Glade Avenue in the suburb of Richmond, Christchurch

Glade Ave in Richmond- Avon Glade Road and Avonglade Street. Named after Avon Glade, a house in Stanmore Road. Avon Glade Road is first mentioned in The Press in 1878 when land is advertised for sale there. Re-named Glade Avenue on 24 May 1926 when 21 streets were re-named.

A small amount of information from the library website. Not as much information on Papers Past as I expected. I didn’t find any entries for Avonglade St or even Avon Glade St. The only time Avon Glade Road was used was for the ads in 1878 when sections were available for sale. A few birth and death notices. A house called Richmond Villa is mentioned in 1890s and Mr Crichton’s residence Riversleigh is mentioned a few times. Locals will know Crichton Cobbers and Wilfred Crichton is probably connected to the same family. In 1934 the council dump on the corner of Stanmore Rd and Avon Glade was converted to a residential site. Interesting that it was called Avon Glade as the name of the street was changed Glade Ave in 1926. Under Glade Ave most entries on Papers Past were ads for a company called Waddell Construction.

I couldn’t find any information about a house called Avon Glade but it was possibly the home of Daniel and Fannie Ward. Daniel was an engineer for the Provincial Government but there isn’t any entries for him after 1877 and sections were available in 1878. I couldn’t find much information on the ancestry website but the family eventually were living in Melbourne. One of their sons drowned in 1874.

There are still a few houses near the Stanmore Rd end of the street. There are three or four built in 2019 and a couple built in 1970s. The cottage from 1910 looks very sad but the villa from 1920 looks OK. The house from 1930s looks very rundown and I thought it would have been because of the earthquakes but looking at street view from 2007 it was looking just as rundown then. Most of the street is red zoned and there was one really lovely house in 2007 but it has been demolished.