Lancaster Street in the suburb of Waltham, Christchurch

Lancaster Street in Waltham – Named after Benjamin Lancaster (1801-1887). Lancaster was an original owner of Rural Section 62, cofounder of Price’s Candles in 1830 and, later, the founder of the order of Anglican nursing nuns, St. Peter’s Sisterhood. He retired to Bournemouth and, while living there, sold part of the property in 1880, through Harman and Stevens, for Lancaster Park, a sports ground where the public would pay to see cricket, athletics, bicycle riding and, later, rugby. First mentioned in The Press in 1892.

A reasonable of information from the library website. I found the same article in The Press dated 1892 and it only mentioned Benjamin Lancaster and not the street. The first mention of the street that I found was in 1894. Huge number of articles about traffic on Lancaster Street because of Lancaster Park. Lancaster Park was also known as Victory Park. Between 1912 to 1914 there were protests concerning the trams and mostly to do with the price of using the tram. The price was increased and no one was happy about this and it sounds like they changed the sections so that Lancaster was no longer in the penny section. In 1916 there were complaints about an insanitary condition of a stable and it must have been a long standing issue as there was talk about pulling the stable down in 1915.Lots of birth, death and marriage notices. I was amused about repairs required for a footpath on Ferry Road near Lancaster St. Reason for the repairs was that rats were undermining the footpath. There is a wikipedia page for Benjamin Lancaster and it doesn’t sound like he ever visited New Zealand. The land was occupied by Charles Whittaker. Benjamin Lancaster was worth £137,584.00 when he died and the online calculator couldn’t cope with this figure so I had to work it out manually. Hopefully I have it correct at £18,557,319.90 and that is a huge amount of money. I actually walked this street back in April last year during lockdown at the same time that I walked Moorhouse Ave. This is only 2.6km from my house and I call that a short walk. There is only one old house on the street and it is occupied by a business. The biggest business would be AA Auto Centre plus a couple of car related businesses. There is also a cafe which would probably cater to the workers in the area.