• GODLEY HEAD – Captain Joseph Thomas (1803 – ?)

    What actually inspired me to do the story of Godley Head was the old Maori term for the place, ‘Otokitoki’ which means ‘a place of axes’. My imagination was instantly stirred, but it proved to be one of the biggest anticlimaxes since I began to peel back Canterbury’s history almost 3 years ago. Standing like …

  • WIGRAM – Henry Francis Wigram (1857 – 1934)

    We all know the adrenaline rush when we see something that grasps our imagination in such a way, that it makes us feel like we could reach up and take the very stars out of the sky.  This is what happened to Henry Francis Wigram when he saw his first plane in 1908 and he …

  • SOCKBURN

    In 1877, the Canterbury Jockey Club took on an adventurous project to try and increase the foot traffic around Riccarton Race Course.  Off the Main South Line of Canterbury’s railway system, they had their own 1.4km railway track lead off northwards towards Upper Riccarton and these tracks ran right into the grounds of the racing …

  • SCARBOROUGH – The Rhodes Brothers

    There is very little about the earliest days of Scarborough or who named it as such.  What follows is the puzzle I have put together with the few clues left me. George Rhodes arrived at Lyttelton Harbour in 1843 to become an overseer and partner of his elder brother – William Barnard Rhodes – who …

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