Now & Then: Samuel Farr's 1876 Montgomery Building

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Incorrectly annotated as being Addington's Southern Cross Hotel, we published an illustrated article about that building last month. However, further to an uneasy feeling about a vaguely familiar structure, we can now positively identify the extant 1876 Montgomery building.

Arriving in Christchurch in 1860 William Montgomery (1821-1914) established himself as W. Montgomery & Company Ltd., Timber, Coal and Hardware Merchants. His commercial enterprise prospered to the extent that he was able to open branches throughout the province. In 1874 Montgomery commenced the construction of new premises at the south-east corner of Colombo and Tuam Streets, these included a 130 by 30 feet timber storage shed and a two storey 95 by 50 feet workshop.

In 1876 Montgomery commissioned Samuel Charles Farr (1827-1918) to design a three storey head office and showrooms for the corner of the site. Farr had been Canterbury's first architect, arriving at Lyttelton in 1849. Among his extant buildings are the former Normal School in Cranmer Square and St Paul's Presbyterian church at the corner of Cashel and Madras Streets.

Built of stuccoed brick to a height of 45 feet above extensive cellars, Montgomery's building was originally 50 feet along the Colombo Street front and 48 feet along the Tuam Street side. By 1885 the size had been doubled with an extension along Tuam Street. Subsequently sold at auction to Fortunatus Evelyn Wright (1829-1912), the former Christchurch Postmaster, for £8,000, the old building has undergone many changes of ownership in its 133 years. In 2009 it is principally occupied by an "adult superstore."

As the Honourable William John Alexander Montgomery of Opawa, the first owner was at various times also a Little River farmer, member of the Canterbury Provincial Council for Heathcote, MP for Akaroa, member of the Legislative Council, etc. As a member of the board of governors of Canterbury College (now the University of Canterbury) from 1873 to 1903 and chairman from 1875 to 1885 he was primarily responsible for the completion of college buildings, the Christchurch Boys' High School, the School of Art, and the Canterbury Museum (all of which now comprise the principal buildings in our cultural precinct). One might speculate that W. Montgomery & Co. may have benefited significantly from the foregoing construction projects.

Christchurch Cob Cottages

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This is a restoration of a circa 1870 photograph of a family standing in front of their Cob or mud brick cottage.

This type of dwelling proliferated in the environs of Christchurch during the earliest period of settlement and were most common in the southern suburbs of Waltham, Sydenham and Addington, when that district was favoured as a location for market gardens.

Below is a circa 1880 photograph of a Cob cottage in Lincoln Road, Addington. The proportions, roof lines, chimney location and window frames indicate that it may be the same cottage as depicted above.


Only one of the city's original Cob cottages, dating from about 1860, is known to have survived. Pictured below a century ago, and then forty years later, it is situated near the southern end of the Ferry Road bridge at the estuary of the Heathcote River.



Nearby, in the Ferrymead Heritage Park, is a facsimile of an early Cob cottage (below). Sadly, it sports an inauthentic corrugated iron roof, a feature that doesn't enter the city's photographic record until 1879; a time when the surviving Cob cottages were little more than relics of an earlier era.


Originally thatched with Raupo (the indigenous Bulrush), below is an example of a re-roofed Cob cottage. Situated in Sydenham, it stood on the northern side of Brougham Street, jist east of Colombo Street until 1912, when this photograph was taken.

We're greatfully indebted to Steven McLachlan of the Shades Stamp Shopat 108 Hereford Street, Christchurch for the top photograph, which precipitated this article.

The Third Worcester Street Bridge

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Among the harder nuts to crack sent to us for identification by Steven McLachlan of the Shades Stamp Shop was this circa 1877 northerly aspect of the third Worcester Street bridge.

Built in 1869, it was replaced in 1885 by the current bridge. To the far Right can just be glimpsed the back of the Canterbury Assocition's 1850 Lands Office (subsequently the first premises of the Christchurch City Council). To the Right foreground is the fence of the Council's yard. Originally designated as the site for a municipal library, it's now the location of the Captain Robert Falcon Scott statue and the surrounding ornamental garden.


The photograph is dated to approximately 1877 by the telegraph pole just visible at the eastern end of the bridge, which was subsequently fitted with cross trees and cables in 1878 (above).

