Kendal Ave in Burnside – formerly Kendal Street Named after Kendal, a town in the Lake District. Blogg Brothers Ltd. built “half of the streets in the Wairarapa riding including Kendal Avenue and Springbank Street”. Kendal Avenue was one of the first streets in the South Island to have underground reticulation of power and telephone cables. Kendal Street first appears in street directories in 1960. Becomes Kendal Avenue in 1962.
A small amount of information from the library website. I have searched Companies Office and Papers Past and can’t find out much information about Blogg Brothers. None of the entries on Papers Past about the subdivisions in this area mention them.
This street runs from Wairakei Rd to Memorial Ave. The houses at Wairakei Rd end were built in 1950s but the majority of the houses were built in 1960s. Three subdivisions were mentioned in relationship to this street and Springridge Ltd development was Memorial Ave end of the street including the shops at that end. The 1950s houses were in the Gregan Housing block. Lands and Survey dept also had a subdivision here including another block of shops. Maurice Carter possibly built houses in the Land and Survey block as I am starting to recognise his style of houses. The sections on the Land and Survey block were offered in ballots. Lots of entries in Papers Past between 1959 and 1961 with sections being sold. Tenders required for building a school and a kindergarten plus the council purchased land in the Gregan Housing block to create a reserve and a playground.
Starting from Wairakei Rd end there are the 1950s houses from the Gregan Housing block. Then it is Kendal Reserve and playground, the school, the kindergarten and Plunket Rooms. Opposite school is St Timothy’s Anglican Church. The bigger group of shops that was built on Crown Land is where Cranbrook Ave ends at Kendal Ave. Several shops including a medical Centre. There wasn’t any mention on Papers Past but the housing on this part of the street has a social housing look about it plus what used to be called State Houses. Continue walking and there is an entry to Ashcroft Reserve. Then a small group of shops which were part of the Springridge development and I then reached Memorial Ave.
None of the houses stood out for me and most of the street was tree lined except for the section which had flats and houses that looked like social housing.
Surprisingly for such a long street I only took one photo which was of the church. Nothing appealed to me. No street art type of artwork at the school which was disappointing as so many schools these days have fantastic street art type of paintings. The trees looked lovely with autumn colours starting to show but as I write this I realise that I found the street boring.
Edited to say that when I visited Kendal in the UK I wanted to buy Kendal Mint Cake for an elderly woman that I frequently looked after. Charlotte loved Kendal Mint Cake but I couldn’t find anyone who had it for sale.
Lytteltonwitch's Walking the streets of Christchurch Project 