Studholme St in Somerfield – Duncan Street was incorporated into Studholme Street. Named after John Studholme (1829- 1903). Duncan Street was named after Thomas Smith Duncan (1821- 1884). Studholme, a lawyer, later became Crown Prosecutor. In 1857 he became the first representative of Timaru in the Provincial Council. He was a member of parliament 1867-1874 and 1879-1881. He married Lucy Ellen Sykes Moorhouse (1838?- 1926), a sister of William Sefton Moorhouse (1825-1881), in 1862. Studholme Street is first mentioned in the Star in 1906. First appears in street directories in 1907. Duncan, a lawyer, was a crown prosecutor. Duncan Street first appears in street directories in 1904 running off Somerfield Street. It was incorporated into and re-named Studhome Street on 1 September 1948.

A reasonable of information from the library website and I have just noticed their spelling mistake. John Studholme has a Wikipedia page about him so I don’t need to research him. Thomas Smith Duncan doesn’t have a Wikipedia page but Discover the Delights of Peeling Back History had the best information for him. Thomas Duncan started the firm Duncan and Cotterill which is still a legal firm. He was described as a bit of a rascal as he ran off with a young woman his employer had guardianship over. They were married at Gretna Green and then came to New Zealand.

I checked maps to doublecheck the streets and Duncan St on the various maps ran from Ashgrove Tce and across Somerfield St to meet Studholme St near the cemetery. Studholme St ran from Barrington St to Duncan St and this street was described as running parallel to the cemetery.

There was a reasonable amount of information on Papers Past but I did limit my searching to Duncan Street Spreydon and Duncan Street Somerfield as there was also a Duncan Street in Sumner and other towns.

In 1904 there was an ad for a missing dog. The dog’s name was Nemo so this appealed to my warped sense of humour. Lots of birth and death notices. There was one ad in 1909 that rather concerned me as the person was wanting to buy swords or bayonets. The street had several market gardens, a landscape garden, nurseries and poultry farms.

A Mr E T Horne owned one of the market gardens and in 1916 he managed to dig up a complete human skeleton in his garden. I don’t which end of Duncan St he lived but if it was the cemetery end of the street the skeleton could have escaped from there. Mr E T Horne had a son William and in 1917 William was called up for military service. William refused and put in for an exemption on the grounds that he was an American citizen. William Horne was born in New Zealand but his father was American. His argument was that he was automatically an American citizen because of his father but this was ruled invalid. He was a no show at the appeal board hearing as he had run off to America.

The rest of the information was a bit boring with a few ads and death notices. In 1948 the street was merged with Studholme St.

Studholme St had cheap sections available in 1905 plus between 1905 and 1910 there were many ads for sections and houses. Pine Farm in 1917 had potatoes for sale. The chickens in this suburb were everywhere as Studholme Farm had chickens. There was a case of polio in 1925. There was an obituary for Fred Cooke in June 1930. Nearby Cooke St was named after Fred Cooke. The obituary made a big thing about Fred using the cemetery as a shortcut even at night. It was noted that many men wouldn’t be brave enough to use the cemetery as a shortcut.

From personal experience it is the living and not the dead that you have to worry about in cemeteries.

There were still chickens for sale in this street in the 1950s plus plants for sale.

I walked this street on Sunday and I did it in a bit of a roundabout way as I walked it between Somerfield St and Ashgrove Tce. I then finished walking Somerfield St and went down Barrington St to rejoin Studholme St. This is too confusing so I will describe my walk as if I started at Barrington St.

