Lowick Ave – Carter’s Lane Re-named Lowick Avenue. Named after Lowick, a village in Northumberland, England. Carter’s Lane first appears in street directories in 1924. Re-named Lowick Avenue in 1933 by the Public Utilities Committee of the Heathcote County Council.

A reasonable amount of information from the library website. I checked Papers Past and very little information there. The street was renamed because there were several other Carter’s Lane and Carter’s Streets in Christchurch. In a report in 1932 it used the word Lawick for the renaming but Lowick used in later reports.It is likely that Carter’s Lane was named after someone with the surname Carter but I couldn’t prove this. The central city Carter’s Lane would have been named after James Carter a carrier but I couldn’t find any connection to the Cashmere lane. I searched ancestry website but had no luck finding out more information. I was hoping to find someone born in Lowick or a family connection to Lowick.
The earliest mention I could find on Papers Past was in 1918 and a section was for sale in 1921.
I didn’t actually walk this lane as it looked like a driveway and there are only four properties here. Checking the QV website there are two houses from 1910 and one from 1920 with a 4th one demolished. The lane runs off Hackthorne Rd.

When researching Dyers Pass Rd I found a Miss Carter living on Dyers Pass Rd in the 1940s.

Dyers Pass Rd – Governors Bay Road Named after John Dyer (1828-1876). One of the oldest ways over the hills. The Maori used this way to travel to their villages and their pallisaded pa at Governors Bay. First used by Europeans as a horse track. Road formation was undertaken by the Provincial Government 1862-1863. Dyer bought Rural Sections 228, 442, 443 and 1874, all parcels of land in “Governor’s Bay, Port Lyttelton”. Dyers Pass Road is first mentioned in the Star in 1869 and first appears in street directories in 1911 with a see ref. to Governors Bay Road, Heathcote. First appears with residents listed in 1914.

A reasonable of information from the library website.On Papers Past I found information from 1869 and one was a letter to the editor complaining about the state of the road. Another was a surveyor’s report about the road being unsafe. Several ads with sections being sold in 1937. The QV website had houses dated from as early as 1905 but there are at least two historic buildings dating in the 1890s. Two well known buildings on this road are Sign of the Takahe and Sign of the Kiwi. Papers Past has the Rhodes Convalescent Home with a Dyers Pass address.
There is a real mixture of houses on this road and most are lovely old houses with a few modern ones. There was one particularly large building from 1910 which is the most fantastic looking house but I just couldn’t found out the history of the house or who originally owned it.
Most of the housing is on the Christchurch side of the road and on the Lyttelton Harbour side there would only be a handful of houses but most are near Governors Bay.

I obviously didn’t walk the full length of this road as it goes from Cashmere Rd and over the hill to Governors Bay. I did find an article on Papers Past where a group of people had walked the full length but it was in a safer era. I walked up the road on the Christchurch side until the footpath ended. It wouldn’t have been safe to have attempted to walk any further and on a lovely Sunday afternoon the traffic was busy.
There is a small group of shops at the Hackthorne and Dyers Pass corner with a couple of cafes. Just below this corner there is an entrance to Cashmere Primary School and there is a pedestrian crossing here. This corner is not safe for pedestrians and there is no footpath to get to the pedestrian crossing and it is safer to go through the school grounds from Hackthorne Rd. There is a Masonic Lodge on the corner of Hackthorne Rd and Dyers Pass Rd and I was tempted to ask the man who was working on the building if I could look through it.

Hackthorne Road – Thornhill Crescent was incorporated into Hackthorne Road. Named after Hackthorn Hall, the home in Hackthorn, Lincolnshire, England of the Cracroft family. Sir John Cracroft-Wilson (1808-1881) was a judge, farmer and politician. His mother was Elizabeth Cleminta Wilson, née Cracroft. The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography says Wilson “conducted himself as a selfconscious descendant of the landed Cracrofts of Hackthorn, Lincolnshire.” Hackthorne Road is first mentioned in the Star in 1898 in an advertisement. First appears in street directories in 1908. [An “e” was added at the end of the name.] Thornhill Crescent is first mentioned in The Press in 1913. First appears in street directories in 1928 running off 126 Hackthorne Road. Still being referred to in The Press in 1935. Later incorporated into Hackthorne Road.

