Another of the early wooden hotels in Christchurch which was originally an eating house, later a hotel. The licensee from 1898 was John Fox (1836-1907). This building was condemned by the Licensing Committee in 1902 and plans for a new hotel were approved in March 1902. See: Early Christchurch Hotels compiled by Jim Watson.
Source: Canterbury Times, 7 May 1902, p. 36.
Do you have any photographs of Canterbury hotels? If so, feel free to contribute to our collection.
Kete Christchurch is a collection of photographs and stories about Christchurch and Canterbury, past and present. Anyone can join and contribute.
“26 Model T Bus at Coopers Creek near Rangiora. The lady, my late mother and her two brothers. No windows, doors or window tarpaulins, so a curtain needs to be rolled down if it rains, also one for the door.”
Christchurch City Libraries has been running an annual Photo Hunt in conjunction with the city’s Heritage Week since 2008. The 2016 Photo Hunt is running again from 1 – 31 October. During the month of October we will be posting a series of images from earlier Photo Hunts.
One of the winning entries in the 2015 Christchurch City Libraries Photo Hunt. PH15-055. CC-BY-NC-ND- 3.0 NZ
Kaye Neely from Miramar Wellington, departing at Christchurch Airport with anNACair hostess. Kaye had come down for a holiday with her older cousins. As she was only four at the time she’d had to tell a “little white lie” saying she was five (the minimum age to travel unaccompanied. She was beautifully dressed in the new dress her mum had made for the occasion and wearing a hat and matching bag. Date: 1974.
Christchurch City Libraries has been running an annual Photo Hunt in conjunction with the city’s Heritage Week since 2008. The 2016 Photo Hunt is running again from 1 – 31 October. During the month of October we will be posting a series of images from earlier Photo Hunts.
The Spit, New Brighton. [3 Dec. 1954] File Reference CCL Photo Collection 22, Img02328Richard Greenaway is an Information Librarian with an interest in the history of East Christchurch. He has an eye for a good story and the skill and patience to check and cross check all kinds of references. He has compiled a wonderful array of New Brighton stories. Here he explores the bridges early residents of Christchurch used to travel to New Brighton.
Dallington bridge
Built in 1883 by Henry Jekyll (1844-1913) and Henry Philip Hill (1845-1923). They owned Rural Section 183, at Dallington, to the north of the Avon River. The river was the western boundary of the property and the northern boundary was McBratneys Road. Jekyll and Hill planned to put a tramline through to New Brighton. Nothing came of the venture but the original Dallington bridge.
Bower bridge
Bower bridge, Wainoni Road, was opened by Sir John Cracroft Wilson in 1876. The present Bower bridge opened in 1942. In the 1920s and ‘30s the Inter-City bus service pioneered transport on Wainoni Road, across the Bower bridge and to North New Brighton and New Brighton. This was a private service, very popular, cheap and run on the smell of an oily rag. It was managed and owned by Walter Bussell (1887-1967) who had his headquarters on Bowhill Road. The bus company had been in competition with the Christchurch Tramway Board’s trams on the Pages Road route and there was what was called the ‘bus war’. Trams and buses would try to beat each other to pick up the next passenger.
A route was put through by New Brighton Tramway Company. Opened in 1887 horse trams ran from Christchurch to New Brighton between 1887 and 1905, after which the Christchurch Tramway Board took over and electrified the line. The company’s line was later opened as a public road, Pages Road, named after tramway company director, Joshua Page (1826-1900).
One of the people in charge of the New Brighton Tramway Company was George McIntyre (1841-1934), a surveyor by occupation. He was Mayor of New Brighton when King Edward’s Well (outside the New Brighton Library) was unveiled in 1902.
The original Seaview Road bridge was a flat bridge. It was replaced at the beginning of 1930s by the present bridge. This was designed by H. F. Toogood, father of Selwyn Toogood. You can see photos of the bridges in George W. Walsh’s New Brighton, a regionalhistory, 1852-1970.
The modern Seaview Road bridge is a high bridge. The hump in the bridge is there because Richard Bedward Owen (1873-1948), tailor and conservationist, known as ‘River Bank Owen’, argued that boats could come ‘sailing with the tide’ to Christchurch. They never have. Read all about it in A bridge with some history.