There are still many older houses at this end of Studholme St with a couple of modern ones in the middle of them. The modern houses look so out of place here. Almost opposite Somerfield school is the Somerfield Community Play Centre. The school takes up a fair portion of one side of the street and there is a little bit of street art on a building at the school. Opposite the school as well as the Play Centre there are more houses. On the sharp bend there is Somerfield Park and I took photos of the toilet block. It had street art on it. It is this corner where it would have been two separate streets until 1948. Walking towards Somerfield St I am walking where Duncan St used to be. Still some lovely older houses here with some 1980s houses amongst them. One house had a very overgrown garden and makes my garden look almost tidy in comparison. I cross Somerfield St and there is the same mixture of older houses and ones from the 1980s. There was a bright red house and I thought that it was an old church at first but I was wrong. About half way down there is a big empty section where state houses have been demolished and they will be building new ones. I believe that 6 units will be built where there used to be one house. This is a pleasant tree lined street but it was rather windy when I was walking here on Sunday morning and there was at least one tree branch on the ground. I had a brief chat with a local and she said that the wind had damaged some of her plants.

There were nearly 40 older houses on this street built between 1905 and 1920 and most looked in good condition. The next big lot of houses were all built in the 1980s with only a few built in the other decades.

Woodard Tce in Somerfield – formerly Cemetery Lane and Simpsons Lane. Cemetery Lane was named because of its proximity to Sydenham Cemetery. Also named Simpsons Lane. These are two informal names which do not appear in street directories. Re-named Woodard Terrace. Named after the Woodard family, “a family of very early settlers”. Named Woodard Terrace on 2 August 1939. The source says: “A letter has been received from the Somerfield Burgesses’ Association stating that some time ago the Council requested them to suggest a name for a lane that runs from Somerfield Road to the Sydenham Cemetery at present known as Cemetery Lane and Simpsons Lane, neither of which is considered suitable. The Association therefore suggests that the lane be named Woodard Terrace after a family of very early settlers”. John Woodard (1834-1909) is listed in 1890 street directories as a bootmaker of Ferry Road. First appears in street directories in 1948.

A reasonable amount of information from the library website for a street with only 14 houses. I got a bit confused when looking at Papers Past especially in connection with the Simpson’s Lane part. I had a good look at old maps and mystery solved.

The maps between 1912 and 1930 show a lane here but with no name. The same maps show Simpson’s Lane off Milton St and not anywhere near Sydenham Cemetery. Map for 1941 has it down as Cemetery Rd and Simpson’s Lane is still off Milton St. The map for 1958 has it as Woodard Tce and Simpson’s Lane is now Dominion Ave. Note the library website doesn’t mention that Dominion Ave used to be Simpson’s Lane.

On Papers Past I ignored most entries for Simpson’s Lane as they has nothing to do with this street. There were no entries under Cemetery Lane for this street. The only streets called Cemetery Lane were in Woolston and Lyttelton.

It is a bit strange that the Somerfield Association said that it was informally known as Cemetery Lane and Simpson’s Lane. I can understand Cemetery Lane but not Simpson’s Lane. Most entries in the 1930s referred to it as Cemetery Rd. In 1933 the name of Cemetery Rd was objected to by residents and members of the Association were given the task of coming up with a better name by the next meeting. In 1935 and 1936 there were sections available on the corner of Stenness Ave and Cemetery Rd. The street was still being called Cemetery Rd when the tar sealing was being done. By the 1950s the Woodard Tce name appears in articles and ads. A few death notices. In 1950 pipes were being laid and the residents would have been very pleased about this. In the 1930s there were many complaints about the open drain and the drain was described as a grave menace to the local children. I assume that the writer of grave menace used the word grave as a bit of a pun because of the nearby cemetery. In 1979 there still seem to be drainage issues and in 1980 the strip of land on this street which had been piped was to be turned into a reserve.

I often mention that streets in Christchurch are named after men who went bankrupt. This street is no exception as John Woodard was bankrupt in 1881. This was when his shop was on High St. I got a bit confused when it looked like he went bankrupt again in 1907 in Doyleston but that was his son. John Woodard move around a bit with his shop as he started out on what is now Papanui Rd and I found a photo of his shop dated 1875. He was then in High St and then on Ferry Rd. He was living on Somerfield St when he died in 1909. I found an article from 1950 written by a daughter who said that her parents had only been married 4 days in 1858 when they left on the ship Zealandia to come to New Zealand. Note the passenger list has them as a married couple with a child.