A similar view in the Winter of 2009

The Second Theatre Royal

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This is a previously unknown circa 1877 photograph of the second Theatre Royal on the southern side of Gloucester Street East, between Manchester and Colombo Streets. Immediately beyond it is Beatty's Palace Hotel of 1877. Designed by A. W. Simpson and built by John L. Hall of the Canterbury Opera Company, the theatre opened on the 4th of November 1876.

Built by Matthew Allen and Sons, the 1,100 seat theatre replaced an earlier building, which had begun life as the Canterbury Music Hall in 1861. To honour Alexandra, Princess of Denmark and Wales, in 1863 the music hall was renamed as the Princess Theatre, becoming the first Theatre Royal three years later.

The theatre closed in 1908, to be replaced by the extant third Theatre Royal opposite and by 1910 the Palace Hotel had been converted into a cinema and renamed as The King's Theatre. Both buildings were subsequently acquired by The Press, with the street frontages converted into shops and the upper levels renovated as the newspaper's Copy and News Rooms and production departments. Only the upper level facades and the theatre's original roof line survive.


Recently acquired by an Australian construction company as part of an eight building complex, the 1907 Press building in Cathedral Square will be renovated for use as an hotel or offices and a lane precinct created through the property to link Press Lane to the Cathedral Junction vintage tram terminus.

With work projected to commence in October 2009, the company is proposing to construct a new multi-storey building behind the facades of the Palace Hotel and the second Theatre Royal. The artist's rendition below indicates that the pediment's will be restored to their former glory and it is therefore hoped that Queen Victoria's Coat of Arms will once again grace Gloucester Street.


We're greatfully indebted to Steven McLachlan of the Shades Stamp Shop at 108 Hereford Street for the original photograph, which is dated to 1877 by the lack of the stables to the Palace Hotel's Left and there being no Playbills and Posters, which soon began to adorn the theatre's Press Lane side wall (Right).

Edward Teague Early Lyttelton Photographer

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This is a restoration of a recently discovered circa 1878 photograph by Edward Teague (1843-1928). It depicts a family of four in front of their early Lyttelton cottage, probably in the vicinity of upper Selwyn Road, where Teague is recorded to have been living in that time. Below is another photograph of a Lyttelton house by Teague that is dated from the same period.


English by birth, but an Australian from the age of four months, Edward Teague is recorded as a gold miner at Waipori in the Tuapeka district in April 1867. Bankrupt two years later, in 1872 he married and established a photographic studio in the same town. By 1874 he was recorded as a photographer at Balclutha, where he also carried on the business of a Tobacconist and Hairdresser.

At the end of 1878 Teague relocated with his wife and three children to Lyttelton, occupying photographic premises in residential Selwyn Road until 1881, when he moved to Canterbury Street. By 1885 he is recorded as the proprieter of the London Portrait Rooms on London Street, with a further move (possibly residential) to Oxford Street in 1886.

By the following year he was bankrupt again and had moved to Westport. After a short sojourn in that township the family moved on to Greymouth, then returned to Australia in 1888.

By 1897 he was again recorded as a photographer at Greymouth, but had left New Zealand by early in the following year, establishimg himself as a photographer at Zeehan in Western Tasmania. Sill living in that town 1913, he is recorded as being a 72 year-old Miner. He died at Launceston on the 8th of October 1928 in his 85th year.

Also probably dating from the late 1870s is the only other known landscape photograph by Edward Teague. In a westerly view of Lyttelton's inner harbour, it depicts Dampier's Bay, then a popular bathing beach. The bay succumbed to reclamation in 1881 and two years later the extant graving or dry dock was built in the vicinity to the Left of the photograph.

Edward Teague kept no samples of his photography and apart from one photograph taken of his wife and her three sisters, no examples of his work remain with family members. But although business acumen may not have been among his strong points and churning out portrait cards may not have allowed much room for artistic expression, his rare landscapes attest to a genuine talent for composition and the use of light. Accordingly, he well deserves recognition for his contributions to early New Zealand photography.

Edward Teague specialised in producing cartes de visite in his Lyttelton studio. There are three examples known to be held by the National Museum of New Zealand, but they are not available on-line. A further eight of his cartes de visite can be viewed on the Early Canterbury Photographers web site

We're greatfully indebted to Steven McLachlan of the Shades Stamp Shop at 108 Hereford Street, Christchurch for the top photograph, which precipitated this article and also to Heather Bray of Dunedin for the biographical details of her great great Uncle.

