Clarendon Terrace in the suburb of Woolston, Christchurch

Clarendon Tce formerly River Road West in Woolston. Named after the Clarendon Building, part of Oxford University. There is a group of streets near the Radley Bridge given names associated with Oxford, England. Clarendon Terrace is first mentioned in an advertisement in the Star in 1881 and first appears in street directories in 1903 with a see ref. to River Road west. Clarendon Terrace first appears in street directories without this reference in 1910.A small amount of information from the library website and I couldn’t find the 1881 ad that they mentioned. There were so many streets called River Road mentioned on Papers Past that I gave up. Even using River Road West or River Road Woolston didn’t help. In 1904 the footpath was mentioned and in 1908 channelling of the road was authorised. In 1917 there were building sections for sale and this was likely to be connected to the death of Andrew Johnston of Johnston’s Fish Pond. There were a lot of entries for the Fish Ponds as it was a big attraction for Christchurch people to visit. It was purchased by Robert Brims in 1928 and renamed Johnson’s Fish Pond and Amusement Park. Didn’t last long as Robert Brims went bankrupt. Lots of articles about flooding and is obviously still a problem. The saddest article that I found was headed Unwanted Baby. A baby’s body wrapped in brown paper like a parcel was found on the river bank. Many of the houses here date from 1905 and 1920 with a couple of more modern houses. I actually walked this way back in November 2019 as I was geocaching in the area. The houses here are lovely and I found a plaque for Andrew Johnston. The flooding problems would put me off living here. I love historic plaques and if you google Andrew Mansel Johnston you should find information about him.