McCarthy Street in the suburb of Hoon Hay, Christchurch

McCarthy Street in Hoon Hay – Named after Thaddeus Pearcey McCarthy (1907- 2001) McCarthy was a lawyer and judge. In a 145-acre housing subdivision planned by the housing division of

the Ministry of Works. The land was purchased from the Church Property Trustees and the Loughnan estate. In 1968 the street names sub-committee of the council felt that as Halswell was named after a prominent English Queen’s Counsel it would be appropriate to record the names of judges in street names there. Many of them had been QCs or KCs before appointment to the Bench.

A reasonable amount of information on the library website. Interesting that these streets were formed on land known as Loughnan estate and the names of men in the legal profession were chosen to be the street names as there were at least 2 or 3 generations of lawyers in the Loughnan family. I couldn’t find any information about the street in Papers Past. Most houses here were built in 1970s with a couple built post earthquake. There is one house dating from 1920 that is on a huge section of land. It is possibly the original house for the Loughnan land but was unable to find information about it with a quick look on google.

The street starts at Rowley Ave where there is the McCarthy St Shops. There are only two shops here that I remember from when I lived in the area and they are the wee supermarket and the fish and chip. There used to be a chemist, haberdashery shop, Post Office and possibly a bookshop. I used to occasionally work at the Post Office when I was on the relief team. The shops are very colourful now with street art.

Many of the houses still have a state house look about them especially the ones opposite the shops. The Plunket Rooms look smaller than I remember and I thought that the entry to the building was actually on Mathers Rd but the entry is from McCarthy St now. My youngest child has just turned 40 so it was a long time ago and my memory could be wrong. The houses this end have some lovely gardens. Right at the end of the street is two big sections and you can’t see the houses and one is the one from 1920. There is also a walkway through to Hoon Hay Park which I didn’t realise existed. It actually looks like a pleasant street.