I walked this street on Sunday and I had parked on this street as this is plenty of parking because of Somerfield Park. The houses are only on one side of the street and on the other side there is the reserve and Somerfield Park. A few houses date from 1940s and a few from 2000s and what stood out for me the most was someone’s gate and fence.

Somerfield St in Somerfield – Named because it runs through the suburb of Somerfield which, in turn, is named after Somerfield House near Maidstone, Kent, England. Somerfield House was the birthplace of Edward Brenchley Bishop (1811-1887), chairman of the Town Council in 1866 and mayor of Christchurch 1872- 1873. He and his younger brother Frederick Augustus Bishop (1818-1894) owned 100 acres (40 hectares) on the Heathcote River. They appear on the electoral roll for the district of Christchurch in 1853 as the owners of Somerfield Farm. First mentioned in The Press in 1901. First appears in street directories in 1902.

A reasonable amount of information from the library website. Note a James Freeman owned the property Somerfield when it was sold off in 1900. James Freeman owned tearooms on High St and he also owned animals including chickens. His house was destroyed by fire in 1900 and apparently he was so disheartened that he decided to sell the property and the land. The land was subdivided and in 1903 there were lots of ads for sections. James Freeman can’t have sold all the land as in 1924 he was selling the shops and hall that he owned on the Somerfield St and Colombo St corner. The Barrington St end of Somerfield St was owned by a Mr Clark and I don’t know if he sold it as one big block of land in 1898 or if he was the one who subdivided the land and was selling off sections in a subdivision called Beckenham Estate. Lots of information on Papers Past and apart from the usual birth and death notices it was a busy street. Between 1903 when the sections were being sold and 1920 there were several entries regarding the tramline. Mr Cummings had a poultry farm which was interesting as James Freeman also had poultry before he sold up. In 1908 the Education Dept were looking at 3 sites for the South Spreydon School. Choices were between the site where it ended up being built, a section opposite Baretta St or on Heathcote Stream. I checked old maps and couldn’t find a street with the name Heathcote Stream. The school had it’s official opening in October 1911 and by this time they were calling it Somerfield Street School. I was amused by a letter to the editor in January 1912 where someone was complaining that the doors opened the wrong way. She thought that they should open outwards rather than inwards.

In April 1913 the new Beckenham Hall that was owned by James Freeman was opened by the mayor of Spreydon. It was mostly known as Beckenham Hall but occasionally was referred to as Somerfield St Hall. The writers to the editor were fairly active about the hall as at least one writer objected to it being called Beckenham Hall as it wasn’t in Beckenham. The hall was close to the Strickland St / Colombo St end of Somerfield St and these days the shops in this area are called the Beckenham shops. There was one mention in 1911 of the plans for the Somerfield Street Coronation Bath being approved on the condition that when emptying the water from the bath into the Somerfield St Channel that it should cause no nuisance. I don’t know if they ever got built but the pool at the school was mentioned a few times.

Note there were lots of entries about the hall as it was used for so many events plus the scouts used it.

The year 1920 had several entries as Mr H Williams moved into the street with his new poultry farm. There was a meeting at the hall to discuss the advantages of joining Greater Christchurch. At this stage they were still Spreydon Borough. There was also a request for a footpath to go from Somerfield St to the cemetery. This subject will be covered under another street but they did eventually get their lane. In 1925 there was an outbreak of polio in the street mostly in children. There were the usual complaints about drainage issues and the condition of the street.

We get to the 1930s and in 1932 the new Methodist Sunday School Rooms were opened. In 1938 there was a fire in a hedge of the government property on the corner of Somerfield St and Duncan St ( Studholme St). I didn’t find out what sort of government property was on the street. There must have been high winds in 1949 as a nor west gale caused a lot of damage in Christchurch and Mr Williams had his chicken coops destroyed by the winds. The chickens weren’t very happy about this and many of them ended up being stuck high up in trees and needed to be rescued.

