Restored 1923 New Brighton Landscape

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This is a restoration of the unattributed painting on the cover of a 1923 pamphlet promoting the attractions of Christchurch's marine suburb of New Brighton. In this northerly aspect of the beach, the 1894 Pier can be seen in the middle distance.

Including local information and a history of the area, the extensively illustrated 64 page booklet was published by the New Brighton Publicity Committee in association with the Canterbury Progress League. A 6.3 Megabyte copy, in PDF format, can be downloaded from the Christchurch City Libraries web site.


Mr CH would be utterly content to spend his days tarting up old pics :)

Addendum

There would appear to be a convenient degree of artistic license in the painting; as Sarndra observed the high-heel shoes of the principal character don't even sink in to the sand. Steven's comment that the image may have been reversed (probably for the sake of compositional balance on the pamphlet cover) appears quite correct; the rounded hills in the distance look very much like the Port Hills and fit well with a southerly aspect if the image is reversed. Below is a reversed copy of the painting (the old bathing sheds are now shown in their correct position) and also a similar southerly view in a postcard of the same era.

Photographic Excellence

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An elevated northerly view from Redcliffs, across the Avon-Heathcote estuary, to New Brighton.

Photographed by moonlight on the evening of the 10th of December, 2008 by Andrew McGregor.

Victorian Linwood

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A classic example of a late Victorian corner store at the intersection of Cashel and Saxon Streets.

This part of Linwood first underwent suburban development in the early 1870s, with a significant proportion of smaller houses of an earlier era moved from the inner city on Bullock Drays.

The shop probably owes it location to a stop along the 1887 tram line to New Brighton, which quickly attracted between three and four thousand passengers a week in a time when the population of Christchurch had barely reached 35,000 (on Boxing Day 1888 more than 5,000 people took the tram to the popular beach resort).

The introduction of American style self-help shopping in the later 1950s, soon followed by Supermarkets, marked the death knell of the Victorian corner shop. Many have disappeared in the last half century, but the owners of this fine example are to be congratulated on its preservation.

Photograph by Benedikt Saxler

New Brighton 1945-1949

An easterly view of Seaview Road, with the intersection at Oram Avenue to the centre Right.

Two views of the building at the head of the first pier. The lower level was an amusement arcade, with tea rooms above. The 213 metre pier was opened on the 18th of January, 1894 by the Governor General.

The Tram shed at the corner of Marine Parade and Hawke Street. The site is now occupied by the New Brighton Working Men's Club. The Tramshed Bistro is a feature of what is now more commonly known as The New Brighton Club.

An electric Trolley Bus turning at the North New Brighton War Memorial and Community Centre on Marine Parade.

A recently completed house in Sinclair Street (which first appears in street directories in 1916).

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To promote the Christchurch City Libraries Retrospective: Christchurch life, architecture and design 1940s - 1970s photo competition, we're featuring a series of images from each decade. This week it's the later 1940s.

Publish and be Damned

The vandalised Art Nouveau interior of the 1914 Ozone Hotel on Marine Parade at New Brighton.

Occupying a site of commercial development potential, the fate of the historically significant former convalescent home for World War I soldiers, would appear to be following an all too familiar pattern in the only New Zealand city not to afford protection for historic buildings.

Subsequent to a failure to undertake regular maintenance, the Ozone Hotel became vacant for an extended period. The next step in the sequence is to allow unrestricted access to the interior, which is then subjected to vandalism. In the case of the hotel this occured during the last weekend of August, 2008. Canterbury Heritage notified the owner's Agent of this unfortunate development, but the communication was ignored.

Like the 1870 Ti Kouka House on Cambridge Terrace, the next step is a suspicious fire, thereby justifying the building's demolition...

Illustrations from a photographic sequence by ars666

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Update: 5 September 2008

A Canterbury Heritage field observer reports that today a caretaker was seen to be patching up the broken window on the front of the hotel. This caretaker also reports that the hotel failed to sell at yesterday's Mortgagee Auction. For now, at least, the historic building has been given a stay of execution.

98 Year-Old Christchurch Tram

Built by Joseph Kitson Boon (1844-1935) at his surviving carriage works in Lower High Street (now Ferry Road), the tram entered service on the 9th of June 1910.

12.37 metres long and weighing about 15 tons, it's powered by two 600 Volt (DC) forty horsepower electric motors.


Withdrawn from service in 1952, the tram became a garden shed at South New Brighton. Rescued in August, 1969 (above), 23,000 man-hours of restoration were required before the project was completed in 1981.


The forty-eight passenger double-saloon car returned to service on the 4th of February, 1995.

Opposition to New Brighton Redevelopment

Brighton Beach 1927
From a city where the more salubrious suburbs are near the airport and sea frontage properties are the cheapest in the developed world comes further example of the cognitive inflexibility that's impeding regeneration of the once popular seaside suburb.

The New Zealand Historic Places Trust and the New Brighton Residents' Association (no web site or email contact) oppose plans for apartment buildings up to ten stories high along the sea front.

Opinions are polarised between those who believe the taller buildings will regenerate the declining suburb and allow sea views above the dunes and those who believe they will create a barrier between residents and the sea, destroying the suburb's increasingly bland character.

Tussle over taller buildings - The Press, 06 May 2008

Ozone Palace Demolition?

Isabella Huck's 1914 Ozone Palace private hotel and cafe at North New Brighton has been for sale since the beginning of March, 2008.

Listed as a "Beachfront Development Opportunity," the historic hotel was Canterbury's first invalid soldiers' home subsequent to the First World War.

See where these photographs were taken

Update: 1 September, 2008

We have received this email from a reader and acted up on it;

"I was down at Thompson Park yesterday afternoon and the kids down at the skate ramp informed me that 'the big blue house over the road' was empty and open. They took me for a look there - one of the side doors was apparently being held closed by a bunch of rubbish which the kids had moved...

I was wondering if it'd be worth getting in touch with the Real Estate Agency to get them to patch the place up - I'd hate to see it trashed or set fire to by some hoodrats."