Leslie Street in the suburb of Upper Riccarton, Christchurch

Leslie Street in Upper Riccarton – Formerly Harper Street. Named after Dr Henry John Chitty Harper In 1886 John Hanson and others wrote to the Riccarton Road Board requesting that Harper Street be formed. Harper Street first appears in street directories in 1887. Harper was the first Bishop of Christchurch and the second Primate of New Zealand. One of the five residential streets containing mainly workers’ cottages making up the area known as Peerswick. Re-named Leslie Street by the Waimairi County Council on 8 February 1933 when the problem of duplicate names was addressed with a number of streets.

A reasonable amount of information from the library website. I couldn’t find out where the Leslie name came from. I had to limit my research on Papers Past for Harper St because of the number of entries. Between the Riccarton Harper Street and the Sydenham Harper St there was a lot of information. The usual lots of birth and death notices. At least two residents in 1909 were farmers and one resident in 1915 was fined for allowing his horses to roam. In 1916 one resident died after breaking his neck while driving a mob of cattle in the area. There was the name change in 1933.

In 1968 the Church Corner Mall was built and it was owned by the Fletcher Staff Super Fund. In 1970 DMS Mutual Retirement Fund purchased it from the Fletcher trustees. I have no idea what shops are in this Mall now but I remember that there used to be a bike shop as I purchased my sons bikes here. I am fairly sure that there used to be a secondhand bookshop as well. The car park for this Mall is on Leslie St.

In 1978 Fletcher Development had an application for a meat processing plant on the corner of Brake St and Leslie St declined because of how close it would have been to residential areas. In 1979 Tenderkist Meats applied for a meat processing plant on the same block of land.

The Mall car park takes up one side of the street and there are houses on the other side of the street. Most houses were built in the 1980s with a couple built earlier and a couple built in 1990s. I would hate to live on this street. Just walking it yesterday I saw car drivers blocking driveways and more than one household had a notice up saying private property do not park here.