TROTTING LAND

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31123, 28 July 1966, Page 18

TROTTING LAND

Negotiations For Sale The Health Department has given the North Canterbury Hospital Board approval to start negotiations to sell to Addington Trotting Course, Ltd., land now leased by it The board decided yesterday to seek a legal opinion first on the board’s powers and obligations in the matter. The land came under the board's control last century. One John Twigger, who died in 1885, left an estate valued at £16,679. After the payment of legacies, the residue was to be divided into three parts to be held in trust as endowments for the “Old Men’s Home” at Ashburton (the Turangi Home), the Christchurch Female Refuge (now Essex Hospital), and the Lyttelton Orphanage. That residue comprised £23 in the bank, the Twigger homestead in Lincoln road—of which his widow was to be a life tenant—loB acres of land in Lincoln road, and a mortgage of £5350 10s over the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association’s pronerty. The trustees were William White the younger of Addington, coal merchant, and Abraham Ashworth of Lincoln road, near Christchurch, butcher. The board subsequently became the governing body of the three institutions which Twigger endowed. But it had some difficulty getting the trustees to part with the assets, and finally had to go to the Supreme Court for an order, in 1891. Since then the board has leased the land to various parties, including the trotting company. It put a road through in 1909, sold the homestead block in 1910 for £l2OO, and sold three acres and a half to the Canterbury A. and P. Association in 1917 for £1350.