Whisby Road in Cashmere – Named after Whisby, a town in Lincolnshire, England. Whisby was home to the Cracroft family as early as the 16th century. John Cracroft Wilson (1808- 1881) was the son of Elizabeth Cleminta Wilson, née Cracroft. 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 road. Papers Past proved to be interesting and explains why this tiny dead end street is called a road. The entries in 1959 and 1960 about milk deliveries had me looking at old maps. The map for 1930 doesn’t show MacMillan Ave but the map for 1941 shows MacMillan Ave cutting through Whisby Road. The map for 1958 shows Valley Rd and Whisby Rd connected. I can’t believe that I didn’t pick up on this when I wrote up Valley Rd and MacMillan Ave.
The milk dispute was about the milkman refusing to deliver milk to the residents on the street because of how steep the street was and his truck couldn’t manage to drive up it safely. One description was that it was a stinker of a street. The milkman offered two drop boxes with one at the Dyers Pass Rd end and the other at the MacMillan Ave.
There was a subdivision here in 1913 and by 1914 there was work requested by the 15 residents on drainage and a footpath. In 1927 there was a new path for pedestrians. In 1958 the road joined up with Valley Rd and the milk delivery dispute was in 1959 and 1960. In 1968 the decision was to close portion of the road between MacMillan Ave and Valley Rd. Most of the other entries were social notes plus death notices.
I was looking at my photos and realised that I actually walked it in August 2020. There is a walkway between Valley Rd and MacMillan Ave and another tiny walkway between MacMillan Ave and Whisby Rd. It is a steep wee walkway with a seat at the MacMillan Ave end. This walkway is where Whisby Rd used to run from Valley Rd until it was closed.
Only 4 houses here and one dates from 1910 and another from 1915. They are both gorgeous.
Lytteltonwitch's Walking the streets of Christchurch Project 