CHICHELE HOUSE

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30916, 24 November 1965, Page 17

CHICHELE HOUSE

Runholder’s Residence

Chichele House, at 12 Hereford street, ■which will be demolished this week, was built soon after 1870 by Mr George Hart, an early Canterbury runholder, not by the Christchurch architect of the same name as reported in “The Press” yesterday. Mr Hart, the runholder, took up the Winchmore nun of 20,000 acres below Springfield on the north bank of the Ashburton river in 1853, 10 years after coming to New Zealand. He sat on the Wellington Provincial Council and was also a member of the House of Representatives. At one time he owned Fernside and several other stations in North Canterbury. On the wash of his wife, Mr Hart built a town house first in Opawa and later at the Hereford street address, where he and his wife and family spent long periods. He died in 1895, but his family kept most of the Winchmore station until 1905.

Mr George Hart, the architect, died in 1961, aged 84. One of the most notable buildings with which he was associated was that of Millers, Ltd., in Tuam street, the first modern building by today’s standards in Christchurch. He also submitted the winning design for the Citizens’ War Memorial in Cathedral square.