Bass Street in the suburb of Woolston, Christchurch

Bass Street in Woolston – First appears in street directories in 1896 but was in existence earlier. Alexander Dixon Neave (1852?-1949), a labourer, is listed in church registers in 1892 as living at “Bass Street, Ashbourne, Christchurch”. Bass Street is first mentioned in the Press newspaper in 1897 when a house burnt down due to a kerosene lamp accident.

A small amount of information from the library website and the new website had added the information about the house fire.

Papers Past had several death notices and lots of ads. As well as the house fire in 1897 there were houses destroyed by fire in 1910,1919 and 1965. The houses were connected to sewers in 1927. In 1930 the Drainage Board said that they were unable to cover Bell’s Creek at the end of the street as it was on private land. In 1963 there was a letter of complaint from the owner of 40 Bass St to the Drainage Board about the damage to his property when the contractors laid the sewers through his property. The Drainage Board replied to say that the owner’s garage was already in poor repair and the damage wasn’t the contractors fault. This same property which included glasshouses was for sale in 1967.

In 1951 there was talk about Linwood Post Primary getting land on the street for a playground but this land was considered unsuitable.

The valuation website that I use said that the houses here are dated from 1910 to 2016. There are still several houses dating from between 1910 and 1920 but one house that is supposed to be from 1910 is actually from 1850. Several articles about this house from 1980 onwards and it has category 2 listing. At least one article mentions that it was one of 5 cottages that was originally on Moorhouse Ave. Two were moved to Bass St but only this one remains. There are high fences around the cottage but in a council article there is a lovely photo of the house with just a low fence around it. There were some lovely houses here plus a council building. I ended up chatting with a local who said that it is an area that isn’t always safe and depends on who is living in the area.