A reasonable amount of information from the library website and there is nothing that I can add about the Cracroft- Wilson family as their history in Christchurch is well known. Papers Past had a reasonable amount of information and there were lots of ads for servants. Sections were for sale in 1914 plus a few in 1937.
Thornhill Crescent had sections for sale in 1914, 1921 and 1927. It looks like Thornhill Crescent went from Dyers Pass Rd around to where the Sign of the Takahe is. There were a few mentions of Thornhill in relationship to the building of the Sign of the Takahe where the road was widened to allow for parking. Also part of Thornhill Crescent was used to form a reserve at the Sign of the Takahe. I couldn’t find an exact date for Thornhill Crescent being added to Hackthorne Rd.
Many of the houses are dated from 1910 and 1920 but a few modern houses which are obvious rebuilds from the earthquakes. A couple of toilet block style in the rebuilds.

Walking from Cashmere Rd you have Princess Margaret Hospital grounds on one side for a short distance. Half way up there is a small reserve and behind the reserve is a reservoir.
At the Dyers Pass corner there are the shops and two cafes. I suggest that you give Emperors New Clothes a miss and have your coffee at The Cup.
Crossing the road here is difficult and I recommend using the pedestrian and cutting through the grounds of Cashmere Primary School. Great street art style of artwork in school grounds. As you continue up the street there is a small walkway leading to Kidson Tce and I might have quickly ducked down the walkway to find a cache.
Not far from here is a property called Hackthorne Gardens and it is apparently luxury accommodation. Still some lovely older houses here but near the top there were a couple of modern houses. As you get to the end there is the Sign of the Takahe which is on the corner of Hackthorne Rd and Dyers Pass Rd. You can also get to Victoria Park from here. The reserve at the Sign of the Takahe is well worth a wander through and there are great views of Christchurch from the viewing platform.

Kiteroa Place – Kiteroa means: the long view. First appears in street directories in 1995.
A small amount of information from the library website and nothing that I can really add to it. I could tell that it was a newer street as there was a footpath on only one side of the road. There are houses here from 1980s and 1990s and it looks like the street has been extended as new houses are being built. There are views from here which would be a reason for the name. I was forced to walk on the road for part of my walk thanks to cars blocking the entire footpath. You know how grumpy I get about this. Nothing really stood out for me here apart from one extremely ugly house. You can look down at the new subdivision behind Cracroft and see all the water pooling in the sections and it would put off buying a section there.

Pentre Terrace and this street isn’t on the library website yet the QV had at least three houses built in the 1970s. Not many houses here and most are set well off the road with large sections. A couple of rebuilds and one empty section where it is obvious that the house has been demolished. I found one weird entry on QV website and one property was sold this year by QV for $0. My best guess is that the land is no longer considered suitable for rebuilding a house on it.

It was a fairly long street for so few houses and I expected to find an old farm house but nothing. The street runs off Dyers Pass Rd but had a very rural feel to it. Pentre is Welsh for homestead which is another reason that I was surprised that there wasn’t an older house somewhere along the road. There is also a village with that name in Wales.

Welles Street – Marton Street and Belfast Street. Re-named Welles Street. Named because of the well once there. Martin Street (note spelling) appears on an 1879 map. The Marton Street well is referred to in the Star in 1895. Marton Street first appears in street directories in 1900. Re-named Belfast Street in 1911. Re-named Welles Street on 1 September 1948 when 120 streets were renamed. It was given an additional “e”

A small amount of information from the library website. Papers Past doesn’t have The Press after 1945 so I can’t check the name changes in 1948. I am going to have to visit the library to see if I can read The Press from 1948. It is quite likely that the street did get renamed after the well but an American diplomat Sumner Welles was big in the news in 1948.

