Orcades Street in Shirley – Named after the Orcades, a P. & O. liner. Developed on farmland previously owned by Arthur William Emmett (d. 1948) and sold after his death. Part of the land was bought by the government for a state housing area “laid out on modern town planning lines”. It was referred to as Emmetts Block. Named on 24 June 1948. First appears in street directories in 1950.
A small amount of information the library website and I don’t know why the street was named after this ship. The ship was in the news a lot during the 1930s and 1940s. There is another nearby street also named after a ship.
Nothing much on Papers Past apart from a few death notices. The stormwater sewers were done in 1959.
Most houses were built in the 1950s with one built in 1990. Only one house is still a state house and the rest are privately owned. This surprised me as I expected them all to be state houses. I didn’t like this street and it is probably because I had to walk on the road for part of the street because of cars blocking the footpath. We all know how grumpy I get with this.
Lytteltonwitch's Walking the streets of Christchurch Project 