Cashmere View Street in the suburb of Somerfield, Christchurch

Cashmere View Street in Somerfield and there wasn’t anything on the library website. This was a surprise as most of the houses on the street were built in the 1920s and 1930s. There are about 5 houses built between 2020 and 2023 but they can’t have been ugly as I didn’t notice them. The name of the street is obvious.

There was a reasonable amount of information on Papers Past and as usual for an older there were a lot of death notices. There was even a surname that I recognised. It wasn’t someone that I knew but I had worked with the person’s grandson when I was at the Hillmorton Post Office / Postbank. This would have been in the late 1980s.

I suspect that this street was created at the same time as Fairview St. There were at least four big properties sold between 1912 and 1920 on Rose St and the streets would have been formed from one of these properties. I didn’t find any ads for sections being sold but there were people living here in the late 1920s going by the death notices. The residents in 1930 suggested that a reserve be formed on the council owned sections that ran between Cashmere St and Fairview St as this would be better than the overgrown and untidy section that it currently was. This land mentioned is probably where the Cashmere View Playground is now situated. Also in the 1930s there was a rabbit breeder living on this street. In 1933 the residents of Somerfield decided to set up the Somerfield Burgesses’ Association and this street was included in the Association. In 1932 sections in the street were being prepared for the planting of pumpkins. In the 1930s in Somerfield there were a lot of vegetables being planted on spare land and they were for the relief depot. Note this was during the big depression.

A letter to the editor in 1934 was complaining about there being constantly deprived of power just as meals were being prepared. The MED reply was that there had been some trouble experienced at the Rose St sub station. I was therefore amused to see another letter to the editor and this time in was in 1936. The person was complaining about a transformer station being erected on Cashmere View St. This substation / transformer station is still there and I now wish that I had taken a photo of it. The rabbit breeder must have still been living here in the 1940s as in 1947 one of the rabbits had escaped. It wasn’t the only thing escaping as someone had lost a mule. The children’s playground was mentioned in the 1940s and they must have used it for outdoor events as marquees were also mentioned. The 1950s saw poultry being offered for sale from a property on the street and there was a milk storage depot. The 1980s it was mostly best street and garden competitions in the news. The one exception was the article in 1987 about the getaway vehicle from a bank robbery being spotted on the street.

I did check old maps and this street wasn’t on maps for 1912 or 1922 but it was on the map for 1930. Going by the map for 1912 there was a large block of land that went between River Road now known as Ashgrove Tce and Rose St. This large section would match up with Cashmere View St and Fairview St being developed.

This is a lovely street with lovely 1920s wooden villas with nice gardens and I hope that it stays this way. I ended up meeting a couple walking a dog here and we had a great chat. She loved the idea of my project and is tempted start doing it herself. There was a nearby painted powerbox and she also loves street art. I should have asked if she also likes cemeteries. The playground / reserve on this street now has a wildflower area and I like that idea. Edited to say that a lawyer Thomas Sydney Dacre possibly owned the land but he didn’t live at the property.