St Asaph Street in the Central City, Christchurch

St Asaph Street in the Central City – Willis Street and Chaplin Street were incorporated into St Asaph Street. Named after the Anglican bishopric of St. Asaph in Wales from bishoprics listed in Burke’s Peerage. First mentioned in The Lyttelton Times in 1852 when 1/4 acre sections are advertised for sale there. Willis Street, running south off St Asaph Street in between Durham Street and Colombo Street, first appears in street directories in 1883. One of the residents is William Willis (b. 1840?), a carpenter. Re-named Chaplin Street in 1909 and incorporated into St Asaph Street in 1919. [The newspaper source has the name incorrectly spelt as Chaplain.

A reasonable amount of information from the library website. There was a huge amount of information on Papers Past so I have limited myself to pre 1900.There were sections for sale in 1850s and 1860s. Between 1860s and 1900 it was mostly birth and death notices. Sadly many of the death notices were for children. One of the many causes of children’s deaths was typhoid fever. This was a big problem due to Christchurch being built on a swamp. The United Methodist Free Church is mentioned frequently. A couple of well known family names from this street was Seager and Aulsebrook.

I actually walked the street in April 2021 and yes I am slightly behind in writing up this street. For certain very long streets I limited my walk to within the four avenues and will walk the Linwood part of the streets separately. This is why I have ignored Willis and Chaplin as they come under the Linwood part of the street.

I started at Hagley Park where there are hospital buildings. There is the new Parakiore Recreation and Sports Centre is being built here as well. I did have fun watching the huge cranes on this site as I could see them from my house. There is a huge number of car salerooms on this street. Near Colombo St there is the Discovery School. Several restaurants and cafes in this part of the street. There is an interesting old building here and so far it has remained standing. A reasonable amount of street art on this street. Then it is Te Ara Polytechnic which has some interesting artwork. There are apartments opposite the polytechnic and I am not sure if they are student accommodation or not. The cycleway is looking fun here. Note most of St Asaph St has a cycleway along it which is fine if the cyclists would just use it. Note most are OK but you do get idiots who decide to cycle on the footpath and as I have had too many near misses when out walking I tend to become a grumpy old woman. If I am driving and it is a street that I frequently use when driving I get seriously annoyed with the cyclists who decide that they would much rather cycle in the the middle of the road.

There are some interesting buildings buildings near the Barbadoes St and Fitzgerald Ave ends of the street and they all seem to be cafes. There is one that I keep meaning to visit as I think that it is in an old convent that was on the corner of St Asaph St and Barbadoes St. One of the interesting buildings which is also a cafe I have no intention of visiting it assuming that they kept their license to operate.

When I returned home from the UK in 2014 I kept getting lost driving home on this street as the landmark of the brewery which was on the corner of St Asaph St and Antigua St had been demolished. I used to forget to turn down Antigua St.