Sutherlands Road in the suburb of Halswell, Christchurch

Sutherlands Road in Halswell – Named after a man named Sutherland who rented land from Cracroft Wilson. First mentioned in The Press in 1877. First appears in street directories in 1898. Donald Sutherland is a resident.

A small amount of information from the library website. Note the information that Donald Sutherland is a resident is incorrect. He actually lived on a different Sutherlands Rd. There was a Sutherlands Rd off Wrights Rd and this was where he lived. This Sutherlands Rd is now Hillmorton St and probably was changed in 1948.

For an older street there was very little information on Papers Past. In 1877 the main drain known as Cashmere River running through Cashmere property from what is known as Sutherland’s Rd to be declared as a public drain. In 1887 two culverts to be replaced. A couple of death notices for members of the Sparks family who lived at Somerset Farm on Sutherland’s Rd. Until the 1950s there were probably only a couple of properties on this road.

In 1969 Tara Lodge Ltd applied for consent to build a dwelling for a farm manager and animal shelters. It was a stud farm for horses.

I searched Ancestry website but couldn’t find anyone with this surname living on this road. The s on the end of a street name usually means that it was named after someone and it used to have an apostrophe.

Most houses on this street have been built since 2019 and it is still being subdivided. There is a cottage from 1890 but I didn’t manage a photo of it and it didn’t look like a house from 1890s. On one side of the street a wetlands area is being developed and this is where the Cashmere drain / stream runs. There is one property that I would loved to have had a better look at as it had interesting brick buildings. This property was built in either 1975 or 1985. I kept catching a glimpse of a fake Tudor house but I eventually worked out that it possibly has a Sparks Rd address and is down a very long driveway. I have to confess that I am not sure about this. I remember when this road was rural and you could mostly only see paddocks. I came out with the walking group King’s Birthday Weekend to walk the wetlands area and hadn’t realised how much it had been developed so came back to walk a few streets. At least half of the road doesn’t have a footpath but there is a nice wide grass verge to walk on. Near Sparks Rd end there is a huge building being built and it doesn’t look like a house.