Cliff St – A short road off Main Road, running into the cliff face at Monck’s Bay. First appears in street directories in 1910. A small amount of information from the library website and nothing that I can add about the name of the street.
A few mentions in Papers Past and in 1905 the council discussed calverts for the street. In 1913 and 1919 there were sections for sale. Also in 1913 there was an artistic bungalow for sale. In 1922 the issue of flooding was discussed yet in 1919 residents objected to underground drains. In 1925 a subdivision was declined by the council but in 1944 another subdivision was eventually approved after objections from some of the locals. Scrub fires were obviously a danger and there were two fires in the 1930s. I was interested to see that the was a house called Clontarf for sale in 1926. The Clontarf was a ship that bought immigrants to New Zealand including some of my ancestors.
This street runs from the main road to the cliffs and the two houses that would have been closest to the cliffs have been demolished. There is now a brand new street being developed at the end of Cliff St. There are only 10 properties here and most were built in the 1910s and 1920s. There are about three very modern ugly houses. This is an area that would have been affected badly by the earthquakes which is why I was surprised to see the older houses still standing. They are wooden houses which did make a difference in many cases.
Lytteltonwitch's Walking the streets of Christchurch Project 