James MacKenzie Drive in Halswell and it is too new to be on the library website or street view. Information from the Council website – James McBeath MacKenzie (1886-1970) was chairman of the Halswell County Council for a number of years and served in other administrative roles in the Halswell and Spreydon communities. He owned and operated Tattersalls Hotel in Cashel Street from the 1930s. He retired to live on a farmlet he owned in Dunbars Road. James MacKenzie is the greatgrandfather of the developer.

This street is still being developed and there is only one house on the street that was built in 2023.

James McBeath MacKenzie’s obituary in 1970 said that he was born at the Ellesmere Arms Hotel in Tai Tapu. He worked as a county clerk at the Halswell County Council from 1920 to 1935 and he then was the publican at the Tattersall’s Hotel from 1935 to 1950. He was 84 when he died. Papers Past had entries to show that he was publican of the Gresham Hotel in the 1960s.

I will have to come back and walk the street once it has been developed properly as at the moment a fence and gate stops you from walking any further. Another reason that I would like to come back is that I should be able to see the fake Tudor house better from this street.

Sutherlands Road in Halswell – Named after a man named Sutherland who rented land from Cracroft Wilson. First mentioned in The Press in 1877. First appears in street directories in 1898. Donald Sutherland is a resident.

A small amount of information from the library website. Note the information that Donald Sutherland is a resident is incorrect. He actually lived on a different Sutherlands Rd. There was a Sutherlands Rd off Wrights Rd and this was where he lived. This Sutherlands Rd is now Hillmorton St and probably was changed in 1948.

For an older street there was very little information on Papers Past. In 1877 the main drain known as Cashmere River running through Cashmere property from what is known as Sutherland’s Rd to be declared as a public drain. In 1887 two culverts to be replaced. A couple of death notices for members of the Sparks family who lived at Somerset Farm on Sutherland’s Rd. Until the 1950s there were probably only a couple of properties on this road.

In 1969 Tara Lodge Ltd applied for consent to build a dwelling for a farm manager and animal shelters. It was a stud farm for horses.

I searched Ancestry website but couldn’t find anyone with this surname living on this road. The s on the end of a street name usually means that it was named after someone and it used to have an apostrophe.

Most houses on this street have been built since 2019 and it is still being subdivided. There is a cottage from 1890 but I didn’t manage a photo of it and it didn’t look like a house from 1890s. On one side of the street a wetlands area is being developed and this is where the Cashmere drain / stream runs. There is one property that I would loved to have had a better look at as it had interesting brick buildings. This property was built in either 1975 or 1985. I kept catching a glimpse of a fake Tudor house but I eventually worked out that it possibly has a Sparks Rd address and is down a very long driveway. I have to confess that I am not sure about this. I remember when this road was rural and you could mostly only see paddocks. I came out with the walking group King’s Birthday Weekend to walk the wetlands area and hadn’t realised how much it had been developed so came back to walk a few streets. At least half of the road doesn’t have a footpath but there is a nice wide grass verge to walk on. Near Sparks Rd end there is a huge building being built and it doesn’t look like a house.

Glendore Drive in Halswell and it is too new for the library website or street view. A small amount of information from the council website. Glendore is the name of the farm that was previously on the development site and is the developers name for the subdivision.

I have thoroughly searched and I can’t find any information about a farm called Glendore in Halswell. The only Glendore Farm that I could find was in Hororata. The brick entrance at 430 Sparks Rd shows a plaque on the brick entrance in street view for 2008 but I can’t read the name. I have a photo of the entrance to the property but there wasn’t a plaque on it any longer and it has been demolished since I took the photo.

The houses here were built in 2023 and 2024 and houses are still being built. Only a couple are occupied and one has so many windows that it looks like a goldfish bowl. I would love to have taken a photo but I wouldn’t have been comfortable doing this as you could see right into the bedrooms when walking past. Most building sites have security cameras called spytower which just flashes at you. This building site had cameras which not only flashed at you but had an alarm. I even managed to set it off when walking on the footpath on the opposite side from the camera. I would love to know what the security company thought about a mature (old) woman talking a photo of their security camera. I couldn’t resist. I might have to come back to walk this street again once the subdivision is finished.

