Cannon Hill Crescent in the suburb of Mt Pleasant, Christchurch

Cannon Hill Cres in Mt Pleasant – Named because it runs through Cannon Hill which, in turn, is named after the Cannon family. The Cannon Hill estate was owned by 3 generations of the Cannon family. Philip Henry Cannon (1846?-1927) was a runholder of the Heathcote Valley in 1914. First appears in street directories in 1964.

A small amount of information from the library website. There was very little information on Papers Past about this family. The family trees on the Ancestry website had very little information with lots of mistakes. The electoral rolls gave a bit of information and Philip Henry Cannon lived in Riccarton until 1907 and he was described as a gentleman. He was described as a sheep farmer when he lived in Heathcote. Philip Cannon purchased land originally owned by Frederick Sandford and this information was in Gordon Ogilvie’s book Place Names of Bank Peninsula and the Port Hills.

Not as much information on Papers Past for this street as I had expected. Lots of ads for sections for the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. A few entries in April 1968 when a big storm destroyed new houses being built. Obviously this was the same storm that was responsible for the sinking of the Wahine.

The house where the Cannon family lived was called Tiro Moana and it is mentioned in Philip Cannon’s death notice in 1927. His wife Lousia died in 1930. After this date at least one of their sons lived at the property. Several ads in the 1930s for the property as it was a guest house by this time. In 1961 there was an application to convert Cannon Estate Homestead to a convalescent home. There were ads in the 1970s for St Andrews Residential Rest Home. I couldn’t find out when this rest home closed. There is an empty section where the building used to be and was probably demolished after the earthquakes.

There are 189 houses on this street and most houses were built between the 1960s and the 1990s. Several houses on this street were rebuilt after the earthquakes. It is impossible to describe the houses here as there were so many different styles and surprisingly not really any toilet block style here. Some were interesting houses and I quite liked them. Most had great views over the city. There is an entrance to the Mt Pleasant School on this street and a bit further on there is an entrance to the Old School Reserve. I will have to come back to explore the reserve. The road ends at the Bridle Path Road. This was a long street to walk and there were several wee streets and lanes that run off this street so I had fun exploring them on Sunday. I also met and chatted to several locals. In many places the footpath was only on one side of the street and for some reason when the footpath stopped on one side of the street and you had to cross the street to where the footpath continued it always seemed to be on a blind bend. Made crossing the street very tricky.