interesting that the QV has houses built in 2019 as I found a news article from 2017 about tenants in new social housing complex. The 1950 houses are typical for that era. The street runs from Quinns Rd to Emmett St. Once lockdown is over I will have to walk Emmett St.