Garlands Rd in Hillsborough and Woolston – Named after Edward Garland (1824?-1893). Garland operated the Rocky Point Quarry in Port Hills Road. Garland’s Creek first appears in the Star in a report of a meeting of the Heathcote Road Board in 1877. The road linking Garland’s dairy farm, Hillsborough, with Opawa Road and the city, became Garlands Road. First appears in street directories in 1892.
A small amount of information from the library website and his farm only seemed to start using the name Hillsborough Farm after the township of Hillsborough was developed. Lots of information online about Edward Garland. He came to New Zealand with his brother Joseph Garland who seems to have been totally forgotten. Even Gordon Ogilvie the author of Place Names of Banks Peninsula and the Port Hills doesn’t mention him. Edited to say that the Rocky Point Quarry was owned by the Heathcote Road Board going by all the entries on Papers Past.
A large number of entries in Papers Past and there were sections for sale between 1880 and 1890. In 1904 the road name was changed from Garland’s Rd to Garland Rd but this name change obviously didn’t stick.
Lots of entries about the railway crossing on this street and the first entry that I found was in 1873 when the railway dept said that the gate will be removed once the road has been formed. Road was formed in 1880 and note this usually means that it is no longer a dirt track. In 1898 there was a request for a crossing keeper because of the dangerous state of the railway crossing. Several accidents at this crossing over the years with some fatal accidents. In 1899 there was a request for the land owner bordering the railway crossing to remove trees because of the lack of visibility. In 1930 a crossing keeper was killed at the Waltham crossing and he had previously ben the crossing keeper at the Garlands Rd crossing. In 1957 an automatic half arm barrier was to be installed and they were still using a crossing keeper up to this date. I would have gone past this crossing frequently when on the school train going to High School.
In 1910 there was an entry for Mrs Williams Maternity Home at 70 Garlands Rd. There was a store on the corner of Garlands Rd and Opawa Rd owned by E J Dennis.
Lots of death notices over the years. From 1920 onwards most of the entries relate to various businesses and some of these businesses were Woolston Tannery and Glue Works, Amalgamated Batteries Ltd, Woolston Tanneries, Mecca Tools and Engineering Co Ltd, Marathon Rubber, Empire Rubber Mills, Atlas Rubber Company, Skellerup Industries and Davis Gelatine Ltd.
In 1931 there was a new bridge to replace the Princes Street swing bridge. In 1939 a new brick substation on the corner of Cumnor Tce and Garlands Rd. The Opawa Swimming Pool gets mentioned a few times between 1935 and 1964. In 1960 a new health clinic was set up for the workers in the area. Rezoning seemed to be an issue occasionally with residents objecting to the increase in rezoning the land as industrial with a rubber company objecting to land being rezoned as residential. The industrial rezoning obviously won that battle. In 1968 $2000 worth of copper was stolen from the substation. So the stealing of copper isn’t a new problem. The subject has been in the news here in Christchurch recently. The Rapaki Scout Den at 124 Garlands Rd gets mentioned frequently from the 1950s onwards and in 1986 is was damaged by a suspicious fire. It was frequently a polling booth during elections. I don’t know when it stopped being a scout den as it is bare land at that address. I tried googling with no luck. Can I just say that AI can be really stupid and frequently gives you total rubbish.
Because there are so many businesses on this street I ended up only searching articles so I possibly missed information but there were thousands of ads.
I started walking this at the river end of the street where there are houses and many were built in the 1920s. There is an empty section where the scout den used to be plus there is Monro Playground here. I then cross Opawa Rd and where there are traffic lights it was fine. I then have to cross where the cars turn left onto Garlands Rd from Opawa Rd and I will have a bitch and moan here about car drivers. Please use your indictors so that I know that you are turning as that is the purpose of indictors.
Many of the buildings here are looking very rundown and it is possibly railway land. There is a car dismantling business and I think that this is where there a big fire a couple of years ago. There is a very sad looking house dating from the 1920s here. As you get closer to Rutherford St the buildings are in better condition. I then crossed the road to where The Tannery is and yes this shopping centre got the name from local industries. I did pop into The Tannery as I quite like the bookshop here. I was so tempted to buy that book of maps but at nearly $500 it was well beyond my budget. The buildings on this side of the street are in much better condition plus there are also a couple of houses. The houses look like they are being lived in and I wouldn’t like to live next door to these businesses. Opawa Rd seems to be the dividing line between the road being in Woolston or Hillsborough with most of the houses being in Hillsborough end and the businesses being in the Woolston end.
Lytteltonwitch's Walking the streets of Christchurch Project 