Lyttelton 1855

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This is a restoration of the earliest known photograph of Lyttelton. Dated 1855, it is view down Canterbury Street from the north-east corner of the intersection at London Street. Taken from the immediate vicinity of what is now the site of the Volcano Cafe, it shows what was then the main shopping street of the early port. The conflaguration of 1870 cleared the way for the horizontal London Street to replace Canterbury Street in that respect.

Viewed from the south-west corner of London Street are:

Armitage Brothers's Butchery

William Pratt's Drapery and General store. Pratt subsequently sold out to the Baker and Confectioner Thomas Gee (this photograph comes from the collection of Gee's Grandson, Alfred Selwyn Bruce). William Pratt went on to found the Christchurch store that became Ballantynes.

The front fence of the house of Henry William Reid. A Dr. McCheyne lost his life by falling down the (extant) entrance steps behind the gate.

Unknown shop.

Samuel Gundry's hardware store

Mrs Coe's Drapery shop

The Livery Stables of Thomas Bruce and Coe (the aforementioned Alfred Selwyn Bruce (1866-1936) was the son of Thomas Bruce (1826-1887) and his wife Ellen, formerly Gee (1833-1928).

The first Mitre hotel on the corner of Norwich Quay, opened by Major Hornbrook in 1849 and destroyed by fire in 1870.

Half a Building

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Probably photographed in 1906, this is Harry Gudsell's Saddlery on the north side of Cashel Street, in what is now part of the City Mall (between Colombo Street and Oxford Terrace).

The building first enters the city's visual records in 1855 as the premises of the Hairdresser Tommy (Thomas Bowhill) Thompkins (below). Later a Publican at Heathcote, Bowhill Road at North Beach is named after him.


The Saddlery is standing at the extreme Left of an original quarter acre section, first occupied by the premises of the Carrier Richard Sutcliffe and now the site of the Sony Electronics shop (below).


This part of Cashel Street was the first city block to be entirely occupied by buildings and was the centre of the early town's original shopping and banking district. Demand for street frontage could have neccesitated the removal of the the Right hand part of the Saddlery building in order to allow access to the rear for horses and possibly wheeled vehicles at a time when the (not visible) building to the Right of the Saddlery was constructed. It would have been a later building on the same original section, to which the Saddlery appears braced.


The Saddlery would have been sited to the Left of the above group of buildings, photographed in 1862.

The brick building to the Left of the Saddlery was designed by Bejamin Mountfort and built in 1879 as an extension to Mountfort's 1875 Ironmongery for Twentyman and Cousins (below).


Both the 1875 building and the later extension still exist (below), but only the facade of the upper floor of the extension has not been modified beyond recognition. The gated right of way (draped with blankets in the top photograph) is also extant and would have originally given access to stables and for the weekly night cart.


At the time that the top photograph was taken the Twentyman and Cousins' building had become the premises of A. G. Healing and Company, bicycle trade suppliers and vendors of the Ideal and Leader brands of bicycle tyres.

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An early photograph of Harry and Sarah Ann Gudsell
Born at Weedons in 1871, Henry (Harry) Gudsell is recorded as a Saddler at Sefton in 1905. By 1910 he was living in Division Road (now Street), Riccarton, later moving to nearby Picton Avenue.

Probably the last surviving building from the earliest phase of the inner city's development Harry's Saddlery had been replaced by 1907 with a two storey brick building. Harry moved his premises to the other side of the old Twentyman and Cousins' building. The business is listed at the new address in 1925 as Gudsell and Close, Saddlers of 81 Cashel Street.

A Board member of the Wharenui School, he was also a Councillor of the Riccarton Borough from 1913 until 1929. Harry Gudsell died in 1937.

Canterbury Heritage is gratefully indebted to Anthony Rackstraw, publisher of the excellent Early Canterbury Photographers web site for the photograph of his forebear's half building, which appears to be unique in the Christchurch visual record.

This Week in Canterbury History

Lyttelton, 4th of March 1855

The legendary sheep rustler James Mackenzie, sentenced to five years' imprisonment, made a third escape from the Lyttelton Goal, but was re-captured eleven days later. He was unconditionally pardoned in January 1856.

Scots Highlander 'Jock' Mackenzie became one of New Zealand's most enduring folk heroes when he was arrested for stealing 1000 sheep from The Levels station, near Temuka.

Mackenzie's daring exploits won him the admiration of many of the marginalised; small would-be farmers wanting their own land, or resenting the power of plutocratic wealthy landowners, could identify with him, as could those who didn't fit the smugly Puritan mould of bourgeois Canterbury society.

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Theatre Royal Celebrates a Century

The third Theatre Royal, which stands opposite the original site in Christchurch's Gloucester Street East, opened on the 25th of February, 1908 with a performance of the Broadway Musical The Blue Moon.

There is a display of theatre programmes from the last 100 years at the Christchurch Central Library (25 February - 16 March 2008, daily 10:00am - 4:00pm). The presentation also includes a 1997 documentary film Shadows on the Stage. Narrated by Judy Newburgh, an Usher at the Theatre Royal for over forty years, the film reveals not only the theatre's history and architecture, but also a behind the scenes account of life at the theatre. The screenings are every hour between 10 am and 4pm.

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