During the past year or two it has been customary for a number of parties of young men to go into camp at Sumner for the summer months, and to come up to Christchurch during business hours. Special…
“To tell you is a great task, for I can assure you it is a most awful country,” wrote James Boot from Christchurch, New Zealand in letter to his parents in Nottingham, England in June, …
Retired Aircraft Engineer, Corporal Colin Creighton, No. 41 Squadron, RNZAF recounts his experiences serving during the American Vietnam war.
Wendy Riley A relative newcomer to Christchurch, Wendy has deep-rooted connections to the city. Her ancestors, like many colonial New Zealanders, traced their origins to Scotland and England. After…
In response to the loss of our inner city of Christchurch, we were inspired to create this website, Lost Christchurch, as a freely accessible archive of photographs, social history and memories of …
By Helen Solomons Mortimer Cashman Corliss was a true Victorian patriarch, gentleman and government servant who lived in Christchurch for most of his adult life, contributing to the city’s de…
Sadly, Sumner’s sumptious famous Edwardian Cafe Continental only stood on the Esplanade opposite Cave Rock in Sumner for three years. Built in 1906, by Mr Martin Ridley of Christhchurch firm,…
This photographically produced postcard of Christchurch’s Provincial Government buildings, appearing twisted and warped, was a semi-humorous card sent out at Christmas after the Murchison ear…
Up until February 22nd, 2011, the city of Christchurch was a unique, historic and cultural living and breathing entity. Inherited from a long list of valuable contributors dating back to its incep…
The pace of town appears leisurely as pedestrians meander across High Street, while several trams slowly move past them c. 1929. There are a large number of men on they bicycles – perhaps th…
“In the bay in which we landed, we found two or three miserable primitive Maori cabins, inhabited by half-a-dozen helpless old creatures and a few diseased children — forming a pa named Rapaki.”…
In 1886, an English woman who called herself ‘Hopeful’, wrote of her experiences after emigrating to Christchurch, New Zealand. She berated the agents of shipping companies who painted…
Up until February 22nd, 2011, the city of Christchurch was a unique, historic and cultural living and breathing entity. Inherited from a long list of valuable contributors dating back to its incept…
In early October 1889, my 2 x great aunt, Clara Wright leaves her family home in Thames and travels on the steamer, ‘Tarawera’ to start a new life with her estranged father in Christchu…
The neat and narrow, plastered brick building of William Henry Harris, Tinsmith of Christchurch stood at 101 Colombo Street in a matching line with a set of others. Standing opposite Mason Struther…
Drunkeness was a serious problem in Christchurch by the late 1870s. It didn’t help that for a city of its size, there were 47 hotels and breweries as opposed to just 10 dentists and chemist …
Dressed in a black cutaway coat, dark trousers and a white silk neckcloth, and sporting a Billy-Cock hat over short hair, Henry Jame Muir stood before a London magistrate in 1889 dressed in the clo…
An elderly man, dressed in a plum coloured suit and bow tie, stands gazing at his nearly completed home. It is September 1900, and this is no ordinary home, it is reputed to be the largest wooden r…
Alfred Ernest Lyttelton Preece was born in Christchurch, the only son of Hannah and Thomas, who ran a auctioneering and produce business. Hannah and Thomas, a native of Worcester, had come to New Z…
Bathing machines are at last to be established at Sumner, and they will supply a want which has long been felt. There is one already at New Brighton in connection with the Hotel, but I should imagi…