Addendum
Yesterday, some cattle were being driven along Oxford street, Lyttelton, when one of them, being headed, turned into Mr Teague's (photographer) shop. Mr Teague, who was absent at the time, came up promptly, but the bull blocking the way, he could not effect an entrance. Mr Garforth, who happened to be on the spot, managed to get into the gallery, and, at no small risk to himself, seized the animal by the head and backed him out, fortunately before he managed to do any damage. The Star newspaper 18 October 1883

The 1878 Destruction of the Second A1 Hotel

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At 2.15 am on the 23rd of January 1878 the four year old second A1 Hotel on the south-east corner of Cashel and Colombo Streets burnt down. The short-lived 12 bedroom room hotel had replaced an earlier building dating from 1859 and was soon rebuilt in a two storey reincarnation that would survive until 1935, being replaced by the Beath's department store, now known as The Crossings bus terminus.

The fire commenced in the back of the Colombo Street premises of J. Barrett, hairdresser, quickly consuming the adjacent premises of Roberts, the watchmaker. Flames then made their way through windows in a brick party wall of the A1 Hotel. Within three hours the three storey hotel and its stable at the rear were completely destroyed. The hotel building was insured for £2,300, with stock valued at £300, furniture £800, and fixtures at £20.

The back of the adjacent 1860 Argyle House (Left) on Cashel Street, premises of the draper George Low Beath (1827-1914), were destroyed, and the stock in the front of the shop damaged, but the business survived to become, over the next sixty years, one of the city's largest and most renowned department stores.

Restored here, this is only the third known photograph in which the second A1 Hotel appears and we're greatfully indebted to Steven McLachlan of the Shades Stamp Shop at 108 Hereford Street for the extremely rare original. Thanks also to Early Canterbury Photographers for the extensive research.

Addenda

The Star, 23 April 1873,

City Improvements. — The great activity in building which commenced about 18 months ago continues with increased rather than diminished vigour. Scarcely a week elapses without a new building for business purposes being commenced in the city, and there are perhaps more improvements of this kind on the tapis now than there has been at anytime during the period mentioned. It is scarcely possible to particularise them all in one notice, but a few of them may be adverted to. To commence with the A1 Hotel, it may be stated that the present building, the main features of which are a low roof and a superfluity of gables, is about to be replaced by a very handsome hotel, designed by Mr Jacobsen. The Cashel Street front will be 49 feet and the Colombo Street 51 feet, the height of the walls to the top of the parapet being 29 feet.

A Grecian style of architecture has been adopted for the street elevations, and it has been so worked out as to produce a very excellent effect. On the ground-floor there are two doors and three sets of large plate-glass windows in Cashel Street, one set with door being so arranged that 14ft of the frontage may be let as a shop. There is a large door at the corner of the two streets leading into the public bar, and on the Colombo Street frontage there are two triple windows of plate glass, a double door, and two single plate glass windows beyond. On the upper floor there are five large plate glass windows looking into each street, flanked with pilasters and surmounted by pediments, a heavy cornice and handsome parapet marking the summit of the walls.

The cellarage will consist of an excavation 49 feet by 20 feet. On the ground floor there will be a public bar 23 feet by 14 feet, with three entrances, kitchen, larder, sitting room, hall, two bar parlors, and private bar, which is to be very elegantly fitted up with panel work and large mirrors on the London principle. On the upper floor, there will be a private sitting room, twelve bedrooms and a bathroom. All the party walls will be of brick, but the fronts elevation will be executed in wood. When the building is erected, it will make a great improvement in the appearance of this part of the city, which will be further increased by three brick shops Mr Pratt is about to erect on the opposite corner of the street...

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The Star, 2 March 1874

NEW BUILDINGS. - The A1 Hotel, which has a somewhat primitive appearance in comparison with some of its neighbours, is about to be replaced by a new and more pretentious structure, Mr Jacobsen being the architect. A tender for carrying out the work according to the plans prepared by Mr Jacobsen, and already described, has been accepted, and the contract is to be entered upon forthwith. The cost of the building will be considerably over £2,000. It is also probable that some improvements will be carried out on the opposite side of Colombo street, where it is said that Messrs Hobday and Jobberns propose to extend their premises about forty feet in a southerly direction. The extension, if carried out, will be of brick with stuccoed front, and will be a very welcome substitution for the small wooden shops which now occupy the ground. (the Hobday and Jobberns building burnt down on the 3rd of October 1888)

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The Sun, 17 June, 1933 (excerpt from an article by R. E. Green)

There is much that is still fresh in my memory that I could relate regarding this locality, but I must pass on to the corner of Cashel and Colombo Streets, where stood the original A1 hotel. Perhaps it will interest many if I go back to when the original building on this corner was erected. It was in 1859 that Mr James Mann had erected what he called “Mann’s A1 Christchurch Restaurant."

