Hornbrook Street in the suburb of Waltham, Christchurch

Hornbrook Street in Waltham- formerly Hornbrook Lane. Named after Major Alfred Hornbrook (1814- 1898) and his wife, Sarah Frances Anne Hornbrook, née Hewit, (1830?- 1913). Hornbrook owned Risingholme and Mrs Hornbrook ran a boarding-school at the corner of Wilsons Road and this street. Hornbrook Street is first mentioned in The Press in 1886. It is listed as Hornbrook Lane in street directories from 1892. Becomes Hornbrook Street in 1930.

A small amount of information from the library website. I couldn’t find any entries on Papers Past under the name Hornbrook Lane. There is a Hornbrook St in Temuka as Major Hornbrook’s younger brother William Hornbrook went to live in the Temuka area to manage Major Hornbrook’s properties in that area. The earliest entry that I found on Papers Past was in 1885 where residents complained about the state of the street. The Road Board’s reply was the street had never been dedicated or taken over by the Road Board so they wouldn’t be spending any money on it. In 1886 the ratepayers asked the Road Board if they will put put a bridge over the creek if they form the road. In 1889 they were still talking about forming the road. In 1891 there was a cottage and land for sale and a horse and cart was included in the sale. Another ad said that the property had been especially adapted for a carrier or cabman. Major Hornbrook in 1871 was selling his property as he was planning on moving to Timaru. Major Hornbrook was selling all his properties including the Mt Pleasant one and the Temuka ones. He went bankrupt in 1871 and he also managed to go bankrupt again in 1879. The website for Risingholme states that William Reeves owned Risingholme so I assumed that he has purchased it from Major Hornbrook but this was incorrect. I found an entry for William Reeves living at Risingholme as early as 1866. Mystery solved by an entry in 1890 where there were two houses for sale at Risingholme. One belonged to William Reeves and the other belonged to Mrs Hornbrook. I suspect that Major Hornbrook actually put this property into his wife’s name when he went bankrupt in 1871. Both houses were on land that was 11 acres in size for each property. The ad also called it Wilson’s Bridge Rd. By this time Major Hornbrook had disappeared to Queensland to live with his son and he died there in 1898. Note his wife stayed in Christchurch and she was still living on Wilsons Rd in 1903 as she was fined for attempting to poison dogs. She was living in Lyttelton when she died in 1913.

The houses here date from 1910 to 2022 and I was disappointed that the older houses had been altered so that they no longer looked like interesting older houses. The two houses that stood out for me were from 1930 and 1950. The one from 1950s looked older and was fairly large. It had been divided into flats. There is a green space near Wilsons Rd end of the street.