There didn’t seem to be too much drama from 1950 onwards, the usual birth and death notices plus engagement notices. Lots of ads.

When I walked this street I started at the Strickland St end where there are shops plus a big building which has a business in it. This is where the Beckenham Hall would have been but that is long gone. Apparently Beckenham Hall was a handsome brick building. Then it is lots of houses and there are still many houses dating from 1905 to 1925 on this street. Many of them are still lovely and well looked after. Just past Selwyn St there is a house that you need sunglasses to look at. The house is bright orange and it now has a bright green fence in front of it. I frequently drive past as I have friends on Somerfield St and I blink every time. There is Somerfield School plus a childcare business. At the Barrington St end there are more shops including a hairdresser where my neighbour Ai works. There is still a church hall at this end as well. The houses here cover every decade with many from the 1990s.The ones from the 1990s are mostly behind the older houses as it was a big thing in the 1990s to subdivide and built at the back of your property. I hope that the older houses will stay as they are too nice to be demolished.

Hadfield Courts at 15 Somerfield St. I decided to do a separate write up for this address. The units were opened in the 1970s as pensioner housing but is now social housing. When I was researching Somerfield St the name John Hadfield kept popping up. He really enjoyed writing letters to the editor and was frequently in disagreement with other people who wrote letters to the editor. He was a very busy man as he was mayor of Sydenham in 1899. He served on various local bodies including the Drainage Board. He was a foundation member of the Sydenham library plus involved with the Methodist church which was practically next door to him when he was living at 15 Somerfield St. He was living at 38 Strickland St when he died in March 1937. I was surprised that I couldn’t find an obituary for him. He was a bootmaker and he came out to New Zealand as a child. His father was also a bootmaker. In 1898 when he purchased 15 Somerfield St it had been part of a larger estate called Beckenham Estate. Note John Hadfield in his letters to the editor frequently got upset when he felt that Sydenham, Beckenham or Somerfield were used incorrectly to describe where streets or areas were.

Stenness Ave in Somerfield – Probably named after Stenness in the Orkney Islands, Scotland. First mentioned in The Press in 1928. First appears in street directories in 1929, running off Selwyn Street.

A tiny amount of information from the library website. This street was in the same 1925 subdivision as Cardiff Ave. Several entries on Papers Past for birth and death notices. In 1934 the Christchurch Reserve Committee planted potatoes at No 1 Stenness Ave. I found a couple of references to a reserve but couldn’t find it on any maps. The mayor Robert Mafeking MacFarlane lived on this street and he was burgled in 1940. Note Macfarlane wasn’t his name at birth but was the name of his stepfather. I did doublecheck the Ancestry website at this stage as my stepmother always claimed to have been related to him. Note my stepmother wasn’t the brightest of people so this is why I doublechecked plus I don’t recall that they were ever in contact and I also don’t recall that he came to my father’s funeral. Yes they were related as they shared the same mother and he would have been her half brother. He was a good 20 years older than my stepmother.

I hope that the people living in this area liked pipe bands. Every New Year in the 1950s and 1960s a man called Reg H Stillwell had an open air event and the public were invited to celebrate the New Year. In 1955 the locals were invited to bring their bagpipes but after this he had the Riccarton Pipe Band at the event. He was a busy man Reg Stillwell but in searching his name I discovered that he has a street name after him. I feel an urge to have a walk over in the New Brighton area coming on.

This is a lovely street with most houses built in the 1920s and 1930s. The houses are lovely and I really hope that the developers with their ugly modern houses stay away from this street. There is an older house which looks like it is being renovated.