It was first opened for that business on December 14, 1859, by Mann and his wife, who conducted the house on first-class lines. There was a commercial room and a special room for women, both supplied with stationery and papers, and there was a mail bag for the convenience of patrons. Mann had also a large display advertisement in the local paper setting forth his bill of fare and the hours for meals. A special feature was “Tripe on Tuesdays and Fridays, and supper from 8 to 10 p.m., and a change of fare each day. Mann and his wife kept their house in perfect order, and worked hard to make it a success.
In May, 1861, Mann was granted a wine and beer licence for his restaurant. Then, in 1862, James Hair, who became the proprietor, was granted a publican’s licence, which he held till 1863. In 1864 James Blake and William Lippard were the proprietors. In 1865 Lippard went out of the business and Blake had the house to himself. In 1866 Blake’s licence was renewed, and be retained it till well on into the 1870s.

The hotel had often been threatened by fire. The first occasion I remember was May 23, 1861, when a fire broke out in Wilmer’s Brewery, behind what is now the east end of Beath’s, This fire cleared a space right up to the A1, but it was saved from destruction. Again on December 26, 1869, another more serious fire broke out almost in the same place in a straw store. For want of water this fire grew to large proportions; however, one length of hose was taken on to the roof of the A1, where three firemen sat hose in hand and swathed in blankets, and by sheer doggedness they subdued the outbreak right under their feet. One fireman was overcome and fell to the ground, and was taken away unconscious, but he recovered next day. The A1 was again saved. It was this fire that made the Christchurch Volunteer Fire Brigade famous.

The A1 had another blaze nearly, but seemed to be immune from fire, and held its own until 1873. This was when Matthew Allen and Sons came in and entered into a contract with Mr James Blake to pull down the original A1 and build on the same site a three-story building to the plans of J. S. M. Jacobsen, architect. At that time I was just finishing my apprenticeship, and it was in the joinery shop that it fell to my lot and that of another young fellow named D. H. Brown to make all the sashes for that three-story A1 hotel which, however, had but a short life, for it was burned down on January 23, 1878, together with two shops facing Colombo Street...

1875 Central Christchurch Building For Sale

1905

The former premises of Mascot Finance Ltd are currently being offered for sale at an undisclosed price by the Perpetual Trust. Owing $68 million, the failed finance company was put into liquidation in March 2009.


1973
Designed by William Bernett Armson (1834-1883) and built in 1875, with additions in 1893 and 1923, the Venetian Gothic style former Christchurch Library is situated on the the northwest corner of Cambridge Terrace and Hereford Street West. The detached Librarian's house is one of the few brick townhouses of the 1890s to survive within the inner city and complements the main building.

At one stage threatened with demolition, the renamed Library Chambers building and adjacent Librarian's house were extensively renovated for commercial use in 1984 by the Architect Don Donnithorne.


2001
Right next door to the Christchurch City Council's next headquarters (above), with imaginative redevelopment, the historic buildings could prove an ideal opportunity for the next Central Library, for which it's understood that a budget of $83.5 milion has already been allocated.

Our proposal would be to enclose the group of buildings in a six storey steel and glass structure, similar to this recent design for a Dutch library.


Perhaps even cantilevered out to the Avon River bank, possibly along the lines of this Zaha Hadid design for the Antwerp Port Authority.

Wakatu: first chapter in a family saga of maritime loss

The last of the Lyttelton to Wellington passenger ferries to make the 280 kilometere voyage via Kaikoura ended her eventful 45 year career very close to where she had previously attended the tragic wreck of notable predecessor. Her demise would be the first chapter in a tale of the loss of two inter-island ferries by father and son captains


At the beginning of November 1878 John Currie Moutray and Robert Martin Crosbie of Nelson's Soho Foundry laid the keel of a cargo-passenger vessel for the local shipping enterprise of the Cross brothers and Burchard Franzen. Completed for a contract price of £6,000 and christened with the Maori name for Nelson Bay, the Wakatu was launched on the evening of the 6th of July 1879 from the foundry's Bridge Street slipway, near the Nelson Post Office.

