Bellvue Avenue in Papanui – formerly Church Street. Church Street first appears in street directories in 1887. Re-named Bellvue Street in 1926 when 21 streets were re-named.
A small amount of information from the library website. The entries that I found on Papers Past all said that the name change was to Bellvue Avenue. I did find one entry where someone suggested Bell Street. No reason given for the name and I wondered if it related to the bell tower at the nearby church.
So many Church Streets in Christchurch that it was impossible to get much information. I tried narrowing by search by including the suburb name but had no luck as there was another street with a similar name nearby.
In the 1920s there were complaints about drains. In 1929 it is proposed to have an entrance to St James Park from this street and the subway under the railway lines is mentioned. I checked old maps and it looks like the street ran from Papanui Rd to the railway lines and from about 1930 onwards it was extended to St James Ave with the pedestrian walkway under the railway lines connecting the two halves. The pedestrian walkway was replaced in 1976 and it was widened in 1933 plus roses planted. In 1931 the new Plunket rooms were opened by Sir Truby King. In 1954 the new kindergarten was almost completed. The vicarage was mentioned in the 1950s and I looked on google maps to see if I could see the vicarage but it was down a long driveway. In 1959 there was ads for the render for the building of a Post and Telegraph depot. Personally I would love to have seen the elephant race in 1966 and apparently there were three elephants being raced and the riders were possibly local councillors. There was a wee note in 1977 in something called Reporters Diary about the first Papanui Town Hall having been on the corner of Papanui Rd and Bellvue Ave ( Church Lane). Church Lane is actually further down Papanui Rd past Merivale Mall. I looked at Papers Past and googled and couldn’t find anything about this. When I get time I will have another look for information about a town hall.
On Tuesday I had an appointment at Age Concern and I parked on this street and walked to my appointment. It is a nice quiet street between St James Ave and the railway pedestrian walkway with nice houses. Once you go through the walkway there are more houses plus there are still Plunket Rooms here. The houses were a mixture of styles and the oldest dates from 1890. At the Papanui Rd end there is still a kindergarten plus an entrance to the RSA. There are also shops at the Papanui Rd end. It was a pleasant street. Outside one house there were chalk drawings on the footpath and a notice on a fence saying that there was chalk in the letterbox for doing chalk drawings.
Lytteltonwitch's Walking the streets of Christchurch Project 