Dunn St in Somerfield – formerly Dunn’s Road and Dunn Road. Dunn’s Road is first mentioned in the Star in 1885. First appears in street directories in 1902. Becomes Dunn Street in 1914.
A tiny amount of information from the library website. Papers Past didn’t have any entries for Dunn Road. Not many entries for Dunn’s Road. A few death notices including one for John Baretta son of F Baretta. In 1906 F Baretta had 4 sections for sale. The street would have been named after Robert Dunn as it was his land that was being sold in 1880 to create 70 sections. The ad in 1880 about the 70 sections called it Dunn Street and in the same year they were calling for tenders to form the street. Robert Dunn had some sort of business connection with Charles Leitch. Robert Dunn was made bankrupt which is why he was selling the land to pay his debts. Charles Leitch in 1881 purchased Robert Dunn’s debts so that Robert Dunn could be discharged from bankruptcy. Also in 1881 unsold sections of Dunn’s land fronting Dunn St, Leitch St and Selwyn St were available.
Papers Past had lots of death notices plus some birth notices. In 1894 there were complaints about the state of the road and this seemed to be connected to the overflow of water from the Cashmere drain. It doesn’t seem to have been fixed as later in the 1890s the residents were wanting reduced rates because of the issue. It must have been an ongoing problem as it was also mentioned in 1888. The subject arises again in 1911 and the residents were fed up with the main drain overflowing and in their complaint they mentioned that about 3 years earlier they had to wade through knee deep water to get to their homes. They were also unhappy with cattle and horses on the footpaths.
After that Papers Past mostly had birth and death notices unto 1974 and 1975. For those two years most of the entries concerned the Epitaph Riders Headquarters. There were a huge number of fights between them and another gang. At least one person was shot. One entry said that up to 80 people were arrested.
This actually looked like a pleasant street when I walked it on Sunday and many of the houses from 1910s and 1920s still exist. I was a bit disappointed with the 2 houses from 1890 and didn’t even notice when walking here that they were from the 1890s. Most of the 1920s wooden villas are looking lovely. The house that did stand out for me was built in 1915 but I still can’t figure what the blue things are that are on the fence posts. There are houses from most decades including a couple of ugly modern places.
Lytteltonwitch's Walking the streets of Christchurch Project 