In as much as Moutray and Crosbie had previously built a replacement engine and boiler for Captain G. Cross's paddle steamer Result, it may be surmised that they also constructed the compound steam engines for the propulsion and steam winches of the new vessel. With a boiler pressure of 65 pounds of steam per square inch, her engine developed a nominal 25 horsepower, therby maintaining a service speed of 9 knots.

Built for Cross and Company's Nelson to Wellington and Wanganui service, the 90 ton (78 tons net) steamship, was originally 32.23 metres in length, with a beam of 5.5 metres and a draft of only 1.8 metres. Up to a hundred tons of freight could be carried in her 6 metre deep hold. Fitted out at the Corporation Wharf as gaff rigged schooner, she could initially accommodate about 40 first class passengers. With the main saloon aft, there was also a seperate ladies' cabin amidships on the main deck. Further accommodation for second-class passengers was forward on the lower deck.

In the second week of November 1879, under the command of Captain Charles Evans, the Wakatu commenced her maiden voyage to Wanganui, returning to her port of registry via the capital a week later. But her first career would come to an abrupt end little more than two years later when she was stranded while crossing the Patea bar. An attempt to get her off with the evening tide failed, and she crashed violently against the cliff, a portion of which fell upon the ship. The hull therby being stove in, the Wakatu filled with water and became a total loss.


Sold to Levin & Company of Wellington, the vessel underwent a major reconstruction. With the hull extended by 4.25 metres and the gross displacement increased to 157 tons, the main deck passenger accommodation was significantly enlarged (above). Transferring her registry to the capital, William Levin put the rebuilt steamer on the Wellington to Lyttelton run, a service that the Wakatu would perform with reliability for longer than any other vessel.


Wakatu at her usual Lyttelton berth on the Ferry wharf.
In an omen of what would be her own and adjacent fate, Wakatu attended the wreck of the Lyttelton bound 228 ton coastal steamer Taiaroa, which went ashore just to the north of Waipapa Point on the Kaikoura coast in April 1886. With only 14 saved, 34 lives were lost and the Wakatu returned to Lyttelton with an awful cargo of coffins.

Apart from a night time collision with the steamer Storm off Motunau Island in March 1909, which left a gaping hole in her bow, the next two decades were fairly uneventful for the Wakatu. The highlight being when the Australian Poet Henry Lawson and his wife took passage aboard her in May 1897. Excitement returned in the early days of the First World War when she was was fired upon by the guns in the fortress on Ripapa Island in Lyttelton Harbour for failing to observe the War Regulations.


In the later ownership of the Wellington based Wakatu Shipping Company, she encountered her final mishap in thick fog at 5.00 am on the 6th of September 1924, while sailing from Wellington to Kaikoura and Lyttelton. An unusually strong current threw her high onto the beach on the northern side of Waipapa Point, very close to the wreck of the Taiaroa (below).


The remains of the Taiaroa as seen from the stranded Wakatu
The Wakatu was under the command of her regular master, Captain David Robertson, who was exonerated by the Court of Inquiry, which found that when the weather came up thick, with fine rain, a south-east wind, and a heavy swell, the vessel was at least four miles off shore, which was a safe position; that in altering the course at 2:30 a.m., and 2:40 a.m., the master adopted a safe and prudent course which, under ordinary circumstances, would have carried the Wakatu well clear of Waipapa Point, and that the casualty was caused by an unusually strong set owing to the action of the wind and tide, and to the fact that the vessel was lightly laden.


The crew of the Wakatu still aboard the stranded vessel.
Four years later Captain Robertson would be dismissed for trying to conceal another mishap, when his next command went ashore on Banks Peninsula. In a curious quirk of fate, David Robertson's son Captain Gordon Robertson would be in command of the inter-island ferry Wahine, when she sank in April 1968, with a loss of 51 lives.


Holed and buckled near the stern, the ships' resting place was so far up on the beach as to make salvage impossible, but her location greatly simplified the recovery of the cargo. Several attempts were made to refloat the ship, but were unsuccessful, and she was abandoned as a total loss on September the 12th.

Only a few hundred yards from the road, the Wakatu was still a photographic opportunity in March 1927.

Subsequently cut up for scrap where she lay, only her keel now remains to be seen on the beach.


Long supplanted by larger and faster vessels in the Lyttelton-Wellington service and the development of road and rail transport along the South Island's north-eastern coast, the loss of the Wakatu marked the end of Kaikoura as any more than a fishing harbour, but the long lost vessel is still commemorated in the name of that township's Wakatu Quay.