Opened in 1927 it was the result of the work of New Brighton Borough councillor, Herbert Arundel Glasson (1866-1931). He lived in South Brighton and persuaded fellow residents that they should be a ‘special rating area’ and pay extra rates to the New Brighton Borough Council providing that a South Brighton bridge was built. A small wooden bridge was built. This meant that South Brighton residents could cross the river and get to town, saving the long journey up to Central Brighton. A new bridge was opened in 1981.
Estuary bridge
The Estuary Bridge has never been built. It has been proposed by various people over the years. See The Bridge that never was.
I have to venture out on the roads from time to time for work and I’m finding the “new normal” is sharing the road space with lots of big scary trucks.
When they are parked and being loaded with rubble and silt it’s comforting that work is being done but then they lurch off onto city streets – another road user to share with.
There are several hundred trucks a day working in the CBD alone and the police are enforcing new speed and weight limits which is good to know. If you are planning a route across the city (and who doesn’t check the map these days) the trucks heading to the landfill are going this way:
• Madras Street (return Barbadoes Street)
• Bealey Avenue
• Whitmore Street
• Hills Road
• Akaroa Street
• Marshlands Road
• Prestons Road
• Landfill Road
What is it about trains (and other kinds of transport) that is so attractive to people? I struggle to see the appeal myself but I am fascinated by the voracious appetite in the publishing world for books on various forms of conveyance, with trains being an especially popular topic.
Three such new titles have just hit library shelves. My favourite would have to be Transit maps of the world. Yes, that’s right, a whole book about transit maps. Of course, most people would be familiar with the elegant design of the map for the London Underground but failing that, have you ever considered any other maps of this kind worthy of glossy colour photos and a potted history? Well someone has, and they’ve published it. In fact the book in question is actually a second revised and expanded edition. Extraordinary!
Train fanciers might also to be interested to know that Cade’s locomotive guide, the must-have publication for railway modellers is newly arrived and chocka-block with colour photos of trains (both real and model) as well as a mindboggling array of statistics and measurements, most of which I do not understand. I can’t for the life of me imagine what “tractive effort” is but I’m sure those in the know will find this information useful.
The illustrated encyclopaedia of extraordinary automobiles has a lot within its pages to hold the interest of car enthusiasts and non-enthusiasts alike. Grouped by decade the automobiles detailed run (or should that be drive) the gamut from the NASA lunar roving vehicle to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the Batmobile, James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 and the “popemobile”. My favourites would have to be the sci-fi inspired concept cars of the fifties and sixties like the Ford Gyron. Very Jetsons.
In September last year Richard “Hamster” Hammond, elfin presenter on the popular motoring show Top Gear, crashed at 460km/h when a tyre on his jet powered car blew out. His story has captivated the world’s media, Top Gear devotees, anyone interested in miraculous stories of survival and recovery. This week Richard Hammond spoke to John Campbell and discussed his new book On the Edge: my story which tells of the accident and his life since the crash.
This adds to the growing tally of books by the Top Gear team of Hammond, floppy haired James May and chambray bedecked Jeremy Clarkson. The latest due off the press are Notes from the Hard Shoulder from James May and Don’t stop me now by Clarkson. While they do all write about cars, they also do opinion pieces on a range of subjects – Clarkson opines on “the unfortunate collapse of the British empire; why Galapagos tortoises are all mental; France, reduced to the size of a small coconut; why Jeremy Paxman and the bass guitarist of AC/DC aren’t so very different”.
James May has done some interesting work on 20th century popular culture. Due to arrive soon is his TV tie in James May’s 20th century
which examines the iconic themes of the century: flight, space travel, television, mechanised war, medicine, skyscrapers, and more. He also combined with wine expert Oz Clarke to make Oz and James’s Big wine adventure.
![The Spit, New Brighton. [3 Dec. 1954] File Reference CCL Photo Collection 22, Img02328](https://i0.wp.com/christchurchcitylibraries.com/heritage/photos/collection22/02328.jpg)
![An electric tram crosses the New Brighton bridge with a barge moored underneath [ca. 1910] File Reference CCL PhotoCD 2, IMG0005](https://i0.wp.com/christchurchcitylibraries.com/heritage/photos/disc2/IMG0005.jpg)
![Seaview Road, New Brighton [ca. 1920] File Reference CCL PhotoCD 12, IMG0006](https://i0.wp.com/christchurchcitylibraries.com/heritage/photos/disc12/IMG0006.jpg)
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