Manse Place in the suburb of Redwood, Christchurch

Manse Place – First appears in street directories in 1978.

A tiny amount of information from the library website. A small amount of information from Papers Past and it was mostly about a sculpture by Lew Summers that had been installed in the courtyard of an elderly people’s complex. Many of the residents weren’t happy with the sculpture but they eventually agreed to keep it as long as shrubs were planted to hide the bare backsides. There were a few death notices.

The entire street is social housing and the units were built in 1973 and 1983. There are 42 units and they are owned by the council. It is unlikely that there are any elderly people living here now. I didn’t attempt to walk this street as I didn’t feel that it would have been safe. If I had realised that there was a Lew Summers sculpture here I might have walked it. This is assuming that it is still there.

Because manse is a place where a clergyman or minister lives my best guess is that a manse originally stood here. Manse was derived from the Latin word mansus which means dwelling.