Cobra Street in Halswell – Named after Gay Cobra, a racehorse. The racehorse was owned by Andrew James Cunningham, (1906-1985), a farmer of 250 Halswell Road, who developed the subdivision where the street was formed in 1960. He was living in Cobra Street at the time of his death. First appears in street directories in 1962. Information supplied in 2014 by Bob Pritchard, subdivisions officer, Christchurch City Council.
A small amount of information from the library website and nothing that I can add about the name of the street. Papers Past had over 500 entries for Gay Cobra.
There were lots of ads on Papers Past plus the residents on this street seemed to be an accident prone lot. Between road accidents and work place accidents but the saddest was the drowning of a young child. Several mentions between 1962 and 1964 of a new school to be built. In 1963 the article said that it would be opening in February 1964 and will be called Cobra Street School. By the time it opened in February it was being called Oaklands School. In 1964 two sections were purchased to create a playground.
Most of the houses on this street were built in the 1960s with a few built in the 1990s. The ones built in the 1990s are all on back sections. The sections on this street are fairly large and a lot of people subdivided their properties in the 1990s.
I know I was getting tired yesterday when I was walking this street as I was walking back to where I had parked my car and I had already managed to walk 10k but to miss a school. I had to check google maps as I was surprised to realise when researching that there is a school here as I hadn’t seen a school. There is an alley way that leads to the school grounds but the main entrances to the school are on other streets. None of the houses stood out for me and the street is orange road cone alley at the moment. The entire length of the street has road cones on both sides of it. The only photo that I took is of the playground.
Lytteltonwitch's Walking the streets of Christchurch Project 