Shalamar Drive in the suburb of Cashmere, Christchurch

Shalamar Drive in Cashmere – Named after the Shalimar Gardens in Lohore, Pakistan. [The misspelling of Shalimar (Shalamar) happened when the subdivision was registered.]Sir John Cracroft Wilson (1808- 1881), a judge, farmer and politician, lived in the Old Stone House and employed a number of Indians who lived here in small structures by the roadside. One of the streets in Cashmere given the name of a place in India. First appears in street directories in 1979.

A reasonable amount of information from the library website and as I mentioned when writing up another street Lahore is in Pakistan and not India. They have also spelt Lahore incorrectly.

Papers Past actually had a travel article in 1925 where Lahore is described as the garden of India but it has been the capital of Pakistan since 1947. As for Kashmir that place gets very confused about which country it is in. Apart from ads for The Stone House most entries were sections for sale between 1977 and 1979.

I have walked the first part of this street frequently and many years ago I went to weaving classes at the Old Stone House. There is footpaths at the lower end of the road which is where most of the houses are situated. As you continue walking there is no longer a footpath and the road is narrow. Luckily it is rare to get traffic here. At the top I couldn’t go any further as there are private property signs and these signs weren’t there last time I was up here.

On my way down and next to the Shalamar Reserve I ended up chatting to a former local. He said that the owners at the top of the road had to put up signs as tradesmen working on the new subdivisions were trying to use their property as a short cut and causing problems. He said that the reserve comes to a dead end and only leads to four houses. He had been visiting his sister. They grew up in the area and he said that it has changed a lot. I was looking for a short cut to Bengal Drive. He also told me that the developers as part of the subdivision agreement had to provide a reserve. I have had some great conversations when walking the Cashmere Hills. Obviously the best building on the street is the Stone House. I did eventually find a shortcut to Bengal Drive after at first mistaking someone’s steps as the walkway.