Bidwell Place in Hillmorton – Intended to be named Tripp Place. As the name was being used in the Redwood subdivision that was further advanced than the city one, it was named Bidwell Place in 1959. One of the streets in the area formed on land belonging to Christ’s College. First appears in street directories in 1976.
A small amount of information from the library website. I found information on a Christ College newsletter that said this street was named after an old boy. The trouble was that they didn’t give a name for him. The only person in Christchurch that I could find with that surname was Charles Bidwell who was living in Riccarton in 1954. He was living in Redcliffs in 1957 and the surname was spelt Bidwill. I found a second Christ College newsletter with a Charlie Bidwill mentioned. I also found William Edward Bidwill a sheep farmer in the North Island who went to Christ College, William Edward Bidwill received an OBE in 1918 for patriotic work. We have two choices. One choice is that there is a stray Bidwell out there that I can’t find. I searched Papers Past, ancestry websites and cemetery databases. The second choice is that the street name is spelt wrong and it is named after an old boy with the surname Bidwill.
This is a small street of only 26 properties all built in the 1970s and the houses are typical of this era. Being church land the houses would have been built on leasehold land and the freehold has possibly been purchased in recent years. The street didn’t stand out in any way and was an ordinary tidy street. Houses in this suburb are of a fairly standard style with not much variation.
Lytteltonwitch's Walking the streets of Christchurch Project 