Whittington Ave in Woolston – formerly Rhodes Street. Probably named after Whittington, a small village near Worcester. Rhodes Street first appears in street directories in 1908. Whittington Avenue is first mentioned in The Press in 1909 in a report of a meeting of the Woolston Borough Council.
A small amount of information on the library website and I couldn’t find any evidence that it was previously called Rhodes Street. I checked Papers Past and old maps. The street is also possibly named after a family with the surname Whittington. There were at least three families with that surname who lived in the area.
Most entries on Papers Past are about the residents in the area wanting a pedestrian crossing across the railway line. These entries were between 1909 and 1927 and the Railways declined their requests every time. The Technical College was mentioned occasionally. There were sections available between 1913 and 1929. Someone owned kennels called Roimata Kennels on this street in the 1930s. Most of the entries for 1976 were about a murder on this street and it involved a rather messy love triangle.
There were some lovely older wooden villas on this street and there is also Whittington Avenue Reserve on this street. I would be concerned about parking and noise if I lived here. There was broken glass in the reserve area.
Edited as I found out that the street was known as Rhodes Avenue at the same time that it was known as Whittington Ave. So Rhodes St was a mistake by the library. As Rhodes Avenue there were the same articles about the residents wanting a pedestrian crossing across the railway lines. The land was subdivided in 1904 and the owner Mr Schauman completed the forming of the streets and then requested in 1905 that the council take over the streets when they have been completed. In 1913 the Technical College sold off land on Rhodes Ave so that explains the sections that were available in 1913
Lytteltonwitch's Walking the streets of Christchurch Project 