Storr Close in Halswell and the street is too new for the library website or google maps street view. Reasonable amount of information from the council website. Edmund Storr Halswell (1790 – 1874), born Edmund Storr Haswell, was an English barrister. He came to New Zealand on behalf of the New Zealand Company and lived here from March 1841 to April 1845. He held some official positions, including Commissioner of Native Reserves and judge. After he had returned to England, he became a member of the Canterbury Association and was one of just two people in England at the time who had actually seen the Canterbury Plains. Some landmarks are named after him, including the Christchurch suburb of Halswell and Point Halswell in Wellington Harbour.

There is also a Edmund Storr Road in Halswell and I will have to walk this street fairly soon. Edmund Storr Halswell might have visite Canterbury but he lived in Wellington during his very brief stay in New Zealand. There is a Wikipedia page about him.

The houses on this street were built in 2023 and 2024 and they are still being built. I was surprised to see that the footpath was on both sides of the street as many recent subdivisions have only put a footpath on one side of street. I will probably come back to walk this street again once the subdivision has been finished. My reason is that I want to know what is going to happen to a narrow strip of land at the end of the street. The narrow strip of land goes from this street to Sparks Rd and I am wondering if it is going to form a reserve or a walkway. Managed to get a street view look at the strip of land from Sparks Rd. If my memory is correct there used to be a lovely brick wall and entrance way to a property here before the subdivision.

Edited as I found that a Walter and Charlotte Storr lived here from about 1968 to 1990. Sadly Walter died in 1968 and he was a gardener. Charlotte applied to build a dwelling on the property in December 1968 which was only a couple of months after her husband died. The property was 5 acres of land. Personally I would prefer the street to be named after Charlotte Storr rather than Edmund Storr Halswell.

Eccles Place in Halswell. This street is too new for library website or google maps. Some houses have been built but most are still in the process of being built. Surprising for a street of this type it has a footpath on both sides of the street. No one living on this street yet.

Information from the council website about the naming of the street. John Eccles Ferguson was a previous owner on the land in the 1870’s and 1880’s. Ferguson and Robert Rainey later held mortgage for Frank Birdling, who owned the land, in 1907.

A couple of alternative names were suggested. Gillam Place – Frank Gillam Birdling (1865-1939) was a previous owner of the land in the 1910s. Birdling settled in the area in the 1840s. Broker Place – Reginald Eugene Broker was a previous owner on the land in the 1950s.

I am not sure where the council got their information as John Eccles Ferguson wasn’t born until 1878 and his father John Ferguson purchased the land 1878. John Ferguson was born in Ireland in 1830 and at the age of 17 he went to America. He returned to Ireland but in 1858 went to Melbourne to go gold mining. In 1861 he went to Otago for gold mining. After a brief stint on the West Coast and Nelson he settled in Canterbury in 1866 dealing in livestock. He still owned the property in Halswell when he died in 1904. His property was called Melrose. He is buried in Addington cemetery so guess who will be taking a short to the cemetery to look for his grave. His son John Eccles Ferguson still owned the property until 1927 when it was sold in a mortgagee sale. John Eccles Ferguson went bankrupt in 1926 and being a bankrupt seems to be one of the major reasons in Christchurch to have a street named after you. After the land was sold John Eccles Ferguson moved to the Sockburn / Hornby area and he was still a stock dealer which was the same profession as his father. Papers Past had the best information about the family.

I walked this street on Sunday afternoon as it was a lovely afternoon for a walk. I probably won’t go back once all the houses have been built as they are all looking fairly boring so far.

Beamsgate Road and too new for the library website. Information from the council website – Beamsgate Road – an old flower, gift and craft supply shop that was located in Sutherlands Road for many years until c2000. It was operated by the resident owner and her husband and was well known and frequented by the local Halswell community.

Papers Past only had ads for Beamsgate Farm which was at 57 Sutherlands Rd. From the National Library of New Zealand I found that the owners of the farm were Shirley and Bevan Olsen.

The street ran between Welsh Road and Bunz Road and the houses here were built between 2020 and 2022. Footpath mostly was on both sides of the street. One of the properties was fairly large and I did wonder if it was were the original Beamsgate Farm. The houses were fairly ordinary and didn’t stand out for me.

Welsh Road in Halswell and too new for the library website. From the Council website – Welsh Road named after Miss Gabrielle Patricia Welsh, a local identity who lived in Sutherlands Road in the adjoining property to Halswell Downs, with her brother for 80 years, and who in January 2002 received a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for services to the community and persons with disabilities. In her later years she moved to the Anthony Wilding Retirement Village where she lived until passing away. A fitting way to remember someone who gave so much of her time to so many – a women of great character. Please note that any spelling mistakes in the blurb is the fault of the council as I have copied and pasted direct from their agenda.

