After researching Guild Street and Stapletons Road plus a online conversation with a friend I decided to research a building. Several hours later I can now write up the information. The story starts in Church Square in Addington where there is St Mary’s Home for girls. The church in Church Square is called St Mary’s. The earliest mention in Papers Past was in 1879. In 1897 there was a meeting about the lease of the building in Addington as the lease was terminating in the next year and there was a need for a more suitable premises. At least 50 girls from the home had gone on to lead virtuous and reputable lives and many had managed to be respectably married. There were only 5 cases of absolute failure. Nine girls had been transferred to the institution at Mount Magdala. The Church Property Trustees had offered a suitable site. St Mary’s obviously had a laundry as the profit from this was mentioned. It was to be hoped that a home in a less populous locality would benefit the girls.
The new site was at 73 Stapleton Road and in July 1898 the foundation stone was laid by Bishop Julius. In November 1898 there was the opening ceremony at the newly erected St Mary’s Home and Bishop Julius was at this opening ceremony. The first mention of St Saviour’s Guild is in 1898. Same year the old premises in Addington is to be sold. In 1899 the new chapel is opened by Bishop Julius. In 1899 a nightsoil contractor was charged with breaches of the Drainage Act. Instead of taking the sewage away he allowed it to flow into a natural watercourse. It was a clear running stream that ran past St Mary’s and into Dudley Creek. In 1904 with the completion of the Te Oranga Home girls were transferred from St Mary’s Home to the new home leaving only 11 immates in St Mary’s Home. In 1905 Nurse Maude was given permission to place a small water wheel in St Albans Creek at the back of the home.
The first mention of St Saviour’s was in 1910 and in 1911 St Saviour’s Guild confirmed that the work to convert St Mary’s Home into St Saviour’s Home for orphaned, neglected and destitute children had been completed. They were now in need of another building to house boys older than 8 years old. Reason for this was that there was a law that didn’t allow boys over 8 years old to remain in the same building as girls. In 1914 the Church Property Trustees granted to St Saviour’s Guild 5 acres of land fronting Stapletons Road and adjoined to the present orphanage premises. In 1915 Bishop Julius laid the foundation for the new wing for the Anglican Orphanage for girls. In 1916 Bishop Julius opened the new building. Note the boys never got a building for them at this site but they did get their own orphanage also called St Saviour’s Orphanage but in Timaru.
In 1918 an open air school was built adjunct to St Saviour’s Orphanage and was on Dudley Street. Also in 1918 40 out of 75 girls got influenza but luckily none of them died. The headline in the newspaper said that the girls had been attacked by influenza. In 1919 there was an outbreak of scarlet fever and the drains were blamed.
In 1929 there was an article about St Mary’s Home in Addington but the reporter got it wrong and called it St Saviour’s Orphanage. The home in Addington was never called St Saviour’s Orphanage. St Mary’s Home was on Poulson Street and went from Church Square to Cotterill Street. The land was known as Sewell Estate. The building was old and in bad repair and had been demolished. It was a wooden structure with old English gables. The Church Property Trustees had owned it when St Mary’s Home was using the property but when it was being sold in 1929 it was owned by the government. The land had been set aside to build a hospital called St Helen’s Hospital. It was decided to instead use the Essex Street site for a hospital. The land was sold for a housing subdivision. In 1930 it was agreed that the Education Board take over St Saviour’s Orphanage School and run it as a public school. The orphanage was placed in quarantine because of a scarlet fever outbreak. In 1945 a new wing was built to replace the old wooden St Mary’s Home plus the large brick building and chapel built in 1915 were upgraded. The home now holds 73 girls.
There were lots of entries in Papers Past over the decades because of all the fundraising efforts by the St Saviour’s Guild. Several people left money to the home in their wills.
In 1952 the old people at Howardville in Burnham had to be moved because the army were moving there. The old people went to various places and some were moved to St Saviour’s Orphanage. The Church were willing to move the children and use the building for a home for the aged. In 1954 Churchill Courts is the name for the former St Saviour’s Children’s Home. The children were rehoused in cottage homes under the supervision of cottage mothers. The reason for the Churchill name will be because Bishop Julius’s name was Churchill Julius. In 1961 a new 27 bed hospital was built plus a nurse’s home. In 1964 there was an appeal launched for renovating the chapel as it had been built for the children and would now be a parish church for the old people. There was a long waiting list for people wanting to live at Churchill Courts. I was surprised to see a death notice in 1973 for a Thomas Cave and no it wasn’t my father. In 1985 new ownership flats to be built in the grounds In 1989 a new psycho-geriatric unit to be built. Note it was a dementia unit.
Most entries from 1960s onwards were death notices. Churchill Courts didn’t survive the earthquakes and the historic chapel was badly damaged in the September earthquake and had to be demolished. Some of the elderly were moved to other homes after that earthquake. After the February earthquakes Churchill Courts was evacuated and 19 residents were taken by bus to Geraldine and Temuka. A further 20 residents in the dementia unit were moved but the article didn’t say where they went. After the February earthquakes they lost power, water supply, phones and sewage. Liquefaction caused huge problems and the buildings slumped.
After being an empty abandoned site for many years after the earthquakes the site is now home to social housing. There were a couple of good articles about the new housing. The address for the social housing is 40 Guild Street and this had me wondering why as St Saviour’s Orphanage was at 73 Stapletons Road. A few ads in the 1980s solved the problem for me. Churchill Court had the address 73 Stapletons Road. The Churchill Hospital and nurse’s home had the address of 40 Guild Street. The current entrance at 73 Stapleton Road has those rising bollards blocking it and the main entrance is on Guild Street.
Lytteltonwitch's Walking the streets of Christchurch Project 