Verran Place in the suburb of Fendalton, Christchurch

Verran Place in Fendalton – First appears in street directories in 1955. A tiny amount of information from the library website.

After looking at Papers Past and ancestry website it is highly likely that this street was named after the Verran family. They had an orchard at 23 Jeffreys Rd called Penventon Farm. One of the brothers had a farm at 12 Waiwetu Street. John Moyle Verran died in 1933 but there were at least two sons James and Richard. I thought that the various family trees on the ancestry website had made a mistake as they had John Moyle Verran born in Australia in 1852 but living in Cornwall in 1861. The family trees were correct as the family went to Australia where they had two children before returning to England. John was described as a miner in 1861 census aged 9 years. In 1874 they returned to Australia. By 1890 the family were in Christchurch.

In 1953 there were ads for tender for building a parsonage for St John’s Methodist Church. In 1968 the church built a new parsonage on Jeffreys Rd to replace the old one on Verran Place. In 1955 there were crown land sections available with returned servicemen having preference in the ballots. I was amused by an ad for the sale of a house in 1960 where it was described as being in that exclusive area of Fendalton were every house is different and of exceptional high quality.

Most of the houses were built in 1950s and there was a footpath on both sides of the road. The houses didn’t really stand out for me but one of the houses looks very modern for a house built in 1950. A pleasant street with well established gardens. One house did look a bit rundown.

I was in the area this morning finding a cache in the nearby library