Stening Place in Burwood – Named in 1996.The library website entry was extremely brief. I couldn’t find out how this street got it’s name. I found several people with the surname Stening but none that lived in this area. The name that came up most frequently in Papers Past was George Stening but he lived in the Sumner and Redcliffs area. He was heavily involved in the YMCA plus a Missionary Society. There was also Alfred Stening a publican but mostly in the central city area. He eventually moved to Australia in the 1890s. I searched ancestry website with no luck. This street is now in the red zone and the street view of this street from before the earthquakes showed a very pleasant street.

Belair Close in Burwood – Named after Belinda Blair. Kevin and Judy Blair bought a horse paddock off New Brighton Road for their daughter’s horse in the early 1980s and later subdivided the land. Judy Blair was a well known netball coach in the late 1960s and her daughter, Belinda, became a Silver Fern netball player. First appears in street directories in 1993.”Dunair Estates” The Press, 16 April 1997, p 19A small amount of information from the library website and I couldn’t find any information online about this street. I will need to go into the library to read the relevant Press article. This street is in the red zone and there are no longer any houses here. From google maps it looks like there were about 11 or 12 brick houses. The area was very wet and swampy underfoot and I was geocaching nearby.

Schumacher Place in Burwood – Named after Edith Amelia Donnell, née Schumacher, (1904-1982). Edith Donnell and her husband, Horace Alexander Donnell (1903?-1965), farmed the land where this street was formed for many years. They bought their land from Edmund Norcross Corser (1840-1901). Named in 2005. A small amount of information from the library website and it is only partly correct. I found very little information on Papers Past. There was a birth notice dated 1933 when Horace and Edith Donnell had a child. Their address was 389 Old New Brighton Road. The electoral rolls gave their address as 389 New Brighton Rd. Horace did farm this land and was described as a dairy farmer but he didn’t buy this land from Edmund Corser. Horace’s father William purchased the land from Edmund Corser. William and his wife Alice both lived at 389 New Brighton Rd and farmed the land. William died in 1944. Living on the same block of land at 341 New Brighton Rd was Ivan Henry Donnell. Ivan was born in 1910 and was Horace’s younger brother. Ivan died in 1997 and the land was subdivided after this date. This tiny street is in the red zone and there are no longer any houses here. Looking at old google maps of the street it looks like it was a pleasant street to live on with only about 5 to 6 houses.

Elsie Street in Halswell and it is too new to be on the library website. Information from council website. Elsie Street – William and Elsie lived at Murphys Road from about 1920 and had two sons while they were there. They farmed wheat and potatoes and milked cows. The milk was sold in Christchurch.Road names have been requested by Alan Ye for roads at the Cloverden subdivision on the corner of Halswell Junction Road and Murphys Road. The road names have been chosen in accordance with the theme of a historic connection to the Murphy family who landed in New Zealand in 1866 and farmed the property until recently. There is nothing that I can add to this information. The houses were fairly boring and all looked alike but you know how I feel about modern houses. So new that there weren’t any proper gardens but some had tiny lawns. One side of the street bordered a really cool playground.

Blue Jacket Drive in Halswell and the street is too new to be on the library website but found information on the council website. From the council website. Blue Jacket Drive – The name of the ship Ellen O’Driscoll (Conailus wife) arrived in Canterbury on. Road names have been requested by Alan Ye for roads at the Cloverden subdivision on the corner of Halswell Junction Road and Murphys Road. The road names have been chosen in accordance with the theme of a historic connection to the Murphy family who landed in New Zealand in 1866 and farmed the property until recently. When I walked the street on Wednesday many of the houses on this street were having open days as most of the houses are still for sale. Interesting that they give Ellen’s surname as O’Driscoll as the shipping records have her surname as Driscoll. Ellen was 27 years old when she came out to New Zealand with her sister Hannah Driscoll. Hannah was aged 18. Both were domestic servants. The ship left Gravesend on 14th July 1866 and arrived at Lyttelton on 14th October 1866. The Blue Jacket was lost in March 1869 when the cargo of flax caught fire. The ship was off the Falkland Islands and 9 survivors were rescued and they managed to save the gold that was on board. The figurehead from the ship was found 21 months later washed ashore on Rottnest Island near Freemantle. That was a distance of 6000 miles / 9700 km from where the ship was lost.

Skibbereen Drive in Halswell and the street is too new to be on the library website. Information from the council website – The town in Ireland where Ellen Murphy (wife of Conailus) came from. Road names have been requested by Alan Ye for roads at the Cloverden subdivision on the corner of Halswell Junction Road and Murphys Road. The road names have been chosen in accordance with the theme of a historic connection to the Murphy family who landed in New Zealand in 1866 and farmed the property until recently. This street is so new that it hasn’t finished being built and part of it was blocked off by workmen. Part of the street is next to the cool looking playground. I had to be very discreet in looking for a nearby geocache because of the workmen. Because the houses are so new they just didn’t have any character. Skibbereen means little boat harbour and the area is also well known for it’s famine history.