Information from Papers Past has cottages for sale in 1872 and 1877. Land was for sale in 1889 and in 1880 there was a corner section sold for 1450 pounds which included three shops which were leased for 11 years at 70 pounds yearly. It is possible that this is the same corner site that sold in 1906 and by this time it had a shop and bakehouse along with 6 cottages. Sounded like the seller was desperate to sell.
In the early 1900s there was an electrical engineer and contractor A E Brown on the street. Lots of job ads for the company Nugget Polish Coy of NZ.
In 1877 the council received a letter from the agents for A R Creyke requesting that the street be taken over as a public street.
In August 1911 the council received a petition with 17 signatures on it requesting that the street name be changed owing to the notoriety gained by the street because of bad characters living in the street. They suggested the name be changed to Cheshire St. I couldn’t find anything about the Cheshire name being rejected and Belfast St being accepted.I would assume that the name was changed from Belfast St to Welles St because of Belfast Rd in Belfast.
I couldn’t find any particular stories about bad characters but a few court cases re obscene language. In 1911 there was a big story about sly grog being sold and the petition was in 1911 so it is a possible reason. Didn’t find anything about houses of ill fame which surprised me as every other street in the area had at least one such house.
The well was mentioned in 1895 as was all the other wells in the city. The wells were decreasing in supply and it was taking lnger to fill the street water carts.

Some great street art along here along with several restaurants. There are apartments here called The Welder and I would like to know where this name comes from as I vaguely recall visiting a business called Tricky Weld in this area. Recall the business being on a corner of a main road and a side road.The street goes from Manchester St to Colombo St.

I have found the most likely reason for the original name of Marton St. Alfred Richard Creyke owned a large amount of land in this area. He was only in NZ for 10 to 15 years. His father was bishop in Yorkshire and was probably related to the Creyke family of Marton in Yorkshire.

Southwark Street – Formerly George Street. Named after George Allen (1805- 1871). Re-named Southwark Street. Named after the bishopric of Southwark. Allen was a market gardener, carrier and proprietor of the New Zealander Hotel. He left £20 in his will to the City Council to form George Street. The balance was to be paid on completion of the work. George Street appears on an 1879 map and in street directories in 1883. Re-named Southwark Street in 1909. The street is associated with neighbouring Allen Street which is also named after George Allen.

A reasonable amount of information from the website and on Papers Past found council report about petition from Freeholders, ratepayers and tenants requesting a change of name. No reason given for why they wanted the name change.
When it was George St there were lots of information about births and deaths on the street on Papers Past.
It sounds like the street eventually got very rundown. In 1917 there was an order for three houses to be demolished because they were unfit for occupation. There was also an order in 1911 for destruction of insanitary buildings. Interesting article stating that Southwark St always had an evil reputation for it’s housing conditions. Rent for this street was 14 to 16 schillings a week. Houses had no baths or water. The same inspectors inspected Allen St and they said that it wasn’t so depressing and had a more pleasing appearance. Rent here was 25 schillings a week.

This is another street with a couple of houses of ill fame. There were a lot of these types of houses in this area.There were also lots of reports about gaming houses and further reading makes you realise that only a certain group were targeted. They were described as profaning the Christian Sabbath. There was a good description of a raid where the police arrested 50 Chinese men for playing a game called fan tan. Apparently Sunday was a good day for the raid as it was an unsuitable day for clandestine gardening. Apparently the Chinese were forbidden to weed their gardens or tend their cabbages on the Sabbath. There was also an incident in 1914 where the person in court was described as lemon tinted.
From the 1920s most of the houses had gone and there were factories here.

This street runs from Madras St to Manchester St and there is new buildings called Southwark Apartments but also empty sections used for car parking. The street didn’t really appeal to me but did manage to get photos of street art.

Quill Lane – Named in 1978. First appears in street directories in 1981.
A small amount of information from the library website for a street that I wasn’t aware existed.

Found a huge amount of information on Papers Past. I googled Quill Lane and Quakestudies had information from archaeological report after the earthquakes about a company called Quill Morris Ltd a cordial company that was on Dundas St. Papers Past had the company connected to several hotels but it went into voluntary liquidation in 1934. In 1957 the company merged with another company and became Quill Morris Cowles. I then checked ancestry website for the surname Quill and Morris with no luck.

I then found a facebook page for bottle collectors and apparently bottles from this company are collectable. Someone on this page mentioned the name of John Thomson Sutton as owner of the company. Couldn’t find him on Papers Past but they had the middle name incorrect. Quill, Morris Ltd wine and spirit merchant had seven directors going by Issue of prospectus in 1926. One of them was Charles Dickinson Morris so that explains the Morris in the company name. I have no idea where the Quill name came from. I found a second date of 1929 for the liquidation. The company restarted trading in 1936. John Thomas Sutton had the lease of several hotels including Zetland, Sandridge, Dunsandel, Hanmer and City Hotel. City Hotel is just around the corner of Dundas St.

