Vogel Street in the suburb of Richmond, Christchurch

Vogel Street in Richmond – formerly Tweed street, from Vogel street to Forth street, was incorporated into Vogel Street. Named after John Conrad Vogel (1833-1910). Vogel was a baker and came to New Zealand in 1859. He farmed a block of land fronting onto Worcester Street between the East Belt and Stanmore Road. First appears in the Star in 1881 when land for sale in Vogel Street, Bingsland is advertised. First appears in street directories in 1887. Tweed street, from Vogel street to Forth street, was renamed Vogel street on 24 May 1926.

A small amount of information from the library website and when I walked the street I assumed that it would have been named after Julius Vogel but I was wrong. John Conrad Vogel was born in Hesse, Germany. When he was born Hesse would have been a Grand Duchy rather than part of Germany. He also has no connection to the Vogel bread that is sold in New Zealand.He came to New Zealand on the ship Oliver Lang. He married twice and he died on the same day as his second wife and I had to read the death notices a couple of times to make sure I was reading it properly.

The renaming of Tweed Street to Vogel Street was confusing so I looked at old maps. Took a photo of the 1912 map which clearly shows the streets and it made sense changing that part of Tweed St to Vogel St.

The earliest entry on Papers Past that I found was in 1879 when the council refused to grant a license for a hotel on the corner of Vogel Street and Stanmore Road. In 1884 the Foresters Hall was mentioned. I ended up only looking at articles as there were so many ads and they were mostly for a business in Dunedin. Most entries in 1888 were about something called Richmond Poisoning Case. Lots of death notices over the years and drainage issues were also frequently mentioned. The corner of Stanmore Road and Vogel Street had lots of speakers especially at election time. I don’t know if modern politicians would stand on street corners these days to speak with people.

I walked this street back in October when I was visiting Avebury House as part of Heritage Festival. Parking was a nightmare and I ended up going around the block a couple of times and ended up parking several streets away. The houses here date from 1890 to 2024 and a huge variety of styles. I managed to get a photo of a house from 1915. Some of the older houses were in a reasonable conditions but other ones were looking a bit rundown. Most houses seem to have been built in the 1970s. When I was looking at street view from before the earthquakes I was surprised to see a care home. It has now been demolished and Richmond Market uses the empty section. There wasn’t anything on Papers Past about the care home which was surprising. I walked through this section to get to Avebury House and the market was on so it was very busy. I came back out through the walkway and Vogel Street ends at the corner and Forth Street begins. I would hate to live on this street as parking was a nightmare. One house that has an older looking style is actually a modern house.