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Many thanks to Steven McLachlan of the Shades Stamp Shop, the late Frederick William Weidner (Kaikoura Star photographer), Graham Stewart, the Nelson Examiner newspaper, the National Library of New Zealand, et al.

Historic 1879 Christchurch Photograph Identified

Unidentified until now is a photograph that will be familiar to many with an interest in Christchurch history.

Taken in Cathedral Square in May 1879, it shows a large wooden building in the process of being relocated. In the background is the newly completed Government Building, subsequently the Chief Post Office and now the tourist information centre.

During that era pressure for commercial redevelopment within the inner city saw many dwellings from the earliest residential areas moved to what are now the inner suburbs, where they continue to survive into the twenty-first century.

Shown above is the 1868 Baptist church on its way from Hereford Street to Oxford Terrace. Built for £272 on the site now occupied by the central Police Station, it was relocated next to the subsequent Baptist Tabernacle (below), which continues to occupy the south-east corner of Madras Street and Oxford Terrace.


Enlarged upon its new site, the church re-opened on the 29th of June 1879, becoming the Baptist Sunday School on the completion of its neo-classic replacement in 1882. Damaged by fire in 1903, the front part of the 1868 church was replaced in brick (below). Aerial photographs indicate that the Sunday School was demolished in the early 1970s.

Photo Credits: top; Christchurch Star newspaper archives, center; Early Canterbury Photographers, Bottom; Frederick George Radcliffe (1863-1923).

1906 Christchurch Panorama

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Photographed from the southern tower of the New Zealand Exhibition building is this easterly 1906 panorama of Christcurch. Restored from three photographs, across the foreground is Park Terrace.

1. The house to the extreme Left was constructed by George Braund Woodman in 1858. Originally a carpenter, Woodman (1826-1890) became a partner in the road contracting enterprise of Woodman & Wright, using much of the profit to make pastoral investments in the Ellesmere district.

Woodman was also the first Publican of the Devonshire Arms Hotel, original home of Latimer Square's Christchurch Club. Dating from 1852, the Devonshire Arms on the south-east corner of Durham and Peterborough Streets was rebuilt in 1876 as Barrett's Family Hotel to the design of the renowned William Barnett Armson. Subsequently renamed the Gladstone Hotel, it was one of the city’s oldest hostelries, being demolished in 2005 to make way for an office building. Parts of the 1876 structure have been incorporated in the new building.

2. Set in spacious grounds to its Right, at the corner of Kilmore Street, is the much enlarged Macfarlan house of 1864.

3. The dwelling on the opposite corner is yet to be identified, but above it is Cranmer Square and on the sky line can be seen the tall chimney of the Christchurch City Council's 1903 refuse destructor near to the corner of Manchester and Armagh Streets. The incinerator not only generated the city's first electricty supply (with a pair of 100 Kilowatt generators driven by two steam engines), but also heated the adjacent 1908-1947 swimming baths in Manchester Street.

4. To the centre foregound, at the northern corner of Park Terrace and Chester Street, is the Reginald Cobb house of 1871. Cobb was a partner with Henry Sawtell in Cobb, Sawtell and Company, general, wine and spirit merchants and agents for the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency. In 1916 it would become Helen Connon Hall, a hostel for 70 university students until 1974. Sold by the University of Canterbury to the 1881 Cathedral Grammar School and renamed Chester Hall, it was demolished in 2001. The site is now occupied by the relocated 1886 St Saviour’s church from Lyttleton.

5. On the other corner of Chester Street is the 1880 home of the Reverend William Henry Elton (1845-1914), Cathedral Precentor. Elton's house was later purchased by the Church Property Trustees to become the Cathedral Grammar School. It was demolished in September 1985.

6. Next to it is the much smaller Sanders house, built in 1880 and demolished 1977.

7. To the far Right, at the corner of Rolleston Avenue and Armagh Street is the extant 1867 house built for the lawyer George Harper, fourth son of the city's first Bishop. It has been owned by the nearby Christ's College since 1918.