Cardiff Ave in Somerfield and nothing on library website. This is a bit surprising as the street has been around since 1925. I looked at a map of Spreydon from 1912 and this map is very useful for this this area. There was one big section that went from Somerfield St to what is now Stenness Ave. Stenness Ave was in the same subdivision as Cardiff Ave. A reasonable amount of information on Papers Past. There were ads in 1925 for a subdivision which included new streets of Cardiff Ave and Stenness Ave. Most entries were for birth and death notices plus best street competitions. It was two engagement notices that jumped out at me. One engagement notice in 1973 was for Lorraine Hoskins getting engaged to Peter Lublow. That bought back some memories. The other engagement notice that caught my attention was from 1947 and it was for a Bernard William Smyth. I went googling to double check that it was the same person that I was remembering. I expected to have found Bernard Smyth’s obituary but Stuff’s revamp made this impossible. I also checked the Ancestry website to check electoral rolls. I did find Bernard Smyth’s father’s obituary on Papers Past. Bernard Smyth was a presenter on Town and Around for locals old enough to remember this show. He was also an author and I just checked the library website and they are only available to read at the library and can’t be borrowed. The various family trees on Ancestry website said that he lived and died in Lyttelton but that isn’t correct. After he retired he was living in Sumner but him and his wife are buried in a Lyttelton cemetery.

This was a pleasant street to walk with some lovely older houses. Most houses in the street were built in the 1920s and 1930s. One of the older houses now has a childcare business in it. I was amused by the garden decoration at one of the houses. I did go back to google maps and took a screenshot of the Smyth house which was a very ordinary looking 1930s house. It would have been a brand new modern house when the family moved there. I have been sidetracking yet again when looking for information about a street.

Holcombe Place in Somerfield – formerly Halcombe Place. Halcombe Place first appears in street directories in 1947. Becomes Holcombe Place in 1948.

A tiny amount of information from the library website. I couldn’t find anything on Papers Past about the naming of the street. Both spellings of the name were used in ads and articles from 1947 to 1975. Mostly ads, death notices and engagement notices. In 1975 there was an incident that required the armed offenders squad.

There is a Holcombe in the UK and I think that I have driven past it as it is in an area that I frequently visited. There is a vague Robert Falcon Scott connection to this town as his parents ran a brewery here at one stage. It is also possible that the street was named after a government official as it was a state house development in the 1940s and many of these developments were named after government officials.

Most of the houses in this street were built in the 1940s and many are still state houses. Several have been demolished and as the original houses were on large sections they will eventually be replaced with multi dwelling units if they follow the pattern of what is happening in other areas. I recently found a link that gives me the information about how many state houses are on a street. Yes I know that state house is no longer the official term for these houses. Note I am old enough to remember state house tenants coming into the Post Office with their rent book to pay their rent.

Bard St in Somerfield – formerly Grey Street. Grey Street first appears in street directories in 1941. Re-named Bard Street on 1 September 1948 when 120 streets were renamed.

A tiny amount of information from the library website. It was almost impossible to find out information about Grey St as there was thousands of entries on Papers Past. Even limiting my search to 4 newspapers there was thousands of entries. In June 1948 Grey St was to be changed to Hurley St but in August 1948 there was an amendment and it was to be called Bard St. My best guess for the name is to do with William Shakespeare. A few death notices and engagement notices. There was an entry about a fisherman drowning at the Rakaia River Mouth in 1966. The companion of the fisherman lived on Bard St. The fisherman was swept away by a freak wave and his companion tried to save him but he was then knocked over by a wave. The article mentions recovering the body plus rescuing the companion. I remember this event and I certainly remember the name of the rescuer. My family had a bach at the North Rakaia Huts and I would have been only 11 years old when this event happened.

I walked this street on Sunday and I didn’t like the street. Most houses were built in the 1940s and at least two of them are still State Houses / Housing Corp houses. I thought that more of them would have been State Houses but the Housing New Zealand website list has only two of them. No photos for this street and I didn’t feel comfortable or safe here.

