Chapel Street in the suburb of Papanui, Christchurch

Chapel Street in Papanui – Formerly Myrniong Street. Named after Myrniong, a large house which once existed in this street. The house was named after Myrniong, a small town near Melbourne. This, in turn, was named after the murmong plant, an Aboriginal name for the yam daisy. Re-named Chapel Street. Named because of the Wesleyan (Methodist) Chapel standing near the corner. Myrniong was an 8-room, two-storey weatherboard house on eight acres built by John Thomas Matson (1845- 1895) and named because of the Australian connection. He was born in Victoria, coming to New Zealand in 1866. He actually lived at Springfield on Papanui Road. In 1880 he gave Myrniong to the Rev. Phillip Cuthbert Anderson (1848-1932) rent-free for a year to start a private school. Anderson also held a temporary licence-in-charge at St Paul’s Papanui Church Feb-July 1883. He left Christchurch for Australia in July 1883. Matson’s son, John Thomas “Jack” Matson (1865-1892), was living at Myrniong at the time of his death. A parishioner wished to attend the Wesleyan Chapel so Matson opened a lane, 5 yards wide, from Langdon’s Road to Harewood Road. This became known as Myrniong Street. Later owners of the property were William Barnes Robinson (1855?-1919), Charles Edkins (1833?-1924), an accountant with Messrs P. & D. Duncan Ltd, who sold the property in 1901 and H. Hargreaves. Mrs Hargreaves of Myrniong advertises for staff in the Star in 1903. Myrniong Street does not appear in street directories. It appears on an 1880 map. Mentioned in The Press 1880-1896. Chapel Street is first mentioned in street directories in 1901 and first appears as a listing in 1903.

A huge amount of information from the library website for a tiny street. A few mentions of Myrniong Street in 1880s and 1890s in Papers Past and it was mostly ads for the sale of land. Myrniong was mentioned in a few birth and death notices but without the word street included. Searching for Chapel Street was difficult as there were so many streets with this name including at least two or three of them in the Christchurch area. The Chapel Streets in Melbourne and Auckland seemed to be interesting streets going by news reports. There was a Methodist Church on this street from 1858 and church services were held in James Reese’s barn until a church was built. There was a church built in 1859 and then a new one built in 1869 which was connected to the older church. In 1912 the foundation stone for a new church was laid and going by an article in 1934 the old wooden church was eventually demolished. A concrete culvert was to be built over the creek in 1898 and it is mentioned again in 1909. The name of the creek was Kruse’s Drain. The drain is mentioned again in 1925. In 1914 the Methodist Orphanage scheme secured land on the corner of Chapel Street and Harewood Road to build the orphanage. This is confusing as the website for the Methodist Church has the orphanage on Harewood Road opposite Chapel Street. A few birth and death notices over the years. From 1924 onwards the Sanitarium Health Food Company is mentioned as being on Chapel street but from the 1960s all the articles say that it is on Harewood Road. From 1968 onwards The Golden Age Rest Home at 7 Chapel Street is mentioned.

This was a very confusing street to research because of the other streets in Christchurch with the same name including one only a few blocks away from this one. The Sanitarium factory frequently won awards for the factory garden.

I walked this street today and a huge Mitre 10 takes up a large part of one side of the street. I checked google maps and the Mitre 10 has only been here since 2019 and before that it was the Sanitarium factory. There are a few houses on the other side of the street and they were mostly built in 1915 and 1920 apart from a couple that date from 1970s. The Golden Age Rest Home is now the Golden Age Retirement Village and it takes up a huge block of land. On the opposite side is the modern looking church. The old brick church was demolished after the earthquakes. The Reese Room is named after James Reese and houses an anti smoking group. They are a group helping people to give up smoking. I took screen shots of the church and Sanitarium factory from before the earthquakes.