Loftus Street in Papanui – Formerly Lofthouse Street. Named after Lofthouse, a village in West Yorkshire. Re-named Loftus Street. The Horner family once lived in Lofthouse. Lofthouse Street first appears in street directories in 1887. Loftus Street is first mentioned in The Press in 1898.
A small amount of information from the library website. Many birth, death and engagement notices on Papers Past. Also several notices about garden competitions. The earliest mention of Loftus St was in 1898. There was an overlap of using Lofthouse and Loftus names but nothing to say that the name officially changed. Lofthouse is a village not too far from Leeds. In 1920s several complaints about the state of the street plus in 1922 a letter to the editor said that the street had the worst footpath in Papanui. There was flooding in 1945 and there are creeks in the area. In 1965 the construction of a new building for the BNZ that will feature a 23 foot clock tower that will be illuminated at night. This building is no longer there. The BNZ is housing Age Concern. Most of the houses are from 1970s and 1990s but none of them stood out for me but I did like the street and mosaics on the corner of Loftus and Horner Streets.
Lytteltonwitch's Walking the streets of Christchurch Project 