The Beckenham Loop is a part of the Heathcote River that sits south of Fisher Ave and east of Colombo Street. It once was known as the intersection between three ancient Maori areas – Otautahi, Ihutai and Opawawaho. Otautahi is now known as Governor’s Bay and means ‘The place of one daughter’. Over 300 years …
For the Maori, the two rivers that weave throughout the city of Christchurch were not only a food source and a way to travel but the river was a passageway for spirits to move, bringing healing and blessings. The Maori name for the Heathcote River is ‘Opawaho’ and was also the name of the little …
Before discussing James Townsend, one must know the story of a young settler, who had just made his way down the Bridle Path in 1851 and made note of who had been the first real European settler (quite a noble title for a dead man!) in what would become Ferrymead. Jutting out of from the …
Edward and Annie Garland arrived at Lyttelton in 1854. No one today could begin to relate to what was going through Annie’s mind as she was led over the Bridle Path on the back of a white bullock! Edward got himself some land between the hills and the Heathcote River and built a little cob …
If it wasn’t enough already to have gathered up all your worldly belongings and trudge over the Bridle Path after an exhausting 100 or so days at sea, some actually added livestock to the proceedings. If these Canterbury Association settlers were anything like Captain William B. Rhodes who brought the first ever hoof-stock to Banks …
In spite of the traffic that began to use the Heathcote River from the arrival of the first four ships in 1850, Woolston did not show real signs of life until the building of its church – St John the Evangelist – in 1857. Just a little cob building, a community began to settle in …
If Ferrymead is the gateway to Christchurch, then Heathcote is the step down to that gate. As the world famous writer – and great lover of Canterbury – Samuel Butler came puffing down the Bridle Path, he not only cast his eyes over the vastness of the plains but also took in what lay at …
Where Waltham Road crosses Eastern, Riverlaw and Fifield Terraces, you get the Wilsons Street Bridge. It proudly displays its Christchurch City Council plaque of being built in 1964. What is largely unknown is that this crossing was the very first bridge built over the Heathcote River. Originally just two felled Totara laying over the Opawaho …
“I ventured into the great speculation of buying four cows from Crawford for £60, but not till after great deliberation and timorousness. Calculating on selling the milk as we did not want ourselves…concluded the bargain with Crawford for the four cows, which being milked this evening produced seven quarts, which sold in the yard for …
As James Edward Fitzgerald sat in his over-sized dogcart while it was being transported across the Heathcote River by punt – he was feeling quite exhausted with Christchurch. He was fast approaching the end of his term as Superintendant and his health and temper would improve much due to that very fact. Beside and behind …