There wasn’t anything on Papers Past about Gabrielle Welsh and only a brief mention online about receiving the Order of Merit. Gabrielle lived at 409 Sutherland Rd and electoral rolls mostly describe her as a spinster but a couple of times she is described as a farmer. Pity that I couldn’t find out more information.

The houses here were built between 2019 and 2021 and most looked very ordinary but I quite liked a couple of them. The footpath was on both sides of the street which pleased me. At the end of the street there was an entrance to a walkway. Another pleasant looking street.

Bunz Road in Halswell – this street is too new to be on the library website and I thought that the library would have added new streets with their recent update but they haven’t. Not impressed with the recent update to the street information on the library website. I did get a reasonable amount of information from the council website – the Bunz drain runs along the east side of the subdivision. It is spring fed from two or three springs within or adjoining the subdivision. The spring fed drain runs into the Cashmere Stream on the southern boundary of the subdivision and eventually feeds into the Heathcote River. Eels and trout live in the waterway. The springs are protected and will be planted with native trees. Naming the main entrance road, which curves to also run parallel to the drain, after Bunz drain will be a reminder of its origin and significance.

From the Ancestry website I was able to find a Denis Alfred Haydon Bunz who was a farmer living on Hendersons Rd in the 1950s. Denis’s grandfather was from Denmark. I couldn’t find a map of the drains in this area and I am sure that the drain would have been named after the Bunz family farm. The houses on this street were all built between 2019 and 2023 and they didn’t stand out for me but it looked like a pleasant street. I was impressed that there was a footpath on both sides of the street apart from the section that ran next to the reserve. The entrance to the street had the words Halswell Downs on a wall.

Repton Street in Merivale – Named after Repton School in Derbyshire. One of a number of streets in the area named after English public schools. First appears in the Star in 1905 when “cheap building sections” in Repton Street are advertised for sale. First appears in street directories in 1910.

A small amount of information from the library website. A reasonable amount of information on Papers Past. There were lots of birth and death notices plus ads for sections and houses. One death notice in 1920 was for W A M Musgrove a builder and contractor. He was only 46. The social notices were fairly busy. In 1955 the McLean Institute purchased a house on this street as temporary housing for their residents from the Manchester St property.

Most houses on this street were built in the 1960s and 1970s. There was an interesting one from the 1990s. There are a couple of houses from 1905 that are in good condition but the other one from 1905 I suspect has now been demolished. There is a new house being built there. A mixture of styles with a few ugly ones. There is one from 1920 which is in a neglected condition which is a pity as I think it would be gorgeous if it was repaired. I could only find street view from 2015 which is unusual.

Naseby Street in Merivale – Named after Naseby Church of England School, Northamptonshire. One of a number of streets in the area named after English public schools. “Cheap” building sections

in “Naseby Street in the Merivale Estate” are advertised for sale in the Star in 1905. First appears in street directories in 1906. [37 Naseby Street was the home of William Sefton Moorhouse (1825?-1881), a lawyer and politician, who became the provincial superintendent.]

A small amount of information from the library website and I don’t know why they have a question mark by his year of birth. Lots of information online for William Sefton Moorhouse.

A reasonable of information on Papers Past especially in the social pages. There were lots of ads in 1905 for sections on this street. Between 1910 and 1912 Santa Cruz Private Maternity Hospital also known as Nurse Cowper’s Home was on this street. It had moved to Carlton Rd by 1914. The Todhunter family was frequently mentioned and Mrs Todhunter often held garden fetes in her garden. She also seemed to have open house for visitors from the countryside. In 1909 Eva Veronica von Haast the only daughter of Sir Julius von Haast died at Mrs Todhunter’s house. Another family that was mentioned was the Ballins family. Bernard Ballins set up a cordial manufacturing business in Christchurch and it was called Ballins Brothers but was eventually called Ballins Brewery. Selwyn House School set up a boarding house on this street in 1935 but it quickly became too small and moved to Papanui Rd.

The houses here date from 1880 to 2023 and I couldn’t get a decent of the house from 1880 but it looked lovely. The house from 1905 is gorgeous. Many houses here were built between the 1950s and 1970s. There was a mixture of house styles with some lovely older houses and ugly modern houses. Not all of the modern houses were ugly. It looked like a pleasant street but another one that would be beyond my budget.