The Christchurch Morgue

There are no known specific photographs of the city morgue, but it does appear in sufficient elevated views of the area as to enable us to purvey the following diversion for assorted Goths and sundry others enjoying a proclivity to the taphophilic

The city's first purpose built morgue stood on the southeast corner of Manchester and Armagh Streets, where the 1939 Art Deco Municipal Electricity Department building now stands. It's successor, which probably dated from 1873, was accessed by a long cast-iron fenced and gated service lane on Montreal Street, which ran between the Canterbury Militia's parade ground on Cashel Street and the Hereford Street Police Station's 1865 accommodation barracks and stables.

Having something of the appearance of a small chapel and built of brick on a north-south axis, with a wooden shingle roof, there was a tall ornamented chimney on the northern wall, which faced Hereford Street. In what was a somewhat less appealing situation than the city's more salubrious locales, a porticoed entrance on the eastern wall faced the Police Station Lockup.

The morgue probably consisted of four rooms; a waiting room, post mortem room, a coroner's room and a special room for the reception of bodies. The coroner's and post mortem rooms would possibly have been connected by a glazed sliding door, which, in the case of a body being in an advanced state of decompositon, could be kept closed, and yet allow a jury be in a position to view the cadaver. With concrete floors and a plentiful water supply from the adjacent tank stand, the rooms for the reception of bodies and post mortems could be flushed out whenever required.

By 1907 the morgue's location had become the back garden of the Police Matron's residence and it could be likely that from about that time it was superseded by the morgue at the Christchurch Public Hospital. In 1970 the old morgue was designated as a garage on a survey map compiled before the demolitions on what had become the site of a large assortment of buildings, both big and small.

Since 1974 the whole site has been a car park for the central Police Station and the adjoining site of the 1905 King Edward Barracks has been a public car park since 1996. With the current redevelopment of the former Post Office sorting centre on Hereford Street as the new headquarters for the Christchurch City Council, it could be hoped that both car parks might be combined to form a piazza worthy of the reconstructed building that will face them.

Photo: a circa 1955 view, with the roof of the morgue to the foreground and the 1909 Police Sergeant's House, facing Hereford Street, in the background (and the extant 1930 St Elmo Courts in the distance).

Christchurch 7 April 2009

Another one bites the dust: a circa 1875-1880 villa in inner-city Kilmore Street in the process of demolition.

A velocopidist commuting to the city via the Avon River bank in the suburb of Richmond.

The Pennyfarthing is of recent vintage.

Footnote

A century ago Christchurch, along with Amsterdam, ranked highest among the world's cycling cities and was also the hub of New Zealand's bicycle manufacturing industry. By the mid 1960s the increase in motorised traffic on the city's streets began to see a signficant rise in the injuries sustained by cyclists. An ambulance at the bottom of the cliff mentality saw the introduction of a legal requirment for all cyclists to wear safety helmets and the popularity of the bicycle went into decline. Not even the cycling fatalities sustained by a Christchurch City Councillor, New Zealand Police's most senior Traffic Officer and an internationally renowned cyclist in the last week of a two year world tour, has seen the introduction of enlightened policies and protection aimed at promoting cycling in Christchurch in particular or New Zealand in general.

However, and in spite of the foregoing, we're pleased to note that over the last five years the number of commuter cyclists in Christchurch has increased by 25%. We also applaud the somewhat belated proposal for a national cycleway, so widely popular in more developed countries (Britain's national cycleway recorded 475 million journeys in 2007).

And lest you should think that the foregoing is little more than the rant of a grizzled curmudgeon (you're probably right), it is written from a perspective of sixty years cycling the streets of Christchurch and far beyond (and upon the same Raleigh Roadster, with a camera and tripod in the pannier bag, since 1956).


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World cycling champion Frederick Wood (1861-1935) of England comes a cropper at Lancaster Park in early 1888 in a seemingly posed photograph by Alfred Ernest Preece (1863-1946). Photo credit: Christchurch City Libraries, File Reference: CCL PhotoCD 1, IMG0072

Old Lyttelton (for Richard)

These are old survey maps and photographs of the intersection of Lyttelton's Winchester and Canterbury Streets.

A north-easterly view across the intersection in 1858.

An 1860 survey map.

The north-west corner about 1865.

A survey map showing the extant buildings in 1867.

A circa 1890 elevated north-easterly view (above). At the north-eastern corner, the home of the Tobacconist William Wales Junior was completed with the addition of a western wing by 1901. The same house photographed in 2007 (below).

Hatherly's grocery shop on the southwest corner in 1901.

The 1860 Anglican church of the Holy Trinity and the 1880 vicarage at the southeast corner, photographed prior to 1906.