I didn’t actually walk this lane as it goes from Manchester St to Welles St and at the Manchester St end it goes to the loading area for Smiths City and at the Welles St end there are entrances to a couple of restaurants plus car parks for the restaurants. Still like to know where the Quill part of the company name came from.

Mortimer Place – A blind alley laid out in 1873. At a city council meeting held on 5 April 1880 councillors were told that Mortimer Place has been “channelled, formed and shingled”. First appears in street directories in 1885.

A small amount of information from the library website. The earliest information I could find on Papers Past two items in 1881. One article was about the blind alleys of Lyttelton St and Mortimer to be taken over by the council. Second one was about Lyttelton St being laid out in 1862 ands Mortimer Place being laid out in 1873. In 1890 a Mr Connell was selling a large property with larges stores plus land suitable for cottages to be built. Property was on Manchester St, Eaton Place and Mortimer Place. This sounds like the same property that S K Bassett purchased in 1891. There was a death notice in 1882 for an Arthur Bailey. I couldn’t find anyone with the surname Mortimer in the right time line for naming of the street. What I did find was an article about Rev H C Harper and before he came to Christchurch to be the Bishop he was vicar of Mortimer and he also went to the school Eton. The article used two spellings for this school and they were Eton and Eaton. Might explain the neighbouring street Eaton Place..My research wasn’t helped by the ancestry website playing up.

A rundown looking street and it leads to Burger King which is near Countdown supermarket.

Eaton Place- The first sale of land adjoining Eaton Place was on 11 April 1874. The land belonged to Thomas Maberly Hassal (1834- 1879), a merchant. He and other residents of the street paid towards the formation of the street. In 1876 a petition signed by several ratepayers was received, asking that the street be taken over by the council with a special rate to be levied for forming and metalling it. Eaton Place had been “channelled, formed and shingled” by 1880. This is mentioned in the Star in a report of a council meeting held on 5 April 1880 The city council formally took over the street on 18 July 1881. First appears in street directories in 1883.

A reasonable amount of information from the library website for a small dead end street. Information from Papers Past has a mixture of houses and businesses on the street. At least two of the houses had names Tenby Cottage and Wimbledon Cottage. In 1897 there was a mention of Chapman’s Stables. In 1891 Mr S K Bassett purchased a large factory building covering the block of Manchester St and Eaton Place and Mortimer Place. In 1910 there was a fire at the store owned by NZ Express Co. In 1919 there were many ads for a furniture factory Williams Bros. When looking at nearby Allen St I kept seeing ads for Kaiapoi Woollen Mill and I thought that must have been a street with the same name in Kaiapoi but further reading I found out that Kaiapoi Woollen Mill have several factories and one was on Manchester St in the Allen St, Eaton Place and Mortimer Place area.
The street now leads to the loading area of Countdown supermarket. Lone Star is on the corner of Eaton Place and Manchester St.It is such a short street and I find it hard to imagine how all the old businesses managed to fit on the street. I imagine that the houses here were eventually pulled down to make way for the factories.

I still haven’t found out why the name Eaton as Thomas Hassal was born at Everton, Liverpool. He was a director of a company called Miles, Hassal and Co and they owned land all over the place. he was only 45 years old when he died of rheumatic fever on 06/10/1879. He was Imperial Germa Consul for Canterbury, director of Union Insurance company and very active in the church. His wife had a daughter 4 months after he died. He lived at The Oaks, Opawa. In Dec 1876 he wrote to the council enclosing a cheque for 45 pounds for forming the street. Amused by all the family trees on ancestry website who had him living in the Hawkes Bay at a place with similar spelling to Opawa. Mr S K Bassett was probably a property developer as he seemed to be always buying land. I suspect that the factory building he purchased in 1891 was leased to Kaiapoi Woollen Mill but couldn’t find the information.

Edited as I have come up with a theory for the name Eaton and is possibly a misspelling of the school Eton. There was an article on Papers Past about Bishop Harper which mentions him being vicar of Mortimer before coming to Christchurch. He also went to Eton the the article has two different spellings of school using Eton and Eaton. There is a nearby Mortimer Place.