Alport Place in the suburb of Woolston, Christchurch

Alport Place in Woolston – formerly part of Dyers Road. Named after Augustus James Alport (1816-1886). Alport was Lyttelton’s auctioneer and a shareholder in the Christchurch Conveyance Company. He became a director of the short-lived Canterbury Steam Navigation Company in 1858. He was also a Canterbury Provincial councillor up until 1861. Formed because of the Woolston Cut flood relief development. One of three streets in close proximity named in 1986 to give a maritime theme to the area.

A small amount of information from the library website. I ended up looking at a map from 1955 to figure out this street as there are many houses dating from 1930s and 940s. Next big number of houses were built in 1980s. When I was walking this street today my first thought was that many of the houses looked like state houses. When checking Papers Past I realised that I was correct. In 1939 it was mentioned that state houses would be built for pensioners. In 1948 there was a letter to the editor about the state houses being well cared for except for one house. The writer wanted the housing dept to do something about this house. When the Woolston Cut was made Dyers Rd was altered and curved around by the roundabout at the Tunnel Rd. The portion of Dyers Rd from Ferry Rd was renamed Alport Place and is now a no exit street and has a barrier at the end where Dyers Rd now is. I checked Ancestry website for information about A J Alport and had already done some research on him in connection with Brenchley Rd in Lyttelton. The various family trees on the Ancestry website are a bit confusing and he possibly married twice but couldn’t find any proof of this. I was a bit confused about the family trees having him born in Canada but married in London. A J Alport was born in Canada as his parents emigrated to Canada but they returned to England and I found a death notice for A J Alport’s father which mentions him as being formerly a merchant in Nova Scotia. A J Alport married Susannah Bishop in Hackney in 1844 but sadly she died in Lyttelton in October 1858. Susannah’s brother was Edward Brenchley Bishop. In 1863 the land belonging to A J Alport including Brenchley Farm was sold at auction as he was returning to Nova Scotia. I found an article from 1930s which said that A J Alport came to Lyttelton from Nova Scotia in the 1850s and left again in 1860s. On account of him having a short leg he was colloquially referred to as bumblefoot. This article was slightly wrong as he came to Lyttelton from England. A J Alport’s brother stayed in NZ and died here in 1886. A J Alport died the same year in Canada. In 1903 a R C Bishop of Christchurch met up with the Alport family in Toronto.

I walked this street today after finding a cache called Below the Cut. Many of the houses have the typical 1940s state house look about them. There are two Art Deco houses here and one has had the windows altered and it looks very odd. Brookhaven Retirement Village has an entrance on this street. There was a car parked blocking the footpath near the end of the street and I think that most people know how much this annoys me. I was amazed when double checking google maps to see the same car parked exactly the same way blocking the footpath.