Averill Street in the suburb of Richmond, Christchurch

Averill Street in Richmond – Named after the Rev. Alfred Walter Averill (1865-1957). Averill was the vicar of St. Michael’s Anglican Church 1894-1910. He then became Bishop of Waiapu before becoming Bishop of Auckland. He was Archbishop of New Zealand 1925-1940. First mentioned in The Press in 1912 when land in North Richmond is advertised for sale by the church property trustees. First appears in street directories in 1914.

There is a Wikipedia page for Alfred Walter Averill plus a Wikipedia page for his son Leslie Averill. The Averill surname was familiar to me but it was unlikely that I was ever treated by Dr Leslie Averill as he retired from being a GP in about 1969 and I was still living in Lyttelton those days. For some reason eyes popped into my head and it is possible that Dr Averill’s son Thomas Averill was my eye specialist.

This street was a church subdivision and it was described as a new street in 1912. Lots of ads for sections in 1912 and they were still selling sections in 1915 and 1919. There was another sale of church land in 1924 and 54 acres was sold to Daniel Neil of The Shades Hotel. Daniel Neil must have subdivided the land as sections were available in 1925. Sewers were laid in 1926 and in 1927 there were complaints about the state of the road after the sewers were laid. There must have been a butcher shop on this street as it was burgled in 1926. The street was tar sealed in 1935 and in 1941 there was a new waterworks pumping station built. A few birth notices and lots of death notices. One family on this street had terrible bad luck with their children. They had a 19 month old son who went missing in 1947 and sadly they found his body in Dudley Creek. A couple of years earlier an older son had been rescued from the creek. In 1951 they had a daughter who died after being scalded with hot water. In 1970 there were complaints about students from Shirley Boys High School parking on the street.

I decided to walk this street after watching Moving Houses this week. My best photos of this house are from Petrie Park. I started my walk from Stapletons Road end and it looks like this house takes up what used to be two sections of land. The house that was moved dates from about the 1880s. There are still many lovely older houses on this street dating from 1910 onwards. A few modern houses and there is a building site on this street and I suspect that they will end up being ugly ones. Banks Avenue School is on this street and I googled this school. The school had a new school built after the original school was destroyed in the earthquakes. The new school opened in 2022 on wat was the site of Shirley Boys High School. Shirley Boys High moved to a different site after the earthquakes.