Mardyke Street in Halswell and it is too new to be on the library website. Information from the council website. From Skibbereen Township in Ireland, the district where the family originated. Road names have been requested by Alan Ye for roads at the Cloverden subdivision on the corner of Halswell Junction Road and Murphys Road. The road names have been chosen in accordance with the theme of a historic connection to the Murphy family who landed in New Zealand in 1866 and farmed the property until recently. This street only had a couple of houses on it and I suspect that it will be extended but that land is still a paddock. I was actually walking down Conailus St when I saw the sign for this street. It actually looks like part of Conailus St. I asked a local and he hasn’t realised that there was a different street name. I searched Mardyke and found an area in Cork City but it was at least 79 to 85 km in distance from Skibbereen. More googling and I found a Mardyke Street in Skibbereen. This street has a heritage museum plus many older buildings. I couldn’t find the link between the Mardyke in Skibbereen and Mardyke in Cork City. My best guess is that Edward Webber who owned the land in Cork City also had land in Skibbereen. The Mardyke area was originally called Meer Dyke after Meer Dyke in Amsterdam and Edward Webber constructed the original dyke in 1719. Seems appropriate somehow that there is a street here named after a dyke that was built to drain marshy land.

Conailus Street in Halswell and it is too new to be on the library website. Information from the council website – First name of the first owner of the property who arrived in Christchurch in 1863 (from Country Cork). Married Ellen O’Driscoll in 1869 and purchased the Halswell property in 1871. Road names have been requested by Alan Ye for roads at the Cloverden subdivision on the corner of Halswell Junction Road and Murphys Road. The road names have been chosen in accordance with the theme of a historic connection to the Murphy family who landed in New Zealand in 1866 and farmed the property until recently. This street looked more established than the rest of the streets in the area. The houses all looked exactly the same with very little character but there was one with a reasonably interesting garden. Interesting information from the council website but his name wasn’t spelt Conailus. All the records that I could find with includes his marriage and death records spell his name as Cornelius. If I was one of the ancestors I would be annoyed at the wrong spelling. Also his wife’s name was Ellen Driscoll and not O’Driscoll. I couldn’t find much information on the ancestry website or Papers Past. The various family trees were of no help at all and as usual I will complain about people not checking information before adding to their family trees. I couldn’t find which ship Cornelius came on to New Zealand and Cornelius Murphy was a very common name. I found the marriage details for Cornelius and Ellen from 1869. The death notices for both of them were extremely brief and as Cornelius was a land owner I expected to find an obituary but nothing. There was an entry in Papers Past in 1918 about an objection to the land valuation but suspect that it was actually the son also called Cornelius as it sounded like he was running the property by this time. Cornelius and his wife Ellen are buried in the Linwood cemetery along a daughter Ellen, son Cornelius and a daughter Mary. Cornelius died 6th December 1919 aged 84, Ellen died 30th May 1931 aged 90. Their son Cornelius died 30th April 1945 aged 70 and their daughter Ellen died 30th June 1952 and it didn’t give an age for her. Their daughter Mary was born 20th April 1878 and died 8th July 1915.

Kilmurry Street in Halswell and the street is too new to be on the library website. Information from the council website. The parish/district name given to the village where Conailus came from. Road names have been requested by Alan Ye for roads at the Cloverden subdivision on the corner of Halswell Junction Road and Murphys Road. The road names have been chosen in accordance with the theme of a historic connection to the Murphy family who landed in New Zealand in 1866 and farmed the property until recently. The houses here were too new to have any character and they all looked exactly the same but more established the side streets in the area. The best part of the street was the playground and I would have attempted the slide but was worried that I would get stuck. I could just imagine the headlines of pensioner stuck in playground slide. I still couldn’t find out any extra information about Cornelius and found several with that name born in the Kilmurry area in the right time frame. Still can’t find a passenger list for his arrival in New Zealand. Kilmurry has a museum called Independence Museum which looked interesting.

Terrelle St in New Brighton- Named after Terrelle, near Cassino in Italy. Private Patrick John Ryan (1923?-1944), a soldier in the New Zealand Infantry, was killed at Terrelle during World War II. He was a son of William Nicholas Ryan (1885?-1950), a contractor, and brother of Bernie and Jack Ryan, builders and developers. Named by Patrick’s mother, Mary Catherine Ryan (1892- 1978). First appears in street directories in 1960.Information supplied in 2005 by Jack Ryan in an interview with Margaret Harper. A reasonable amount of information from the library website and nothing that I can add about the naming of the street. I couldn’t find a birth record for Patrick and his details is on his parents gravestone at either Linwood or Bromley cemetery. There is also a war grave for him at the Cassino War Cemetery in Italy. The death notices and memorial notices all give his age as 21 when he died. This street is obviously no longer a street as it is in the red zone and I was in the area geocaching. It was almost impossible to walk here without getting wet feet. Many of the streets in this area are named by the Ryan family. Quake studies had at least two photos of this street and the houses looked like standard houses from the 1960s.