Bishopsworth Street in the suburb of Hillsborough, Christchurch

Bishopsworth Street in Hillsborough and nothing on library website. This was rather surprising as I found the street mentioned in Papers Past as early as 1911 when channelling and asphalting the footpaths were done. In 1914 there was a house and a large section for sale and it was on the corner of Grange St and Bishopsworth St. Several sections and new houses for sale in the 1950s and 1960s. The street also appears on a map of Christchurch dated 1912. Between 1917 and 1918 there were a couple of ballots where this street was the men’s addresses. These ballots relate to men being called up to serve in the war. My best clue was in 1919 where Mrs F Cooksley had received a notice that her husband would be returning home to New Zealand. Ancestry was a big help here and Frederick Cooksley had been a brickworker in the nearby brickworks and sadly his brother died after being crushed at the brickworks. Frederick eventually became a market gardener on Bishopsworth St. The father John Henry Cooksley was a carter and he transported the stone from the brickworks and a nearby quarry. The Cooksley family lived on Grange St and Bishopsworth St runs off Grange St. John Henry Cooksley’s mother was Sarah Gadd and the original name for Curries Rd was Gadd Rd after Sarah’s brother Elijah Gadd. The Cooksley family had a connection to Bristol and there is a place called Bishopsworth in Bristol.

There is one house here that dates from 1930 but most houses were built between 1950s and 1980s. This is a pleasant tree lined street and on one side a big portion is taken up with Hillsborough Park. I am so sure that this park used to have more trees than what it now has. On the other side some of the houses have a hill behind them and this seems to be where some of the newer houses were built between 2013 and 2016. There was one house that I really liked and the house itself was fairly ordinary but it had a skeleton in the window. I am not the only nutter in Christchurch with skeletons. I also liked the tree in the front yard as it had been partially chopped down but in the remaining branches they had built a giant nest and put large blue balls in the nests.