“Who that was then at Lyttelton can never forget that delightful and exciting time? Those long cloudless summer days when we first began to build sod cottages, to carry boards upon our shouldars, when we first had to rough it, when we grumbled and laughed in a breath, and really did a great deal of …
Shipwright John Blair Thompson watched his 11 year old daughter Isabella skip away from him, her happy laughter pouring into his ears. She had every reason to be joyful and excited, the school picnic was a few days away and the whole township of Lyttelton always looked forward to such an event. It was to …
Today, locals and Christchurch visitors can take the pleasant ride up to the top of Mount Cavendish on the Christchurch Gondola. The reward is to be able to look out over the patchwork of the greens and browns of the Canterbury Plains and view its capital: Christchurch…New Zealand’s unbreakable garden city. If you are still …
“The entrance to Port Cooper [Lyttelton] is very grand. As we sailed slowly up it, we saw high on the cliffs to our right, the workmen making a road [Sumner Road] to the plains, an undertaking, alas, far too great for our infant colony. Just at the moment we passed a little headland, and there …
It doesn’t take much imagination to picture the first meeting of The Canterbury Association on the 27th March 1848. The chosen room at 41 Charing Cross, London began to fill with some of the well known names and faces of the British upper class; gentlemen of the church, noble families, rank and money, some of …
The graving dock at Lyttelton on the 24th September 1883. If you look at the hills to the left of the ships, you can make out the Lyttelton Cemetery – tucked into its square fencing. *image courtesy of http://www.ancestry.com.au/newzealand*
The wind whipped waving tussock of the Canterbury Plains can’t have made the surveyor’s job very easy. I can’t say whether the surveyors pushed their pegs into the ground by the use of tools or whether they just crouched down amongst the flaxy marsh and pushed them in by hand.Whatever happened, Edward Jollie and his …
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 …
A great view of Lyttelton in 1851, showing the first four ships docked in the harbour. The first jetty with the immigration barracks is to the right 🙂
The ‘Castle Eden’ has to be one of the most unrecognised ships that ever docked at Lyttelton. The 5th ship of the Canterbury Association arrived at Lyttelton on the 14th February 1851. She was a ship that didn’t have a smooth run from the beginning. She was forced back to Plymouth by bad weather after …