Baretta St in Somerfield – Named after Frederick Baretta (1846?-1916). Several Italians were brought to New Zealand to quarry and dress the stone quarried on the north slope of Marleys Hill. Baretta was one of these and lived in nearby Dunn Street. First mentioned in The Press in 1904 when sections in Baretta Street, “Castellan Estate”, are advertised for sale. First appears in street directories in 1906.

A small amount of information from the library website. Papers Past had the usual birth and death notices. I couldn’t find out who the original two owners who sold the land were but as Frederick Baretta was selling sections at the same time he was possibly one of the land owners especially as the street is named after him. Between 1904 and 1907 there were a lot of ads for selling houses and sections and a company called Baker Bros seemed to be the estate agent for the subdivision. The road was formed in 1907. A reporter in 1905 was shown around the area by one of the agents from Baker Bros and there were new cottages being built on the 10 acres of land that was Castellan Estate. The land was put up for auction in December 1903 by the two owners. In 1977 Gordon Ogilvie in his write up about Marley’s Hill Quarry described Frederick Baretta as the principal quarryman and that he lived in one of the largest stone cottages. The article said that he moved to Somerfield in 1902 where a street is named after him yet the electoral rolls have him living on Dunn St as early as 1893. In 1980 there was a house fire where two people died and the fire was probably started by a cigarette butt.

This is a lovely wee street and it is narrowed in the middle. At least a quarter of the streets were built between 1905 and 1915. Many houses were built in the 1970s and 1980s and then there are some ugly ones from last year. The older houses are lovely with nice gardens. I did take a photo of a lovely older house on the corner of Baretta St and Somerfield St. The address for this house is actually Somerfield St and I was worried that they were planning on demolishing the house because of the fence around the property. I looked at street view and the house is being renovated. It was in a fairly poor condition before they started the work.

Dunn St in Somerfield – formerly Dunn’s Road and Dunn Road. Dunn’s Road is first mentioned in the Star in 1885. First appears in street directories in 1902. Becomes Dunn Street in 1914.

A tiny amount of information from the library website. Papers Past didn’t have any entries for Dunn Road. Not many entries for Dunn’s Road. A few death notices including one for John Baretta son of F Baretta. In 1906 F Baretta had 4 sections for sale. The street would have been named after Robert Dunn as it was his land that was being sold in 1880 to create 70 sections. The ad in 1880 about the 70 sections called it Dunn Street and in the same year they were calling for tenders to form the street. Robert Dunn had some sort of business connection with Charles Leitch. Robert Dunn was made bankrupt which is why he was selling the land to pay his debts. Charles Leitch in 1881 purchased Robert Dunn’s debts so that Robert Dunn could be discharged from bankruptcy. Also in 1881 unsold sections of Dunn’s land fronting Dunn St, Leitch St and Selwyn St were available.

Papers Past had lots of death notices plus some birth notices. In 1894 there were complaints about the state of the road and this seemed to be connected to the overflow of water from the Cashmere drain. It doesn’t seem to have been fixed as later in the 1890s the residents were wanting reduced rates because of the issue. It must have been an ongoing problem as it was also mentioned in 1888. The subject arises again in 1911 and the residents were fed up with the main drain overflowing and in their complaint they mentioned that about 3 years earlier they had to wade through knee deep water to get to their homes. They were also unhappy with cattle and horses on the footpaths.

After that Papers Past mostly had birth and death notices unto 1974 and 1975. For those two years most of the entries concerned the Epitaph Riders Headquarters. There were a huge number of fights between them and another gang. At least one person was shot. One entry said that up to 80 people were arrested.

This actually looked like a pleasant street when I walked it on Sunday and many of the houses from 1910s and 1920s still exist. I was a bit disappointed with the 2 houses from 1890 and didn’t even notice when walking here that they were from the 1890s. Most of the 1920s wooden villas are looking lovely. The house that did stand out for me was built in 1915 but I still can’t figure what the blue things are that are on the fence posts. There are houses from most decades including a couple of ugly modern places.